Kettering: Party Town

March 22, 2020

Heart

Comment

Cut forward a few weeks, I hadn't done much cycling, as my time had been taken up with work and visiting the family down in the westcountry. On the plus side, the weather had greatly improved and things were drying out. On the minus, it seemed this coronavirus thing was getting serious. Not serious enough that there were any restrictions, however. The trains were still running and I thought I would take advantage of what might be my last run out for a while.

Following my usual method, the wind (unusually) was in the south-east, so not wanting to fight nature I figured I would head out to the north-west and into Northamptonshire. Northamptonshire is considerably further out from London, and away from the prosperous Oxford-Cambridge corridor - and as a consequence can have a considerably more out-the-way and sometimes neglected air. I've met many Britons who cannot name a single town in Northamptonshire other than the county town of Northampton itself (Wellingborough? Oundle? Brackley? - these are not household names).

The upside of this is lots and lots of unspoilt, rolling scenery and - compared to much of southern England - rather a lot of empty space. I didn't have much time to plan this route, so settled on a re-run of a ride I'd done (two? three?) years ago to Kettering. Lots of offroading, a ride through the extensive lakes around the Nene waterpark and some lovely routes through the woods in what is very much the scenic route to the town. In this ride, the journey is very much more important than the destination: Kettering is not much to write home about. But it does have a station that could take me to Bedford (unfortunately to go the 8 miles to Sandy you have to go to central London to change, so I would simply cycle back from there). The party town bit is an ironic reference I can't resist.

Since I was going north-west, I started off by going up to St. Neots. This time I took no pictures at all, hey ho. So you'll have to take my word for the niceness of the route. I failed to climb the epic grassy slope up the Greensand for the second time. I then continued to Duloe just as before. After that, instead of going north towards Great Staughton, I continued west to Little Staughton and Keysoe. Little Staughton, big difference. Cutting through Bedfordshire the whole time, and as pretty as you'd expect.

It was a lovely day, and this is the sort of route I like.

Lots of ploughing going on at the moment

Keysoe. I always know if I'm in Bedfordshire as the villages all have these distinctive, long signs. Apparently there were a job-lot of them available for the festival of Britain 70 years ago, and only Bedfordshire council bought on. They're pretty nice, I think.

To get further to the north and west I needed to get around the disused Thurleigh airfield (optimistically re-branded as the Thurleigh business park, but it's mostly just a storage space now for cars, and as I found, sheep). Airfields are a bit of a barrier in this part of the world, but fortunately there are good rights of way going all the way around Thurleigh - it's just a bit indirect.

Old road leading to the airfield. Since it doesn't cross it, this is essentially a road to nowhere, and as a consequence is very quiet indeed.

One possible route to the north is a "restricted byway". Of all the flavours of rights of way, I have to treat these with suspicion, as they're the only type open to motor vehicles (in this case for only parts of the year). Not a problem in itself, but it means they tend to be magnets for dirt bikers, 4x4s and the like, which churn up the ground and make it impassible for simple cyclists. It's a gamble though: sometimes they're very good. Not in this case, however, and I gave it a hard pass.

Reaching the perimeter of the disused airfield. We can continue to ride along the fence.

Just outside the airfield I peeled off down a shady bridleway, passed an old farm with disused grain silos, and found a really idyllic place for lunch.

After this it was a descent to the village of Risely, and then some careful navigation to pick up the wooded track through the Melchbourne estate. The track was ... really busy. Despite the latest virus warnings, there were at least six families walking through the (admittedly) lovely woodland path. I also passed a eagerly helpful gamekeeper type fellow, who regailed me with directions (I didn't have the heart to tell him I'd done the ride not so long ago and knew just where to go). After coming out the woods it's a really beautiful descent down the grassy field past the estate. Come to think of it, last time I did this it was beautiful weather too. Maybe it always is in Melchbourne?

The Melchbourne estate and manor house. You know what's strange about this vista? There is basically nothing in it that wouldn't have been here 200 or 300 years ago. No pylons, tarmac roads, modern buildings, nothing. Very rare in southern England.

Regaining the road, I made my way through a series of small villages (Yielden, Newton Bromswold, Caldecotte) to get to Chelveston. There, despite the GPS, I made a fairly serious navigational error and gamely set off up a steep hill, with heavy traffic, heading east into the wind and back the way I'd come. Fully a mile later I realised my mistake. I briefly considered hacking across country to the west, but then realised it would be more pain than a quick U-turn and descent. Literally five minutes I was back in Chelveston (it took 15 minutes to slog out of it) and pointed in the right direction of Stanwick and the Nene water park.

The river Nene, which runs from Northampton to Peterborough (where it joins the Great Ouse and thence flows into the North Sea at The Wash) was mined for gravel in centuries gone by all the way between Rushden and Thrapstone . Those gravel pits are now flooded, and the county has made a good job of converting it into a pretty extensive riverside country park.

It's a bit of a magnet for the family with 2.4 children on a sunny weekend, but I thought the early warnings not to congregate might have dampened this. How wrong I was. Like more famous national parks - Snowdonia had its busiest day ever on this weekend - the Stanwicks lakes country park was packed with holidaymakers. There were even ice cream stands open, and the playarea was full of dozens of children. While I was out and about, I was also (absolutely maximising) my distance for anyone else. Hmmm...

