I walk out of Gayton on the Eastcote Road, passing the allotments on the left, marvelling at the industry of those who tend them, thinking of the evident pleasure that's shown by some of our friends who have one. Gardening isn't really for me, but I love that it's still deep in our nation's psyche. John Arlott once said that he'd only met one professional cricketer who was a 'wrong-un' (he didn't name a name!) and sadly he might have to revisit his opinion now, but one feels something of the same about the community of gardeners.
Everywhere I've driven in the last couple of months, there seem to have been temporary traffic-lights and diversions as the councils try to get the roads in shape for winter. Walking up the little lane, the tarmac's breaking up at the sides, and if you're a cyclist you'd better beware. However insignificant the highway, it inevitably gets a terrible battering from heavy farm vehicles, HGVs misled by their satnavs and increased traffic. At a certain point the Eastcote Road makes a right angle turn, but the lane goes straight on, now a single path bridleway without a surface, although in the undergrowth to my right I can see the ditch continuing so that the 'real' width of the road is as it was before. There's a certain randomness to the way country roads are. In half a mile the metalled lane swings in again from the right. People move. Needs change. But the half mile of good honest dirt between the close hedgerows was very nice.
Just before Tiffield, I cut a diagonal across a lumpy field towards the old Stratford railway line encountered two walks ago, here on a short embankment. Perhaps the lumps are the ghostly remains of houses long gone, or maybe it's spoil from the old railway workings. Apparently, when the line was built in 1869, an 'experimental' railway station was put in, but because this was the 'summit' of the line with a relatively steep gradient either side, there was an alleged tendency for the halted trains to break away, so by 1871 the experiment was deemed a failure and the makeshift wooden platforms removed. More likely there weren't enough passengers from Tiffield even then and lack of profit was the motive for the closure.
Tiffield isn't a large place, although it straggles a bit, rather as if two communities were crashed together and told they'd better just get along. St. John the Baptist's church is roughly in the middle. I sit, read a psalm and pray for Marion the priest, and for the people of the village. Whenever I drive past the Tiffield turning from the A43, my brain automatically flashes up 'Approved School', because in my time as a teacher in Northampton that was where all the really bad boys were sent in the hope of repentance, or cure, or just to keep them off the mean streets until their hormones had settled down. Originally it had been a Victorian reformatory, with what I imagine to have been an even harsher regime. Now in more thoughtful and kindlier times, there's still a residential special needs unit here, in a setting away from the pressures of urban life. Today, head in pocket bible, my imagination is arrested by the musical information to be gleaned from the beginning of Psalm 33: 'Praise the Lord with the lyre, make melody to Him with the harp of ten strings. Play skilfully on the strings...with loud shouts.' And I think fondly of my friend and colleague Robin whose 12-string guitar has often, for all the right reasons of excitement and approval, made me want to give issue to 'loud shouts'.
I pick my way out of the village, up a hill and over an earthy field, skirting some light woodland and down to the dual carriageway, the new Towcester Road. Having girded my loins, checked my shoes for slippery mud and chosen my moment, I make the far side safely, and follow the signs to Hulcote.
At first I'm walking up the Old Towcester Road, which is not the same as Ye Olde Olde Towcester Road which was diverted centuries ago, when the Lords of Easton Neston cleared the land of any minor inconveniences like peasant villages, roads etc. etc. to make way for their Lovely Dwelling. What Hulcote was like then I don't know, but today it's mostly a collection of neat, Gothicky, late Victorian workers' houses, which to be fair would have been extremely superior places to live by the standards of their time. All I can get from the web is that the church of St. Mary's, Easton Neston is somewhere at the back of the great Hawksmoor house: all I have to do is to follow the signs.
I feel like a trespasser, but telling myself I've been thrown out of better places than this, and adopting the attitude one is suppose to strike when confronting a bear i.e. make yourself look as big and imposing as you can, I stride up the various nicely laundered drives in the direction I think I should go. In fact I encounter no red-faced Wodehousian lairds with twelve-barrelled shotguns in the crook of their arms, just an elderly Chinese couple who look as if they might just have stepped off a sightseeing coach. I say 'Good afternoon'. They mumble a puzzled, incomprehensible reply.
I'm out of date. I had the owner of the lovely Hall as Alexander Hesketh, he of the James Hunt, sex and champagne era of yesteryear's Formula 1. He still retains ownership of Towcester Race Course, although Easton Neston is now the property of Leon Max, Russian-American fashion entrepreneur. I don't meet him either which is perhaps a good thing, He might have at his disposal weaponry even more deadly than a shotgun to stave off unwelcome intruders. Were the Chinese couple house guests, buying clothes for export? Or independent travellers like me? Or did they miss the bus? The Hall is a wonderfully proportioned building, not ridiculously large: just big enough to impress.
