Norwich to Scotch Corner

I set off from Norwich at about half past eight after a (collosal) dinner, bed and breakfast thanks to my big sister Gwyn, her very generous donation to my fund in my pocket.  There was a clear sky, though that soon turned back to overcast with spots of rain throughout the day.
Heading West out of Norfolk, I called in briefly at Castle Acre to have a quick word with dad.  (Having bigged up granddad yesterday, I thought I'd better.)  Shades placated, I went on to Kings Lynn for a cup of tea with ma and my kid sister, Joan, who was still flushed from running a 10k charity marathon yesterday.

The Norfolk Harvester, Grange Estate, Kings Lynn

When the Grange farm between Kings Lynn and Castle Rising was first developed for housing, it was, I imagine, a place people were proud to move to; part of the brave new world people fought wars and paid taxes for, with first class housing for everybody, some private and some, not quite as well appointed but still good, rented by public bodies.  To give a heart to this new community, the developers included a pub, which for a while, was indeed the centre of local life.  But a few decades on and a couple of doses of the Blue Meanies, attitudes have changed.  People value the private sphere rather than the public.  There is, as one notable politician said, no such thing as society, and therefore presumably, no such thing as community, either.  Symbolic of this, the Norfolk Harvester went gradually downhill, from communal gathering place to a place to get drunk when there's nothing on telly.  It had glimmer of a hope of a reprieve when plans were mooted to turn it into a community pub, but these came to naught and the aim is now to demolish it and build yet more flats on the site. 

If the Grange were Albert Square, this would be the Queen Vic.

All this is, as I say, my imagination - apart from the bit about demolition and building flats on the site.  If it touches reality at any point that is pure chance.  But one possibly factual gem I did unearth came from a local historian, via Joan: for a long time, the site was a hole in the ground, at the bottom of which was a rusting tractor.  That must have been of enormous utility to small boys in the area, but the local developer saw a better use for the location and built the pub.  I wonder if the tractor is still down there.

Clenchwarton

No fancy handle for this little Fenland community.  Not like your Wigenhall St Peter or Tilney All Saints just up the road. Not like your Terrington St John or Walpole Cross Keys a little bit further along.  


No, Clenchwarton eschews these Norman pretensions and clings on to its Saxon heritage. The snorting and tittering of the chattering classes laughing at the fact that the name sounds like something vaguely rude to those educated in public schools; it takes all that squarely on the chin.


"Clenchwarton (n. archaic): One who assists an exorcist by squeezing whichever part of the possessed the exorcist deems useful."
Douglas Adams & John Lloyd, The Meaning of Liff. Pan Books, 1983.
The people of Clenchwarton, all two thousand or so of them, sigh wearily and carry on.

Clearly, precision is all in this little village; distances are measured to the nearest yard.

But there's not a lot else to comment on in Clenchwarton, so I carried on, too.

'You can see Boston Stump from here'

Boston is certainly not particularly run-down and with it's magnificent 'stump' (the tower of St Botolph's), it is far from unloved.  However, I stopped to take this picture from the roadside as a sort of placeholder for any of dozens of less favoured places for miles around.

You may have come across this phenomenon: people living in what they imagine to be unnoteworthy places will indicate some nearby high ground and tell visitors that "on a clear day, you can see X from there," 'X' being any better known tall feature, such as the Malvern Hills or Sallisbury Cathedral, around twenty to thirty miles distant.  It's like saying "OK, there's no big deal here, but we are close to greatness."  Such statements are regretable as there is always something interesting about anywhere, but they are also curious in that the claims are usually made without any reference to first hand observation, or very often to the fact that the intervening terrain makes it impossible.  Boston being in pancake-flat fen country, the places that claim to be able to see the stump on a clear day tend to spread out for fifty to sixty miles.  My home village of Castle Acre, miles away across the Wash, is one - and at that distance, one begins to wonder whether the curvature of the Earth poses a problem.  (That'll be a little maths puzzle for a rainy day; given the distance between Boston and Castle Acre, and the height of St Botolph's, what elevation would be required to see it from Castle Acre?)


I did come across one place where I really could really see the stump in the distance.  Leaving Boston, I soon came to the end of the Fens where the ground rose sharply at what would once have been the coastline above the salt marshes.  A minor road going up and over the hill was signposted 'Mavis Enderby.'  That sounds more like one's eccentric aunt rather than a village so I had to check it out.

Yes, it really is a village, not a mad aunt at all.  (Though there might still be mad aunt Mavis's out there.)

At the highest point on the road, I stopped for a coffee from the flask and some of ma's digestives and took in a magnificent panorama of the Fens below.  It looks like nothing on my phone camera, of course, and you almost certainly won't be able to make out the stump on the skyline between the two distant trees.

