June 6, 2012 to June 16, 2012
Interlude in Lincoln
Viking Way and other day rides
June 9th - Saturday night we're down the pub, The Strugglers, a traditional, unpretentious British boozer that due to trends and brewery monopolization during the previous couple of decades has become something of a rarity. It's my younger bother's birthday, and my elder brother comes out, something he seldom does.
We stay until gone 11:00; hardly the ideal preparation for a Sunday cycle ride, and I wonder if Dave will be seriously hung-over, but in the end it's the weather in the morning that puts him off. I go out alone.
The sky is mainly cloud and there's the distinct threat of rain, but the forecast says this was as good as it's going to get for a few days and I want to find the place along Ermine Street that Frank Patterson drew, so ride south through Lincoln, then veer left.
Not long after riding past my late dad's bungalow, I take a left and cycle along a narrow lane that climbs up an escarpment to Waddington, probably best known for its RAF base.
When I was a teenager, my friends and I used to go to dances at the camp to see and hear US soul singers perform. Those days of open access are long gone and it's now securely cordoned off, a place where cruise missiles were once stationed and early warning aircraft are based.
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Ermine Street was built by the Romans; it goes north from London to Lincoln and on up to York in a pretty much dead straight line. The Viking Way, a hiking trail almost 150 mikes long, follows some of it. The original section just south of Lincoln never got developed into a real road and the muddy track is overgrown with grass and bushes - it's an adventure that lasts a few minutes, then it becomes a paved section still devoid of cars as most traffic flows along two parallel, roughly north-south routes: the A15 or the quieter A 607.
When I get to a junction signposted Wellingore, I make a right and soon get on the A 607. There are very few cars and it's possible to put my tripod in the middle of the tarmac and take a self-timed photo.
Although Frank Patterson's drawing states Ermine Street near Temple Bruer I feel this was artistic licence and that it's more likely to be where Temple Bruer drops down an escapment to the west. It makes sense to explore the landscape beside the A 607 and a couple of times I venture down tracks to fields at the top of the escapment, but none have the exact scene.
At the junction with the busy A 17, I ride straight but after a mile I reckon that's far enough, so did a U-turn and head back towards Welbourn to see if the road dropping to the village - a continuation of Temple Bruer - is the place.
It isn't, but it makes a good spot for some photos, with a tree-shaded lane giving a dense green to the shots and there's another public footpath leading off it and I push my bike through the tall grass at the top edge of a wheat field, with a vista of fertile farmland stretching many miles away to the west.
After a while I decide to give up on locating the place and set off to find some food... it's around 3:00, well gone lunch time, and I'm quite famished.
The Marquis of Granby in Wellingore is still serving food - two meals for a tenner. It's tempting to have two, but I reckon one will be enough and pay about 7.50, plus a few quid more for apple crumble and custard, then sit outside with a pint of lemonade.
A couple of locals ask about my trip - telling me an old guy inside will probably know the location of the Frank Patterson drawing.
Baz's eyesight isn't too good and he can't see the thumbnail of the sketch. The other half-dozen locals sitting inside take turns looking at it and offer various suggestions, all of which I've already explored.
When the Spain vs. Italy Euro 2012 football game comes on the telly, it's just one who continues to chat; a native of nearby Navenby, he's something of a local historian, full of facts about the area, and explains how the landscape has changed during the 2,000 years since the Romans stopped marching along Ermine Street.
Paul - I think his name was - reckons the heath, the land bordering Ermine Street, was a barren, treeless wilderness until as recently as the 1700s, when hedges were grown, parishes formed and crops planted. Until then, the area was a sandy quagmire and people would get lost making their way across it. To help guide them, an inland lighthouse of sorts was built, known as Dunston Tower, which had a brazier lit on top.
The carriage routes running across the open terrain would often become deeply rutted and so the routes would be three carriages wide, allowing horses to take a different, less muddy path once the central 'lane' had become a sloppy mess. When hedges were planted, they were spaced far apart as the original three-lane routes and the paved roads that were later built ended up with a wide grassy verge either side.
Looking over my large-scale sheet map, the word' warren' can be seen here and there, with a few buildings nearby called the Warren Houses. Paul says in medieval times the area was a good spot for breeding bunnies - for their meat and fur - with the light soil unsuitable for agriculture, the two activities being a bad mix.
I pedal along a lane from Navenby, on the lookout for what's left of Dunston Tower, which eludes me - the hedgerows noticeably set way back from the tarmac as Paul mentioned - then veer east towards Heighington with the sun out, low in the sky.
It's been wet and cold for a few days and Thursday isn't predicted to be much better and snuggled under two duvets is a nice place to be, warm and cosy, unaware that it's in fact a sunny morning outside, the thick curtains blocking any hint of such good news.
It's about 10 o'clock by the time I ride from Dave's, dropping down through Lincoln, then east towards the village of Washingborough.
As a child I cycled there on my three-speed bike many times. It's about as far as I'd usually go, but occasionally I'd make it to Bardney, some 10 miles from home. It seemed like the end of the world back then.
The village's Main Street has a mix of old homes and a few 1950's bungalows. Outside one of the old properties I notice a plaque which states it's where Danny Fitter, an organ builder, used to live. Danny was accused of beating his wife and subsequently became the last to be Ran Tanned. This punishment involved villagers banging on drums, pots and pans, while singing the Ran Tan rhyme. On the third night, his effigy was burnt.
Main Street joins Fen Road on the east side of Washingborough and the spot that Frank Patterson sketched about 60 years ago is, I suspect, somewhere around the area, not far from Bardney, even though he credited it as being near Wragby.
The landscape is flat and I make a left towards the River Witham, which is a mistake. My detailed map shows an unpaved road running right beside the drain, which flows parallel with the Witham, but when I get to it, climb over a locked gate, and pedal a short way, it's just a grassy bank, and the grass is now dense stuff that has recently been cut.
It's hard to ride across it even in a low gear and eventually it's too hard going, so I push my bike along.
The cycle path is just across the water, but it isn't until reaching Bardney Lock that a bridge allows to cross over to it. The actual village isn't far away and it's time for a bite to eat when I cruise the village's humble centre.
On a corner is a butcher's shop and inside are hot sausage rolls that have only just been taken from the oven. I buy two and a chocolate covered flapjack and it's while scoffing the rolls outside in the sunshine that I spot a couple of loaded cyclists paused across the road, so I walk over for a chat.
Ross and Bex are on day five of their five-month tour, heading down to Dover to get a boat over to France. They plan on touring Belgium and Germany, and perhaps Denmark, and are loaded with camping gear, hoping to manage on ten quid a day each. In hindsight, I wish I'd treated them to flapjacks.
I'd told Ruby I'd be at her place in Saxilby by 2:00, so it's a bit of a dash, and I begin cycling back towards Lincoln, going west, but just north of the city, riding on quiet roads via Scothern, on the heath that borders Scampton, then drop down the escarpment, whizzing through North Carlton at 40 km/hour.
It's about 2:30 when I arrive at Ruby's and Charlie is in his high chair, eating a strawberry. It's all over his face.
Ruby drives us to Gainsborough, a market town I worked in for many years during my first marriage. It hadn't changed much during the 25 years since. We hit the charity shops, then have a coffee in Costa before returning to Saxilby to find Roy sat in the garden. He planned on cycling down to Dorset, but has changed his mind.
Today's ride: 60 km (37 miles)
Total: 3,477 km (2,159 miles)
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