I find sylvan St. Mary's. It's closed, which is a shame because I've read that there are some beautiful, ancient box pews inside. Its parish now includes a small housing estate on this side of Towcester, and there are regular services. It even contributes to the Tove Benefice's Parish Share - just under 4k of the total £77k. So I suppose from that we can deduce that Mr. Max doesn;t put his hand in his pocket to any great extent, although of course he may donate to the church's upkeep and well-being in other ways, which so he should, because after all, this is a holy building mostly for the benefit of the estate, if only for historical reasons. The priest is Father Ben Phillips, whose principal care is for St. Lawrence's, Towcester. He's a sort of colleague of mine, although oddly we haven't yet met. He has responsibility for the excellent C. of E. primary school in the town, for which I'm the Bishop's Visitor. More of them anon!
As I walk back through the autumn leaves and past the gorgeous shrubbery, I try to put myself in the shoes of someone who owns all this. You probably know the verse at the top of this post. It's from Mrs Alexander's original version of 'All things bright and beautiful', and has long since been erased from every right-thinking hymn book version. As I walk, I'm in a state of naïve confusion, thinking back to those allotments in Gayton. How can there still be such huge divisions in wealth - which have by all accounts become greater since the year 2000? And of course, like me, the allotment holders are themselves among the rich of the world, comparatively speaking. It doesn't help to have the bad examples of Donald Trump and Phillip Green so often before us in the news, in all their pomp and contempt for the rest of humanity. Mrs. Alexander's view was that the rich were entitled in more ways than one, but I don't think most of today's Christians would agree with her, if what she meant was that this was the 'proper' order of creation. I used to see bright green Porsche 911s screech to a halt outside our studios and wonder 'which rules is he bending?'
So whether by accident or design, I'm glad that Easton Neston parish comprises the housing estate with its young families, although I wonder how messy church works in ancient box pews! If lovely St. Mary's were just a decorative adjunct to the Hall ('we have our own church, you know...') I'd have to be lobbying for its closure, for reasons of historical symbolism if nothing else. The fact that the Queen is head of our Church already stamps us as allied to the rich and powerful in the minds of many: we have to be the Church of all people, notwithstanding.
The path away from the hall is very pleasant, woody and pastoral by turns. Beyond the 'new' houses I have to cross the A43 again, even more perilously this time. My chosen route on to Pattishall takes me initially by fieldpaths running and rising parallel with Watling Street towards the collection of small Saxon villages that flank the Roman road. There's Caldecote and Asctcote, Eastcote and Dalscote, and on the far side of the road, Grimscote and even Potcote. The paths are a bit obscure at first, and at one point, not spotting an inordinately green shade of grass, I carelessly advance into a small mere, retreating as squelch and ooze begins to overwhelm and suck my boots. It's much colder today, with a stiff easterly breeze whipping in over the open fields. As people around here have been apt to remark, there's nothing between us and the Urals. I'd never asked the question before, but 'Watling' may be related to the Saxon word for wattle: 'waecelinga'. Perhaps it grew by the slowly decaying road, or could be easily gathered there, or the experts at wall-making lived beside it.
At Pattishall, Holy Cross, my third church of the day, is also shut. Traffic speeds through the thirty limit down the old drover's road, 'Banbury Lane', here briefly 'Butcher's Lane'. I return to Gayton, surprised by the number of small hills I have to ascend and descend. Marion Reynolds has to shepherd the flocks at Gayton, Tiffield, Pattishall and Cold Higham. I ask again 'How does she do it?'
Dusk falls over the allotments.
Stats man: 20km. 12 degrees C., with an easterly breeze gusting up to 25kph. Occasional spots of rain, but a mixed sky with some sunny periods. 5.5 hrs walking. One water vole. One buzzard. Two kites. One yaffle. Countless game birds: I'd be a good 'beater'. One conversation - with Jim, just out of hospital. He walked two miles today and was justly proud.
Health warning: These crossings of the A43 really weren't fun, particularly coming back at OS reference 695499 (Explorer 207). If you're silly enough to follow in my footsteps, what you need to know is that on the far side the path is hidden up the embankment over a stile approximately 20 metres to your left once you've crossed the road. But really, a second time I'd avoid the issue and go the long way round by road.
Lord
In her ecstasy
Mary sang your exaltation of
The humble and meek
And your dismissal of the rich
Empty-handed;
Radical
Even by the standards of J. Corbyn.
Forgive me that
Often I'm not at all humble or meek.
And I can be ridiculously proud
Of my puny riches.
Help me not to make this
A routine confession
But one that truly touches my heart.
Help me not to be envious
Of the self-made or high-born,
But to understand
That only from
Knowing my creatureliness
Can I see and follow you.
Amen.
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