A Country Church

One of the great treasures of England is its huge number of country church. From the great "wool churches" of East Anglia (so called because it was wealth from wool production which financed their construction) to the tiniest moorland kirk every one is unique and full of interest. Lets visit the church at Grantchester near Cambridge, the village where I grew up and a fairly typical place of worship.

Grantchester church is right next to Manor Farm which is a fairly normal arrangement; the church and the lord of the manor were very much at the hub of power in village life for centuries. The tiny house just in front of the church is the gatekeeper's lodge for Manor Farm.

The first question the visitor wants to know is 'How old is the church?' which is usually impossible to answer. Churches have invariably been built and rebuilt, added to and altered throughout their life. The picture above shows various stones which were part of a Saxon or Norman church. The fragments were discovered and incorporated into the south wall when the church was extended towards the end of the 19th century.

The church is entered, somewhat unusually, by a porch on the north side. (Most churches being entered on the south side). Homeless parishioners were once able to take up residence in the porch whereupon the church would re-house them. The porch dates from the early 16th century and the door, which is locked by a truly enormous key, appears to be every bit as old.

Once inside the building the eye is drawn towards the chancel at the east end. The stained glass dates from around 1900 but the window itself is early 14th century and is of unusual design.

There are a number of ancient memorials on the walls and the floor....

....but there are also memorials of a different kind - a model of the church made in the 1870s by Samuel Page Widnall, a man of many peculiar skills and enthusiasms.....

 ....and more recently the ladies of the parish set about making kneelers. My mother made several including this one, dedicated to the memory of my granny who died, aged 99, in 1993.

Time to go back outside now and ponder on our mortality among the gravestones.

Take care.

Swanwatch (6)

After a few days of chilly winds and grey skies I stepped outside the back door this morning to find it much milder. A robin was singing in the oak tree and just for a second or two it felt positively spring-like. It still had that spring feeling as I walked down the road, though the pine-cones and conkers littering the path told clearly enough that it was early autumn. As I neared the old mill I wondered if the swans might be about; they have started to frequent the area again lately. Sure enough, out on the water was one of the adult birds and some of the family. The cygnets are beginning to have a little more confidence these days and venture off a short way on their own - they are becoming unruly teenagers in fact.

One of the adults was waiting patiently in mid-stream for the offspring to re-assemble so that they could all proceed  under the mill-bridge.

But what's this? The other parent bird, the female I presume, had started nest-building at the edge of the river, gathering all the vegetation she could reach and piling it up beneath her. Obviously they're not going to start nesting any time soon.  Maybe she could sense the feeling of spring too, or perhaps she's indicating to her partner that it's time to start chasing away the kids.

I've been reading all the bird books in my possession but can't find any reference to this kind of behaviour. Anyone out there able to shed any light?

For anyone wanting to see the earlier posts you can now simply click on the Swanwatch label on the right sidebar to bring the earlier posts into view.

As I Was Going To St Ives.....

The one in Cambridgeshire rather than Cornwall.

Probably the most famous view in the little market town,

the old bridge seen from the quay.

You will have noticed that there's a small chapel

 built in the middle of the bridge,

one of only four such bridges in England.

If you're really sharp-eyed you'll have spotted

that the arch on the left hand end of the bridge is a slightly different shape.

During the English Civil War Cromwell's men

destroyed part of the bridge 

and inserted a drawbridge so that they could control the river crossing.

When the bridge was rebuilt it didn't quite match up. 

The quay looks good from the bridge too.

Once an important dock

now only pleasure boats moor here.

The market cross and All Saints Church.

The area known as The Waits.

Two explanations of the name;

a) derived from an ancient Anglo-Saxon word of unknown meaning

b) it's where boats used to wait!

A hidden side street -

there are lots of little passages and alleys.

A quiet backwater.

Some dogs are fans of live music.

He's got a while to wait!

A collectors paradise -

Hyperion Auction House.

Finally back to the old bridge.

Take care.

The People Of Wood

there's a path

a secret

path

the sign's got lost

and the path will soon lose itself

too

ivy and fallen branches

 are taking over

at the end of this path is an ancient meadow

volleys of goldfinches

explode into the air at every step

the magpie cackles

and

the rabbits scurry

here stand the oldest

 people of wood

twisted and broken

they endure

in the meadow

beside the quiet water

their heart a cave

dark and sheltered

softwood

sympathy

then over your shoulder catch a glimpse

of rugged laughter

the merry old king

of the riverbank

stand up, m' boy,

look at me square and honest,

a fine caper

and no mistake

square

and honest

but villains came creeping

in night time and malice

in fire and torture

flame

and shadow

but
 on this broad afternoon

let us spread wide our gladsome, welcoming shadows

said

the great lady of the willows

for we have in our hollow bones

new

life

springing

the blackbird is singing

thistledown twirling

the people of wood are silent

waiting

and

your path may look

so

very

different

when it

 returns you to your dream

take care

Of Birds And Buses

As some of you may be aware Cambridgeshire has a new "guided bus" service. If you go to the link you can discover the whole sorry tale of frustrating delays and increased costs which have dogged the scheme. To put things in a nutshell it should have opened in early 2009 but was delayed till August of this year and from an original estimate of £54m the cost rose to £181m (so far!). But lets be optimistic - we now have a Busway and it makes it very easy for me to get to the RSPB reserve at Fen Drayton Lakes, which is exactly what I did recently. 

