I cycled across the expanse of flat low-lying land, which stretches without a field hedge to be seen, between the lane gates at Beck Dairy and Badge Lodge. Ahead of me, the cluster of buildings of Glebe Farm and the start of a steep climb, which leads the eye to the commanding position of Brixham’s great Saxon church at the top, the largest building north of the Alps when first constructed under the Mercian kings.

I came upon first one in isolation, then two together, then clusters of horse boxes and trailers. Then I heard the tell-tale and evocative country sound of the fox hunting horn. Hounds emerged on to the lane ahead of me, followed by the red-coated Huntsman and Whipper-in. Then the hunt as a whole followed, trotting along the lane for a short while, before bursting into the field on my left, released to gallop behind the howling-barking hound pack in pursuit of their quarry. This is Pytchley Hunt Country, and what I saw that day was as traditional a country scene as anyone has witnessed in the last two to three hundred years hereabouts.

I cycled on through Brixham, Scaldwell and Old, to find sanctuary by a field gate on Mill Lane, near Kite’s Hall Farm for my picnic lunch. From the moment I unpacked the saddlebag, I was entertained by a swirling flock of linnets, whilst my bird-call app informed me that fieldfare and redwings were about too, sadly not to be seen from my sunken gateway, yet comforting to know that they were nearby all the same. They will be around for two or three months yet, and I will be back to see them.

© John Dunn.

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

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

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