Peninsula

As you know, and any Roman would have guessed, the English word for the above means – almost/an island. My walk today is a simple out-and-back along the Hambleton peninsula which sticks out like a thumb print into Rutland Water from the Oakham end.

By St. Edmund’s in Egleton a senior pair of walkers are eating sandwiches on the bench by the church gate. Once I’ve booted up from the back of the car, we nod and say hello maintaining our two metres distance, as advised. The lane towards the peninsula runs north-north-west, but I’m pleased to find there’s an alternative to the tarmac a third of the way along – a parallel sandy bike track across the Vale of Catmose running up to the old Ketton road. This broad, straight highway now simply services the village of Hambleton with its swanky hotel and arts-and-crafty buildings and then drops down in muted fashion to the edge of the peninsula, petering out and peering towards the reservoir’s eastern end.  As I tread the cycleway, Hambleton Hall’s guests roar past in Ferraris and souped up Beamers. I’m reminded of the line in Betjeman’s Christmas’: ‘Even to shining ones who dwell/Safe in the Dorchester Hotel…’ There are glimpses of water, and a camper-van hiding in the trees, before the road bends and climbs towards the village, which sits sufficiently high above the rest of the land such that it was never going to be inundated when Rutland Water was proposed (in the late sixties) and constructed (in the seventies). After this soggy winter the reservoir’s full of water which otherwise would have been making its way to the sea along the Welland and the Nene, and although way oop north Kielder Water is deeper and holds more liquid, Rutland has the larger surface area. If you want to cycle all the way round, including the peninsula, it’s thirty-seven kilometres of pedalling, which for the lycra’d enthusiasts is a mere bagatelle, but for most of us would be a Major Work. 

                                        Arts and Crafts: Old Post Office at Hambleton

The historical guide to St. Andrew’s church modestly suggests that the site of Hambleton village has been inhabited from ‘at least 600 A.D’, but the current settlement’s commanding position must surely have excited interest way before that. In medieval times it seems to have ranked higher than Stamford or Oakham as an ecclesiastical centre. Now the church is rather Victorian-dim inside, with a wealth of details that owe a lot to the aesthetic of Walter Gore Marshall, who made his money brewing, and re-invested it in the local surroundings for the benefit of all: philanthropy was in fashion back then. William Morris was all the rage, and those influences are obvious even in the elaborate carved details around the organ console. Either side of the altar two striking menorahs catch the eye, and why not? Without Morning Prayer and its O.T. readings, I tend to lose my sense of Judaeo-Christian continuity.

Marshall also built Hambleton Hall, not to be confused with the Jacobean-period Old Hall which sits by the edge of the water in Middle Hambleton. There was a Nether Hambleton too, but now it lies full fathom five, deemed superfluous to requirements, and the inhabitants paid off, an inland mini-Dunwich.  I have fond memories of Marshall’s Hall, now part of the expensive Relais and Chateaux chain. We dined there once a few decades ago, treating my stepmum and dad to a celebration lunch. It’s one of those places that brings a brigade of waiters to the table to dramatically and simultaneously whip off the metal covers from the diners’ plates. This gastronomical coup de theatre is somewhat spoiled if the wrong dishes are revealed after the denouement, as happened on that occasion. Lol. I remember the food as good but not as good as it should have been for the prices. I’m sure it’s quite different now.

I imagine Walter Marshall was rather an earnest chap. He left the Hall to his sister Eva Astley Cooper who was a bit more of a go-er. Noel Coward was part of her set in the Twenties and wrote Hay Fever in Hambleton. Sir Malcolm Sargent (‘Flash’!) who in his youth was organist at Melton Mowbray, became enamoured of her niece, and slipped in between the curly wooden columns to play St. Andrew’s organ from time to time. When we were students we used to sing Sir Malcolm’s banjo-inspired ‘Cowboy Carol’ a lot: ‘When I climb up to my saddle/gonna take Him to my heart/There’ll be a new world beginning from tonight’. I like to think of Flash bashing this out on the manuals at Hambleton, a sort of companion piece to the arrangement of Abba’s Super Trouper which B.J.Campbell, a sometime colleague of Sue’s, once essayed on the prestigious high-art organ at St. Matthew’s Northampton to our enormous iconoclastic pleasure.

Coronavirus doesn’t seem to be affecting the trade at the Finch’s Arms yet: the car park’s chocker, though perhaps mostly with walkers gathering a swift, self-justifying half before setting out round the headland. I’m feeling maudlin, overwhelmed by the likely consequences of this viral disaster in terms of illness and death and future economic catastrophy. Everyone’s trying to keep calm and carry on, but if we’re smart we know this is a series of events which will leave its mark for a generation, perhaps longer. Maybe some of the adjustments made will be beneficial socially and politically, but I wouldn’t bet on it. Maybe me and mine will come through unscathed, and maybe we won’t. Personally I know I’m viewing my own mortality in a different and more immediate way, even wondering if I’ll see to its end this project on which I’m embarked and which I’ve shared with you for so long now.

On the way back to the car, I pass a number of walkers and joggers. No one makes eye contact: everyone gives everyone else a wide berth. By the Audi I sit on the bench and eat a sandwich. Two other booted and anoraked seniors pass by. We nod and say hello, making sure there’s two metres distance between us, as advised.

When they’ve gone, a gent emerges from Egleton’s churchyard where he’s been busy tidying. There’s the sudden sound of a woody woodpecker, very close but nonetheless invisible among the bare branches of the trees, and for a moment the gent and I share exquisite enjoyment of one of God’s creatures doing what he was designed to do. I resolve, despite weak and shaking knees, that I must try to do the same.

Viral load: 3 hrs. 10k. Cloud and sun. 10 degrees C. No gates. No stiles. No bridges. One church. One Faith. One Lord. One woodpecker. Probably spotted, more or less.

Lord Jesus think on me
Nor let me go away
Through darkness and perplexity
Point thou the heavenly way.

Lord Jesus think on me
That, when the flood is past
I may eternal brightness see
And share thy joy at last.
Amen.