Despite the prophets of doom the bus gave a smooth and pleasant ride and lots of other people were making use of it to travel to St Ives or Huntingdon. However I was the only person to get off at the nature reserve. The stop, which resembles a miniature railway platform, is right near the centre of the reserve so birdwatching can begin straight away. I can see that it has now become a viable destination for me to make an evening's jaunt.

The site itself used to be known as Fen Drayton Pits since it is exactly that; a large group of disused, flooded gravel pits. But then the RSPB took over, changed the name and set about upgrading the facilities. They also seem to have tried to involve local schools in the project. I couldn't help but notice the tiles (on the left of this paragraph) which have been made by pupils at nearby Swavesey Village College and which depict some of the birds that you might see on a visit.

I certainly saw the Little Egret, as promised, and Magpies and Blue Tits were there in abundance, but I was there at the wrong time of day for the Owls which were obviously so popular with the young artists. However I also saw a pair of Hobbies hunting for dragonflies over Oxholme Lake and Common Sandpiper and Green Sandpiper on the islands in Moores Lake. A Wheatear also put in a brief appearance.

There is now a spanking new hide overlooking Moores Lake. At the moment, because of its newness, it doesn't blend into the scene at all but a winter of weathering and some vegetation growing up around it in the spring should fix that.

A few more photos of my day:

 Take care.

Moundtop Ruminations

Carolyn H of "Roundtop Ruminations" said recently that sometimes she felt that her photos only had a tenuous link to her writing (though both photos and writing are always excellent, in my opinion). So in that spirit, the above picture (of a place called Chapel Hill) has only the slightest bearing on what I'm about to write about, namely somewhere else called Grinnel Hill.

For anyone who's followed me this far, Grinnel Hill is the site of the Bronze Age burial mound that I wrote about in a recent post entitled "A Local Landmark". It seemed to spark a lot of interest from those who read it, more than I expected to tell the truth; I thought my enthusiasm for things ancient and obscure was just a personal eccentricity. Among the comments was a question from Carolyn H - you see how this is all fitting together! What she wanted to know was "Have these mounds ever been excavated?"

The mounds are thought to have been the grave sites of the Beaker people who were so named from the elaborate earthenware beakers which were found in their graves. They are thought to have been a quite different and more technologically advanced people than the earlier inhabitants. The greatest achievement which they brought with them was the ability to work in metal - bronze in fact. Their arrival in Britain in about 2000BC marks the start of the period known as the Bronze Age.

Our evidence for the kind of lives these people might have led comes in no small measure from what has been recovered from their burial mounds. In the south of the county of Cambridgeshire many of these sites were excavated, often led by enthusiastic historians from the University of Cambridge, while in the fen country to the north of the county many were ploughed out without being fully investigated; we only know of their existence because their position can still be seen from crop-markings which are often only visible from the air.

In some ways the enthusiasm of the early investigators was unfortunate as they may well have destroyed much evidence which could have yielded  more detailed information to more modern scientific methods. On the other hand, without their intervention many of the sites would have simply disappeared.

What they found was quite varied. Usually the mounds were the burial place of just one individual's cremated remains. However some sites were then used later for subsequent burials and in some mounds skeletons have been discovered rather than cremated remains. This is hardly surprising as the Bronze Age lasted for around 1,500 years and in that time different customs may have developed. 

Cremated remains were sometimes found in a earthenware vessel but at other times left in a bag - only the clasps of these bags are ever found, the bag having rotted away. Grave goods are sometimes included to help the deceased on their journey to the next life. In this area pots and flint tools are quite commonly found but more elaborate items occasionally turn up. These have included highly decorated pots, necklaces, shale buttons, daggers, bronze pins, pendants and urns.

From the items, which have been found in burial mounds and elsewhere, archaeologists believe that these people traded over a wide area, certainly with other parts of England and possibly with the rest of Europe. 

Well, that's probably a longer answer than you were expecting Carolyn. Oh, and there is another burial mound on Chapel Hill (photograph at top of page) in case you were wondering what the tenuous connection might be!

Take care.

"The Song Of The Rolling Earth" - John Lister-Kaye

I've only recently come upon the writing of John Lister-Kaye, an omission in my reading which I can neither excuse or indeed account for, so I still have several other volumes to look forward to in the coming winter months.

"The Song Of The Rolling Earth", subtitled "A Highland Odyssey", is the story of the Aigas Field Centre which he founded in 1977 in a remote house in the Scottish Highlands. If you click on the link above you'll find that you can take a wildlife holiday there and experience the area for yourself. (Another long-time resident on my to-do list!).

But it's a lot more than a dry factual account of the centre's history. And it's not just an advertisement for Aigas Wildlife Holidays either, though it would serve admirably for that purpose. The book covers many stories.

It's the saga of the development of the Highland landscape from prehistory to the present. It's the biography of the house from Victorian respectability, to near ruin, to eventual resurrection. It traces the development of Lister-Kaye himself as a landscape scholar and human being. But it is also the tale of the local inhabitants, the weather and seasons, the animals of the hills, the fish in the streams, the birds of the air, the guests and staff who come to Aigas...... 

All these various threads and many more are artfully intertwined by the storyteller so that the whole book hangs together as a glorious tapestry. The writing is considered and skillful. The overall mood of the book is of the mature John Lister-Kaye sitting alone at the fireside of his oak-panelled study, glass of Scotch in hand, gazing contemplatively upon the landscape outside his window as it springs to life with the memories and dreams released from the depths of his heart.

The story should be savoured in similar unhurried fashion, though if you haven't any whisky a good cup of tea will do nicely. 

Take care.