The Romans' interest and presence in Britain is so sharply defined for such a relatively remote historical period. We know to the year when they arrived, and we know to the year when they left, although there are some mysteries about what happened in between. And because of the problematic nature of British history in the later 5th and 6th centuries, there's a sort of 'Was there once a civilisation on Mars?' feel about the whole thing (I don't mean to suggest there really was, or that the Roman occupation is just a conspiracy theory!) But the sophistication the Romans lent British society pretty much disappears when they packed their bags, or so it's alleged, and although their remains and artefacts are all around us and under our feet, most of the time we're unaware of it. Baudrillard would probably therefore demand that they were never here. 17th century sceptics likewise!
The Romans were perhaps the first to bring Christianity to Britain. I was brought up close to Lullingstone Villa in Kent where clear evidence survives of Christian worship during the 4th century. How much further the Christian presence in Britain goes back before that no one knows, though I'd be as sceptical as the next person about Joseph of Arimathea ever pitching up in Glastonbury.
Studying 'Classics' at school heated up an interest I'd had from quite a young age. A few years later I was able to indulge myself teaching Latin before the subject fell off the curriculum at Billing Rd's Northampton School for Boys. With that school's renewed gentrification, it's probably back on the menu now.
So here I am, walking along the old railway line out of Thrapston through the linear 'Town Park' towards the place where two Roman roads intersected - the one from Godmanchester to Leicester and the lesser one from Irchester to Water Newton which more or less follows the line of the modern A605 towards Peterborough. I study the fields for signs of an agger or 1800 year old building rubble and watch my feet carefully lest I miss a denarius glittering in the sun, but of course apart from a suspiciously bumpy field the other side of the hedge when I turn up towards Titchmarsh, there's nothing Romanoid to be spotted. British History Online tells me the crossroads were unusually configured, but what that actually means they don't say. No doubt there was a mansio - there are a number of known settlements close by - so I imagine a lot of drinking, swearing and wenching, and we're close to the River Nene, so maybe some water-related religious stuff as well.
Looking for Romans: Thrapston to Peterborough railway
The 'Crossroads' idea has obvious metaphorical power. For many it will conjure memories of sixties' television through the fictional Crossroads Motel, which brought awareness of the Brummy accent to those living south of Watford. No doubt the writers were hinting that the itinerants passing through the motel, or even those running it (ah, Sandy and Meg!) were often at points of change in their lives. Would they take the 'right' or 'wrong' direction? For me, I'm immediately thinking of the 30's black bluesman Robert Johnson, who's said to have made a pact with the Devil, so rapidly did his guitar technique improve, and so young did he die. His 'Crossroads Blues' became an icon of modern rock blues through Eric Clapton and Cream's definitive live cut, recorded in San Francisco somewhere around 1968. The best guitar solo-ing of its type? I don't know of a better: it still thrills me now whenever I hear it. As with Mahler's Eighth, I don't want to listen to it too often lest the appetite may sicken and so die.
I walk steadily uphill towards the Polopit end of Titchmarsh. I can't find the origin of this striking name, but I do know a 'polo pit' is a place where a novice polo player sits on a wooden horse and practises swinging their mallet. I shouldn't think the name's got anything to do with that, but you never know! Just up the road before Titchmarsh proper is the house where the poet and dramatist John Dryden lived when he were a lad (He was born in the Rectory at Aldwincle where I'm going next).
Dryden spent his adolescence during the turmoil of the English Civil War. He could be interpreted as a rather 'Vicar of Bray' character, saying nice things about the late Oliver Cromwell shortly after his death, but wholeheartedly embracing the Restoration. Mind you, I shouldn't think he was the only one to do that. Perhaps it was in the light of the terrors of the war that he subsequently wrote: 'The sword within the scabbard keep/And let mankind agree/Better the world were fast asleep/Than kept awake by thee/The fools are only thinner/With all our cost and care/But neither side a winner/For things are as they were.'
I don't personally have a feel for this period of English literature, but given that Northamptonshire isn't exactly flush with great writers, you'd think a bit more of a fuss would be made. Go to Eastwood and you can't avoid D.H.Lawrence. The route I'm walking today might make part of a nice 'Dryden Trail', if anyone were bothered.
Apart from a carrot, there are some interesting things to look at in Titchmarsh including the ruins of a castle (probably rather a domestic one) dating to the time of Richard III, when its owner, John Lovell and others of the great and good were parodied thus: 'The catte, the ratte and Lovell the dogge, rulyth all England under a hogge'. I wander past the village shop (opened in 2007 by Alan Titchmarsh, natch!) towards the church of St. Mary's. Outside the shop a woman leaning on her bike offers me a biscuit which I rather churlishly decline by replying that I try not to eat 'junk food' on my travels. She's kind enough not to hold this rudeness against me and when her husband joins us we chat for a full half hour about this and that. We discover we have much in common in the places we know, and in our fears about the world and politics, although we don't share the same nationality - X and Y are mainland Europeans. I walk on to the church animated and cheered by an unexpected encounter. If you get to read this, thank you guys!
