Downstream

Homer,’ wrote the Scottish
poet and author Tobias
Smollett in 1801. In Victorian
times some attributed the
head of the Thames to a
‘clear fountain’ in the vicinity
of Cricklade; others preferred
the ‘rivulets which advance
from Swindon and Highworth
in Wiltshire’, or Seven
Springs, a hamlet near
Cheltenham and the source of
the River Churn. ‘What is the
source of a river?’ asked