In Search of a Tree

 

Americans fret over how to make a “pit stop” in England, and rightly so. Travellers in need are directed towards the nearest supermarket, or pubs which are often miles away.

Hardened English folk caught short in the heart of the wilds go in search of trees. We who are too timid to enter pubs for fear of the publican’s dark looks search for accessible trees and thickets instead.

Many years ago, I was once travelling with a handicapped friend a far distance, and I’d suggested a side trip to see Queen Eleanor’s Cross at Geddington to break the journey.

My friend was in need

She limped across, with me accompanying her, to The Star Inn which faces this ancient cross. It was five to twelve, so it was only a few minutes before the opening hour. Even luckier the door was open and the publican was standing just outside his pub.

We asked permission to use his facilities, and were shocked when we were refused. I was mortified. We would have bought something at his bar afterwards, soft drinks, packets of crisps, something to mark our thanks. Perhaps we would have sung of his praises too, and those of the glories of his pub; but instead my friend, a person who does nothing but good in the world, was turned away, and we had to go in search instead of a farmer’s windswept field with suitable tree and thick cover.

I vowed I would never step into that pub from that moment on. The Star Inn at Geddington is a place I shall always shun and would never wish to step inside. He lost good custom that day.

Entering pubs in search of their facilities, before I purchase something from their bar unnerves me. It is not for the timid such as I especially after the Geddington experience. Usually, if I do muster enough courage to approach a pub, then I find that that pub is locked.

So those who have found pubs shut against them have for centuries gone in search of nearby trees and thickets. This has no doubt over the centuries done much to aid the greening of England’s green and “pleasant” land.

However, when the need arises, these deepest darkest corners of England that can be ‘greened’ in such a time honoured way can be tricky to find. The thickest cover just happens to be where a farmer is trimming a hedge; and who is right at that moment sat high upon a piece of machinery that gives him unrestricted views across half the county. The next likely trees ahead of us in the lane are to be found to  lie within the garden of someone’s house; and I somehow doubt that they would be happy to find me crouching in the bottom of their garden operating a sprinkler system of my own. Another likely spot turns out to be next to a building site where a palatial residence together with stylish stone pillars for its gates is being built by burly builders who I’m sure would not want me to contribute to their drainage problems by raising the water table in any way.

Any-old-how, we find the place we have come to visit and I ‘walk’ around it with crossed legs. It’s the first church I’ve ever seen that offers its visitor tea or coffee and has a kettle to the ready. This would have been brilliant but for a more pressing need.

This church at Castor is what we’ve travelled this long way to see. It was founded by Cyneburg; and the church there, called St Kyneburgha, still bears her name. She was perhaps the mother of Rumwald whose birthplace we’d visited a few days ago. She was a Mercian princess one of Penda’s daughters who together with her sister Cynewith founded a monastery there atop of a once splendid Roman villa, once the second largest roman villa in England.

Cyneburg and her sister were seventh century princesses.

I am thrilled to be in such an ancient place even though the church’s present form is much changed from the original; which was burnt to the ground by invaders keen to find ancient Mercian gold and treasure.

There is a mensa, a table top altar, that has been restored to the church and placed in a side room of the church. I wonder if it may have been an altar once used by the Romans to worship their pantheon of gods.

The church has an open feel to it. It is welcoming and spacious. It was once used as a school and something from that time has changed the atmosphere despite the scent of incense that tries to cling onto a patina of holiness. It’s a church that holds onto its history and binds it within modern trappings. There is a modern carving of Cyneburg herself, and nearby woven banners that tell of how she escaped from ruffians and walked to safety upon a carpet of flowers. There are carvings of dragons and carved stones that tell of stories that I can not read.

However, I am in desperate need of a tree.

We travel away from Castor in the direction of Peterborough and in wild desperation I swing the car off the main road and onto a side road that dips in the direction of the River Nene’s flood plains.

Flood plains seem an appropriate spot.

We have accidentally stumbled upon the edge of Ferry Meadows. I head towards the nearby bushes.

‘I wouldn’t go there,’ warns the teenager.

He’s right.

Two more steps beyond the bushes is the busy A47 with lorries thundering by. It’s the meeting of roads here that led to the development of the Roman villa and later the Mercian princesses deciding to live within its ruins. Far too much history for me to cope with at that moment in time. Instead I rush off in another direction to green the land.

Afterwards we realise that we have accidentally stumbled upon a lovely place.

There are lakes, footpaths and bridges across the River Nene. We walk awhile enjoying the sight of birds. There are swans, death mask birds (coots) a heron and a grebe. There are autumnal colours in the trees. There is the reflections of the sunset in the still water of the lakes and a misty moon rising. We have never been here before and we are enchanted.

Smoke is rising from the direction of Peterborough. I imagine how centuries ago similar smoke, that rose in that direction for fifteen days, heralded the sacking and burning of the cathedral of Medeshamstede by the marauding Danes.

I’m trying to interest The Teenager in this history. Trying to get him to imagine Romans navigating the River Nene to this point. I’m trying to tell him of the Danes who later struggled across this river with their bags full of ecclesiastical treasure. I’m trying to recreate a busy wharf where goods are being unloaded where a lone duck now paddles. I’m talking of bogs and drainage and of the hard work of the monks who worked the land overseeing the construction of dykes and ditches. I talk of how treacherous the area was once to walk. I imagine hermits on the higher reaches of ground, islands surrounded by bogs, glow worms and treacherous shifting waters.

He’s not interested.

He doesn’t hear a word.

He needs a tree.

He goes off the path, and I walk on a little ,and wait for him to re-emerge after affecting the water table to some degree.

I wait and wait.

Eventually, he emerges. He’s walking differently. It seems that instead of walking upon a carpet of flowers as Cyneburg had once done centuries before him, he had instead stood upon russet leaves that sank instantly beneath his foot and plunged him into a bog. He had to struggle to free himself.

There is black mud nearly up to his knee.

The thick black mud has seeped into his socks through his open toed sandals. He says there are worms wriggling in the mud and other creatures. He hobbles towards the car like John Wayne. His hand is hurt from where he tried to save his fall by grabbing onto a briars and stinging nettles.

This pit stop for the teenager nearly turned out to be the bottomless pit of a quagmire. I’m wondering how many people trying to cross the River at that point long ago met a similar fate long ago. I’m wondering how many of them were answering a call of nature at that time. I’m wondering if the teenager can now imagine some of the difficulties of travelling and living here long ago.

The Teenager is tired of my wondering and wants a bath and food.

I drive home imagining the bones of those from long ago, who were not so lucky in extraditing themselves from the mud. I know none of them were American but undoubtedly this fear and lore about the difficulties of travelling through England was taken to America. No wonder they now feel a little nervous about freely travelling around this land; as a pit stop in England can teach you more about the land and its people than anyone could ever wish to know.

 

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