vinculafido

  The strange tower of Beeby church Just outside Hungarton I cross what I guess are the remains of real ridge and furrow strips, judging by the sizeable mounds where the plough would have turned. They remind me of the excellent, rather moving Michael Wood TV series of the early 10s in which he tells British history from the point of view of the village of Kibworth Beauchamp, not so far from here.   Next comes a negotiation of unexpected footpath alterations by the landowners at Waterloo Lodge Farm, possibly not officially sanctioned, to allow what from their point of view are sensible divisions of grazing for their various equestrian clients. No help to walkers though, as we work out the deviations from the OS for ourselves. Beyond the road there’s a jolly footpath, mostly nicely cut as a swathe through ripening wheat, which takes me to Beeby. Along the way, where a house’s paddock is being cut by a chap who looks less than overjoyed that a PROW passes through his property, I meet a

Around here, different estates seem to colour-code their gates I park below the church in Tilton. A sales-type in a fleet car hovers alongside, moves up the street, reverses back, consults a file. A cheerful woman with a dog smiles at me.   ‘Think he’s lost…’ she says. I reply that I once heard a surprisingly large percentage of drivers in London were exactly that. Apart from myself, she’s the last person I talk to until I stagger back to the village five hours later. The ‘Midshires Way’ is a new one on me. I follow its zig-zags along the stony edge and then down the scarp, before turning up the lane to Lowesby, which is a very neat village in thrall to its Hall.  The church of All Saints is shut up. Someone on the web describes it as ‘the most locked of locked churches’ . On the other hand, the Tilton and Lowesby cricket club looks in excellent order, conveniently sited so that whoever owns the Hall can look down upon it unimpeded as if it were a second lawn. Beautifully mown gras