St. Mary's is a welcoming place. Like other churches with a wide nave, it provides the worshipper with air and space, and in the contemporary manner allows room for a café area without compromising the spiritual focus of the building. They're very proud of their restored organ. It cost a lot of money, and they're still short of a bob or two. How much is too much for the preservation of such tradition? Compared say, with the costs that might be incurred in evangelism or outreach to the poor? Spikenard anyone? Or can high end/high cost music be evangelism in itself?
A couple of decades ago I produced an album for a Celtic band called 'Chanter'. It may not have been the most successful project in the world. I was ill while we recorded it, and I'm afraid I imposed too much of my own restrictive template on a free-spirited bunch of musicians who combined liberal quantities of liquor, bombards and Mongolian throat singing with the more conventional mix of Irish jigs and reels. The jolly raggle-taggle included an Ulsterman called Brian Aldwinckle who claimed his forebears came from the Northamptonshire village of (almost) the same name. Sadly I see from the band's website that Brian passed away a couple of years ago.
Aldwincle has two churches. All Saints church is in the care of the Historic Churches Conservation Trust, and is where Dryden's dad was in charge. I cross the Nene by the end of the lovely Titchmarsh Nature Reserve, and creep up on All Saints from the village end. It's open and inside I find Kay who's clearing up after an overnight 'Champing' visit by a Wellingborough youth group. 'Champing' is camping in a church, but of course you'd worked that out for yourselves. Kay is friendly and chatty: there are champers in here many days out of the four or five months of summer. I should think it gets a bit chilly at other times of the year. Bats and spiders are all part of the fun. Readings of Dryden's plays might be distinctly optional. Further up the village road is St. Peter's Aldwincle, the regular worshipping village church. It's shut, but there's a children's party going on in the adjoining community hall, and I enjoy the kids' gaiety as I chomp (not champ!) on a sandwich.
Some old fashioned walking ensues. I navigate broad byways through fields of ripening corn with the woods never far away. Apart from the deep, muddy ruts being caused by the heavy duty tyres of modern tractors rather than horses and carts, I could be back a couple of hundred years. Underfoot it's rather squelchy. After a couple or three very dry months, the weather has broken down and there's been a lot of rain. Near Lowick there's a pong in the air from the 'Compost Site', but the village and its church of St. Peter's are ample reward. Lowick itself has that rather architecturally spare feel of Eastern Britain: the warm, honey-coloured sandstone of the west has been replaced by a harder white variety which seems bleached by the wind. St. Peter's rates four stars in Simon Jenkins 1000 Best Churches, one of only two to receive the accolade in the county. Seen from far and wide, the tower rises majestically to command the fields. Jenkins describes the building as 'eccentric perpendicular'. I don't have time to search out a key this time, but if I get back in the next week or so, I'll add a coda to this post about the inside.
Down towards the lane towards the stream is a cottage with a stunning garden which would have done credit to Gertrude Jekyll. It belongs to Gill. I tell her how lovely it is, and we fall into conversation. She apologises for not stopping her pruning and cutting back, and of course I say how great it is to see someone else doing the work. She and her partner haven't lived here long. She's a garden design professional, and if you look up 'Lowick Design' on your web browser of choice you should find her. For the second time today, there are coincidences. They used to live in a village halfway between Den Haag and Amsterdam (our Matt lives in DH), and their daughters went to the British School in Voorschoten where friend Carole Waters taught until very recently.Gill's family name is 'Gardiner', which given her current profession is a bit of a gift. I laugh and tell her that the designer who has so beautified our own garden over the years is Jay Pink - also a suitably flowery name. Gill started her working life as a child psychologist before her second calling took over. Jay has gone from garden design into psychotherapy (practising not receiving it!)
As I return towards Islip, Thrapston and the car, an older gentleman emerges from a side turning on the track maybe forty yards ahead of me, along with his sandy coloured lab cross. The dog bounds down towards me, barking, growling, jumping, generally being objectionable. I tell the dog loudly to desist. The owner does and says nothing. As I draw level he mutters 'He's young and excitable'. No apology. With all the compressed, potential-mad-axe-man-fury I can summon, I hiss, 'Not everyone likes dogs!' I can't abide rude and unacceptable behaviour in the over-sixties. How can their sons and daughters, grandsons and grand-daughters ever be expected to turn out couth and polite?
As a footnote to my comments on Thrapston last time out, the brown tourist info sign on the city limits advertises the 'Victorian tea-shoppe'. This place of pilgrimage proves elusive. Let's ignore the historical solecism in the spelling. According to Google I later find it's permanently closed. Oh, Thrapston!
Stats man: 18 km. 6 hours (I spent a long time chatting!) 20 deg C. 2 stiles. 7 gates. 5 bridges. One great crested grebe. Numerous kites scouring the newly shorn fields looking for rodents. One idiot dog walker. And to be fair, several other courteous and pleasant ones!
What didn't I see? Roman coins. An adder. A slow worm. Not even a toad - perhaps more surprising given how wet the surface was. Where are all the toads these days?
Dear Lord
Thank you for the surprises of life.
Thank you for the people I meet
Who raise the spirits
Who show me new things
Who suggest new angles
On old problems
Who remind me not to be cynical
But to be hopeful always
And to enjoy the beauty
Of the world you made
And which we try to maintain.
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment