Travelling On

As explained in my previous post having visited Rampton I then walked on to the next village on the fen edge, namely Willingham - just to see what I might see. I left along the village road searching for remnants from the past, but very nearly made an unwanted connection with the present day as I was forced to hop into the hedge to avoid a speeding car. I may be interested in hedges but did not yearn for so intimate an entanglement with a hawthorn bush!

Although much of the farming is modern and large-scale there are still plenty of people eking out a living on smaller plots and using antiquated equipment.

Thankfully I was soon able to turn off down a green lane, a drove as they call them around here. This one had the pleasing name of Haven Drove and was indeed a haven for peace, quiet and wildlife; a pair of Turtle Doves flew along the path in front of me. It was once a medieval track called the Port Way.

The way soon led beside yellow fields of oil-seed rape which stained the air with its pungent cabbagey smell. You can't deny that it looks pretty though. Then I crossed a minor road and entered a wide grassy road known as Aldreth Causeway.

The exact history of the causeway is in doubt but something like this is the usual story told:
It's old. At least dating back to Norman times, that is eleventh century. At that time Hereward The Wake led his loyal band of fenmen in a guerrilla war against William and his occupying troops. Because of his knowledge of the waterways and marshes Hereward led William a merry dance. The Normans built a causeway, which may or may not be Aldreth Causeway, in order to invade the Isle of Ely which was at that time surrounded by swampland. Legend has it that the causeway sank under the weight of the troops and many of the Norman soldiers met a watery and untimely end.

But the way may be older still because here at the southern end is an earthworks, similar in shape and scale to the Iron Age fort at Wandlebury, which seems to guard the causeway. That would suggest that the causeway itself could be older; perhaps the Normans simply repaired (though not very well!) an existing raised route across the fens. The fort is known as Belsar's Hill and the defensive ditch can be seen in the above shot with the raised rampart to the left, with the bushes on it. The whole structure would have been much more formidable when it was built, the ditch deeper and the bank higher, possibly with a wooden pallisade on top. 

The grassland which now covers the site is grazed by horses many of which have the brown and white patches which are so favoured by the travelling community, gypsies as we used to call them. Many travellers find these fen-edge villages to their liking and have settled semi-permanently in the area.

I wandered on to Willingham and found this magnificent waterpump standing on the village green. It looks as though it is high enough to pump water into a tank on a cart. A similar pump exists in nearby Cottenham.

A little further along I spied a cottage that had become rather lop-sided with the passage of time and now looked downright dangerous!

And then there was another of those nineteenth-century chapels which are so common in this area. But long ago I heard about Willingham church, it's supposed to be a bit special. But I'll have to leave that for another time.

Take care.

The Way To Rampton

In my last post I wrote about that little fragment of history that is the area around Giant's Hill and Rampton church. However if you rely on public transport, as I do, it's no good waiting for a bus to Rampton; there's only one direct bus a day. But nearby Cottenham has a very regular bus service and there are infrequent connections from there - or you can walk the rest of the way , which is what I did. Lets wander down Cottenham High Street first....

You can't fail to notice the tower of Cottenham church with its preposterous pinnacles. Although I'm assured that it was the height of good taste when it was erected in 1617 it always looks to me like a cross between Disneyland and The Kremlin. The rest of the church is of more traditional design.

The builders of the tower though were proud of their handiwork and left their initials in the stone.

Incidentally the ancestors of President Coolidge are said to have lived in the thatched cottage beside the church.

Further down the road I came across this little reminder of times past, when chocolate bars could be had for 1d. (that, for younger and non-British readers, is one two-hundred-and-fortieth of a pound). You won't get much chocolate for that at today's prices!

Back to real history and what's this remarkable house doing here? I've not been able to find out anything definite about the building but the Dutch gables suggest that it may date from the time when Dutch engineers were employed in draining the fenland. Houses like it are to be found in many fen-edge villages.

Time to venture towards Rampton having had a quick look around Cottenham. The footpath leads along a straight watercourse known as Cottenham Lode. These "lodes" connect the fen-edge villages to the open water that once covered the fens. They were in effect canals allowing the villages to serve as ports, both for internal trade and, via the River Great Ouse, to King's Lynn and the North Sea. With their arrow-straight appearance it's easy to mistake them for modern drainage ditches but many of the lodes date back to Roman times.

These flat lands are not to everyone's taste but personally I love the wide open skies and endless horizons. Having said that storms seem to blow across the fen with astonishing speed and the weather can be "interesting". But today the clouds just passed rapidly through. The yellow crop incidentally is oil-seed rape which is grown, naturally enough, for the oil which can be extracted from its seeds and used in the making of food, particularly margarine. The leaning power pole is a typical feature of the fenscape. The strong winds and the soft peaty soil cause the poles to keel over at crazy angles.

Despite the chilly headwind I was soon in Rampton looking from Giant's Hill towards the church - the subject of a previous post - but there's also another less imposing church in the village. Many fen villages have non-conformist chapels and churches, even a village as small as Rampton. It's exactly what I would expect such self-reliant and independent people.

Of course, I could have walked back to Cottenham but while in the area why not walk through to Willingham in search of more fragments of the past. I'll tell you about it soon.

Take care.

  

Here Be Giants

Look on the Ordnance Survey map for Cambridgeshire and, if you search out the little village of Rampton, you'll see marked "Giant's Hill".

It's not the work of giants though, but what remains of an unfinished Medieval castle abandoned in 1143 AD. Geoffrey de Mandeville was planning rebellion from his stronghold in the fens which in those days were largely undrained marshlands. It was impossible to pursue his men through this difficult terrain so it was planned to surround the area with a string of castles. But Geoffrey met his end before any of the castles could be completed.