The visitor centre at the Stanwick lakes was closed up. This photo makes it look quiet...

...but this is the carpark. Jammed full.

The riverside route is very pretty, and passes some interesting sights like this barge mooring

After a good 7km of layed-backed cycling along the river (excepting the the few minutes when I somehow got into a race with a couple of a rented Tandem), I left the Nene at Thrapstone and headed off to the north. Those looking at the map will see that Kettering is due west of Thrapstone - this is truly the scenic route, with the intention being to ride over the hills to Aldwincle, then through a series of lovely wooded tracks to Brigstock before approaching Kettering from the north.

I was getting pretty tired at this point, and had a bit of a hack of it up to Aldwincle. On the route I planned to go off-road on another restricted byway, but (exactly as last time!) it was churned up and unrideable, and I had to cut to the east and into the teeth of the wind instead. I was counting the kilometres all the way to Wadenhoe when I could finally peel off to the west and get the wind behind me again.

But when I did ... I mean, it doesn't get much better than this. In fact I was so distracted by the beauty of this route that I overshot my turn by quite a way.

It's these hidden little ways that make it worthwhile, really

Nobody about - don't they know what they're missing?

You pop out the woods and there's this strange ... structure in the distance

I remember being completely amazed at running across this the first time. This is Lyvedon New Bield, an unfinished Elizabethan manor house built for the catholic nobleman, Thomas Tresham. Living in tumultuous times of alternating catholic and protestant ascendancy after Henry VIII, Tresham was imprisoned for his faith (and his son was embroiled in the gunpower plot) and encoded lots of religious symbols in building his new house, including building it in the shape of a cross.

The last time I visited it was very busy, but here at the car park was closed and it was deserted.

The build was abandoned due to lack of funds, rather than anything more sinister

From Lyveden it was a run down the lanes west to the very pretty village of Brigstock, where I would pick up what I remembered as being an excellent byway track that would take me to Geddington on the road north out of Kettering.

Taking the very quiet dead-end road out of Brigstock

Unfortunately, in the years since I'd last done this route, the dirt-bikers had adopted the byway and had, frankly, destroyed it. The surface was six inches of mud, and (foot) deep puddles. They'd destroyed it for everyone else, and also for themselves - I could see from their tyre-tracks how they had to ride close to the edge to avoid the mess they'd made.

Cursing the selfish bastards, I dragged the Shift through the mire, sometime sinking the wheel up to their hubs. My brakes choking with mud, I had to loosen them right back to avoid them seizing up. My feet were soaking and my trouser legs wet. Still, I got through the bad kilometre or so, and then mercifully the surface improved.

Yeah, it was really bad. This went on for about a mile. I was most displeased.

Eventually it improved, and I could actually ride again.

As I got to the edge of the woods near Geddington, I actually come across a family setting up their quad bikes. I fixed them with an evil glare as I painfully picked my way over the mud at less than walking pace. And you know - bastards were totally polite. "Sorry about that mate!" one shouted out. It was weird - it was like he was apologising for the surface I had just come through. I found myself saying "that's ok". This is a little lesson in English sociology: you can get away with anything, as long as you're polite and little self-depracating. It's really a national flaw.

Curious memorial in Geddington. Light was fading fast, now.

The road from Geddington into Kettering is quite heavily trafficked, and only partially has a bike lane. It was getting dusky and, foolishly, I had only brought my bad lights. Still, it was reasonably quiet and I had no great trouble getting into Kettering.

The impressive Boughton house is along the route. Those are deer in the foreground. Open for conferences, I believe.

Coming into Kettering, this was the first virus warning I saw. The first of many to come, unfortunately.

Truly ravenous, I stopped at the first corner shop I came to, bought the nearest sweets to hand and necked a whole packet of Haribo. Feeling somehow simultaneously better and worse, I made it to the station in a few minutes and was pleased to see that the trains were still running, and I didn't need to wait more than 20 minutes. The line from Leicester to Bedford is run by East Midlands rail, who are notoriously expensive and not great and serving bikes - in theory they only take two bikes per train and you have to make a reservation for every bike trip - a bureaucratic inanity which, fortunately, the practical staff never enforce. This time I was ushered onto the nearly empty train with minimum fuss, and the very kind conductor lady was mostly only concerned that I could pack the bike away in the dedicated vestibule.

20 minutes (and £20!) later, I was in Bedford, and steeling myself for the last stretch, the 20km or so back along the Ouse valley. All of this is doable on a great rail-trail along the river and through a water park consisting of (more) flooded gravel pits. It is however, completely unlit, it was a moonless night, and my I only had my feeble lights.

The route is very familiar to me though, and taking it slow I traversed the route to Sandy without inadvertently cycling into the river. Cut through sleeping Sandy, and back up the hill to home and a long rest.

Today's ride: 117 km (73 miles)
Total: 355 km (220 miles)

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	5
Comment on this entry	Comment	0