Winterbrook, Thames Path, St Leonard's Church

Starting the soundwalk from where Winterbrook appears from under the Reading Road, I walk along the brook-side path, my attention resting on the padding of my footsteps. The sounds of wrens, robins and tits in the trees and bushes flanking the brook. Where we join the River Thames, the rhythms of Oxford University rowers passing, directions blasting from a loud-haler on the motor boat behind. Light aircraft and their falling tones briefly fill the sky above. As the soundscape quietens, I notice a light wind causing noise on the recorders microphones, particularly present in this more exposed part of the walk. Veering away from the river a little, the sounds of an electric saw and faint, muffled music before disappearing through the covered pathway through the cottages and behind St Leonard’s Church to Thames Street. Recorded on the internal microphones of a Sony PCM D100 with Rycote Wind Shield.