The site is now managed for wildlife as well as its historical importance. You can still stroll up onto the low mound intended to hold the castle and see some sections of the moat.

You can wander, too, across buttercup-strewn meadows towards the old church. In fact the scene has been described by Ben Colburn on his excellent website "Cambridgeshire Churches" as disgustingly idyllic! If you're observant you can make out the slightly raised platforms where houses once stood - probably cleared when the castle was planned - as well as the hollowed-out routes of the former roads and tracks.

The picture above shows the main trackway which led towards the church. I hope you can make out the track leading away to the right of the two big trees; it was a lot more obvious when actually there.

The church can be most kindly described as picturesque. Walls seem to be leaning out in all directions and the brick-built porch looks about to collapse! The chancel roof is tiled while the roof of the nave is thatched, with the lower part of slate.

Lets go and have a look inside. The interior is also "picturesque" with a couple of unusual features. First of all some of the medieval wall painting can still be seen:

and in the chancel lies a memorial to a knight in full armour:

no one seems to know who he was or his connection to this little place. Even in death he seems to be about to draw his sword and fight for what is right!

Just across the village road from the church stands a cottage which looks as though it's in need of some urgent renovation. So there we are: No giants but a beautiful fragment of English history just waiting to be explored.

Take care.

Down By The River Side

I took a stroll along the River Cam from Grantchester to Cambridge, a walk I've done countless times in the past. I wanted to check on the new wetland that's been created on the opposite side of the river; after the rain it is wet at last. New birds are apparently finding the area to their liking. Little Egret, Lapwing and a pair of Common Terns today. All too far away to get a photograph.

On the river I soon found two old friends looking a bit lost after their nest was flooded out recently. The grass in the meadow behind the Red Lion is looking lush and green, though the photo needed a bit of a nudge to get it to have the right feel.

Other birds seen included Sedge Warbler, Kingfisher, Chiffchaff, Grey Heron and Kestrel.

A little further along I found a happy family who had managed to hatch out before the river-level rose. It's unusual to see Greylag Geese on this stretch of river.

This next picture was taken in Paradise - honest!

Paradise Nature Reserve, that is. The area used to be a "pleasure garden" and nearby Paradise House used to be licenced to sell alcohol. It was a favourite haunt of students and ladies of doubtful reputations. Now it's a nature reserve - well, which is your idea of paradise? The house is now a private residence.

And so to Cambridge with Kings College Chapel peeping over rooftops.

Take care.

Hedgerow History

The English landscape with its patchwork of fields divided by green hedges is so deep-rooted in our consciousness that it's tempting to think that it's always been like this. How could farming have taken place any other way?

But only 200 years ago the pattern over large parts of the country was much different. Around the village were small fields with hedges to keep stock near to the farm. But beyond that lay large "open-fields" with no hedgerows. The land was divided up into strips and each farmer would cultivate a number of strips scattered around the open-field. As you can imagine this was an inefficient way to farm the land and with the advent of even the earliest machinery became nigh on impossible. So the land was re-parcelled into fields with hedgerows and farms moved out from the villages to where their allocation of land happened to be.

This re-allocation of land required an act of parliament for each village. These were known as The Enclosure Acts and gave rise to many of the hedges which we have today (and many more which have disappeared since). Some land was never enclosed and moved from the old open fields to large modern fields without hedges ever being planted. Such a landscape, around the village of Bygrave, is shown above.

But old hedges do exist, very old hedges in some cases. Of course it's not the same bushes and trees that formed the original hedge. Or is it? Some hedgerow plants spread by sending up suckers from their roots, so genetically at least it's the same bush or tree. If these "new" plants spring up in the field they'll be removed by ploughing but if they come up in the hedge-line they'll still be there.

Here's a piece of modern mysticism, by which I mean something which has been discovered by man, is held to be generally true, but nobody can explain exactly why it works. By studying lots of hedges whose date was known from old maps and documents Max Hooper established that old hedges contained more species of hedgerow plants than new ones. Further investigations revealed that if you count the number of tree and shrub species in a 30 yard stretch of hedge then that number is equal to the age of the hedge in centuries. This apparently works over large parts of the country regardless of climate, soil-type or the whims of the original planter of the hedge.

When you stop to think about it it's hardly surprising that hedges of perhaps 1,000 years old are still in existence. After all until recently there was no pressure on the land and no big machinery that could only operate in large fields. Furthermore hedges were a valuable resource: they supplied firewood, wild berries, hops, fruit, timber and so on, as well as marking boundaries and keeping the stock in. Anyone destroying a hedge would upset a lot of his neighbours.

Of course maintaining hedges meant a lot of work and unsurprisingly if you want to see a well-maintained hedge in this day and age you'll have to know where to look. How about the Botanic Gardens in Cambridge?........

....or else on an estate managed by the National Trust ....

Hedge-laying, or "plashing" as it's sometimes called, is extremely labour-intensive and even in its heyday could only be completed on a rotation. This was wonderful for the wildlife as you get more berries and fruit when the hedge is left for a few years in between each tidy-up. And remember much of the wildlife was also a resource in those days. Nowadays with mechanical flails the hedge can quickly be transformed into this....

Not very pretty is it? But despair ye not, a lot of new hedge planting is also taking place in an attempt to replace some of what's been lost. And where this is happening the wildlife is making a return too.

Take care.

Window Snapping

OK, I admit it. I've been taking pictures of windows again. Guilty as charged.

Houseboat

Farmhouse

College

Cottage

Chapel

Cottage

Terraced House

Houseboat

Take care.