The stump is out there ... somewhere

Barton upon Humber

Have you ever noticed how some towns tend to build up on one side of a waterway while the other side remains empty, or at best depleted?  There's Gloucester, for example; fascinating, bustling little city on the East bank of the Severn, while the West bank sports only some dual carriageways to whisk people off to somewhere more interesting, passing by a farm shop and a dodgy canalside hotel.  Or Kings Lynn; it lines one side of the Great Ouse in all its Hanseatic glory, buzzing with local commerce, while West Lynn looks like any old dull, windswept Fenland village hunched on the other bank.  And even when cities do spread across their local river, there seems to be a distinct feel to each half; one upbeat and the other down.  How many (North) Londoners, for example, have you heard express a certain caution about going 'Sarf of the rivah"?


So it was that I wanted to have a look at Barton upon Humber; to test the theory.  It nestles under the Humber Bridge, the mighty engineering work that was intended to (and to some extent did) bring commerce and prosperity to the towns on the north bank of the Humber, Hull and its smaller neighbours.
Per theory, I found a very pleasant, but quite ordinary provincial Lincolnshire town.  It makes a little of its situation on the banks of a major waterway in the form of a splendid new nature observatory, but there's no thriving dock or ferry port.  

A few derelict hulks sit on the mud of the now silted up staithe.

For me, civil engineering fan that I am, a viewing point under the Humber Bridge was sufficient to make the visit worthwhile.  (I wondered for a moment if this is where they filmed the funeral scene in Four Weddings, but no, I don't think so; this bridge is too big.)

In more troubled times, this bench and signal beacon is where the lookout was posted to watch for fierce northerners invading across the Humber at low tide, intent on raiding the potato crops of the Lincolnshire fens for the chip foundries of Hull.

The road down to the waterside took me past St Chad's Way.  This small housing development is on the site of the former St Chad's church.  A vicar of that church named his son after the patron saint.  And he grew up to become Chad Varah, founder and leading light of the Samaritans.

Out of respect for the work of the Sams, I will refrain from any cheap jibe about growing up in Barton giving one an insight into suicidal despair.

Wetwang

I wanted to call at Wetwang, not because of its odd name.  (Richard Witeley was once made Honorary Mayor for finding the name amusing and thereby putting the place on the map, and Adams & Lloyd have a distinctly discourteous definition for the place name in their Meaning of Liff.)  I called in because it has featured in several articles I've read in motorcycling magazines. For some reason, any journo writing about a nice ride out seems to gravitate towards this little village dangling from the A166 lilke a soggy sock on a clothes line.

Is it because they all flock to see the "historic Sykes church" here?  

Unlikley.  There being nobody about to ask, I went inside and found a leaflet explaining what a Sykes church is.  Nothing to do with Eric; Sir Tatton Sykes, fifth baronet of Sledmere, continuing the work of his dad, the fourth baronet, spent some of the wealth he accumulated from his 36,000 acre estate in restoring and rebuilding churches in the Yorkshire Wolds.  People who are into that sort of thing can follow a 'Sykes Church Trail' and visit several of them.

Is it to read the convoluted nineteenth century epitaphs on the tombstones in the churchyard?

Almost certainly not, even if they do contain some winceworthy sentiments and distinctly dodgy rhymes.  This one had 'born' rhyming with 'gone.'   (And for heavens sake, Seaman, will you stop wandering around graveyards!)


It might just have something to do with its location; Lincolnshire Wolds to the South, Yorkshire Wolds to the North, coast to the East, Vale of York to the West.  Excellent for a motorcycling bumble in all directions.  However, coming across husband and wife team, Brian and Michelle, out on their Aprillia, we worked out that it is in fact the to-die-for fish and chips available pretty much all day next door to the village pub.  (I had a sausage and chips as a matter of scientific verification.)

Michelle turns away to hide a smile, but Brian laughs openly at my Southerner's astonishment at the prices; "What? A bag of chips for less than a tenner?"  

By now, the day was pretty much done so I needed to let the Pan loose in its natural habitat, the motorways and dual carriageways North to Scotch Corner.  It pained me to pass the Dales by; I was a Collie there in a previous incarnation and always feel drawn to them.  I could see them rising up to the left as I rode along, and I passed over the rivers that I am more familiar with as gurgling streams there; Wharf, Ure and Swale.  But they'll still be there another time, and for now, a night's rest was in order.  I'm staying at the Travelodge, as recommended by daughter, Caroline.  (Good recommendation, too; everything you need, at a fraction of the cost of the standard corporate hotel, and without pretending to be something special.)