I cycled southwards, along Sulby Road. An ancient Road, which centuries ago was chosen as the county boundary between Northamptonshire and Leicestershire, taking up the role temporarily abandoned by the rivers Welland and Avon. Sulby Road in fact crosses the watershed between the two. At the time of the embryonic Saxon shires, or shares of land, the Midlands were an area of dense and near-impenetrable woodland. Boat travel along rivers was the principal and often only means of transport across country. Travel West-East at this point would have meant hauling a boat out of the Avon and dragging it on sleds and rollers over the watershed and into the Welland. Sulby Road, then a track in the woodland, may have witnessed the tortuously slow progress of such boat-haulings. Did Offa and the other Mercian kings pass this way as they traversed their Saxon realm.

Having passed through Welford, I headed towards South Kilworth, dropping down the steep contours of Downtown Hill from 554 feet at the roadside trig point, to 52 feet in the Avon Valley below. After first crossing the Grand Union Canal, the next bridge is over the River Avon. Were the Saxon’s boats dropped back into the water here after the long haul from the Welland, or did they manage the feat higher up at Welford? What does remain of the Saxons here is the county boundary between Leicestershire and Northamptonshire, a duty falling upon the Avon, as fulfilled by the Welland over the other side of the watershed.

To the left of the bridge over the Avon, the river has been dammed back as Stanford reservoir, named after the nearby village.The reservoir was built in 1928 and, as the Leicestershire & Rutland Ornithological Society
tells us on its website, lies on an imaginary line drawn between the Wash and the Severn, a proven ‘flyway’ for migrating birds across the centre of England.

That proven flyway follows the same trajectory as the proven waterway followed by the Saxons, the Welland flowing from the Wash in the East, the Avon flowing to the Severn in the West, but with this arduous overland connection up and over the watershed.

© John Dunn.

You may also like to see my YouTube Channel, called Highways and Byways.

https://www.youtube.com/@drjohndunn2898

I rode across a landscape in need of a collective name, rich in rolling hills, pasture, small streams, woods and ponds.

I’ll call it the border-land between Leicestershire and Rutland for now.

I motorcycled on the Leicestershire side through Hallaton, passing close by the church, village green and the strange conical structure topped with a cross, known as the Butter Cross, which stands where a market was once held.

I left the village from its north side, riding on to pass through East Norton and Loddington.

The wind was from the south, making this an unseasonably warm day, occasionally bright and sunny day.

Following days of rain, the roads were treacherous where tall hedges and tree cover left roads damp and slippery with the help of Autumn leaves. This inevitably induced slow riding to keep the bike as upright as possible where tyre grip was low.

Over a cattle grid and into the wide open acres of Launde Abbey, once an Augustinian Priory, then Tudor Manor House, and now home to a Christian community, a quiet place conducive to its aims of offering prayer, hospitality, and retreat.

Once through the grounds the landscape of little fields, pasture and woodland returned, as I followed a narrow lane, down and up the steep sides of the River Chater, and between two farms which, standing between Withcote Hall and Withcote Lodge, must be the survivors, or inheritors, of the long lost village of Withcote.

Riding beyond, reaching the summit of a rise at 633 feet, I reached too the ideal spot for a field gate picnic with a view.

Resuming my ride, now westward, I sought out the bridleway down an avenue of trees, which would lead me to Withcote Hall (fenced off and undergoing a protracted restoration after falling into near-dereliction), and there, though the pine trees, the object of my journey, the stunning Tudor chapel with windows fit for a king.

A towerless, pinnacled box made from pale gold ironstone, it looks like a miniature King's College Chapel, Cambridge.

Withcote Chapel is Early Tudor probably finished around the 1530s.

There was once a parish church somewhere serving Withcote in the 13th century, but at some stage this disappeared and the chapel became the centre of worship for the parish, undoubtedly due to population decline.

Stepping inside (yes - it was open thanks to the Churches Conservation Trust), was like stepping into a jewel box, such is the effect of 16th century stained glass attributed to Galyon Hone who was the King’s Glazier in 1517 and did extensive work at King's College Chapel, Eton college, Westminster, Windsor Castle and elsewhere.

Withcote Chapel, a treasure indeed, and a fitting way to crown a glorious day on two wheels in the Leicestershire-Rutland borderlands.

© John Dunn.

You may also like to see my YouTube Channel, called Highways and Byways.

https://www.youtube.com/@drjohndunn2898

I rounded a bend just north of Pickworth in Rutland, and passed a wide off-road area in front of a gated field. Picnic gold for this motorcyclist! I U-turned to the spot, pulled in, dropped the side stand, removed my helmet and threw my jacket over the saddle. Seat bag unzipped and coffee flask out, I commenced a meal in peace and glorious solitude.

Accidentally, I had found myself at the gate to Robert’s Field, a small meadow of restored limestone grassland managed by the the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust. In the warmth of early Autumn sunshine, I passed through the gate to take a gentle stroll around the two clearly maintained fields that are sandwiched between Holywell Wood to the West and Newell Wood to the East. Too short and slow to be considered as bodily exercise, I nevertheless less felt soulfully invigorated by that walk.

Riding away from Robert’s Field in the direction of Pickworth, I immediately passed through Lincolnshire Gate, just a name on the Ordnance Survey Map, nothing visible, but which recognises that the Rutland-Lincolnshire border crosses the lane just south of Robert’s Field.

On the grass verge in front of the church at Pickworth is an information board. Needless to say I was enticed to pull up.

The verge itself was part of the wide droving road called The Drift, that passed through Pickworth. During the golden age of droving between 1700 and 1850, today’s quiet lane would have been, occasionally, packed solid with beasts of all kind, principally cattle but also pigs, geese, turkeys and more, as they were driven to and from markets. Why The Drift? As it was important that the stock ended the journey in good condition, beasts were ‘drifted’ at only 12-15 miles a day.

Looking at the Ordnance Survey Map it is possible to see how The Drift connects with lanes and bridleways that run in a broadly West-East direction. My personal assessment is that the livestock passing through Pickworth would have been ‘drifted’ from the markets in Melton Mowbray and the Midlands more generally, on a route eastwards to Downham Market and beyond to Norwich, Kings Lynn and other population centres.

And Pickworth’s church? I had a look inside. A small affair reflecting the shrunken size of the village. A bigger church once served a larger village here in the Middle Ages. That fell into ruin with the depopulation of the village, but serving to inspire a poem of social commentary by John Clare. Here are the first four verses of a longer poem entitled

ELEGY ON THE RUINS OF PICKWORTH, RUTLANDSHIRE.
HASTlLY COMPOSED, AND WRITTEN WITH A PENCIL ON
THE SPOT.

These buried ruins, now in dust forgot,
These heaps of stone the only remnants seen,—
" The Old Foundations" still they call the spot,
Which plainly tells inquiry what has been—

A time was once, though now the nettle grows
In triumph o'er each heap that swells the ground,
When they, in buildings pil'd, a village rose,
With here a cot, and there a garden crown'd.

And here while grandeur, with unequal share,
Perhaps maintain'd its idleness and pride.
Industry's cottage rose contented there,
With scarce so much as wants of life supplied.

Mysterious cause ! still more mysterious planned,
(Although undoubtedly the will of Heaven :)
To think what careless and unequal hand
Metes out each portion that to man is given.

© John Dunn.

You may also like to see my YouTube Channel, called Highways and Byways.

https://www.youtube.com/@drjohndunn2898