We shake the dust of Horncastle off our feet.

On Thursday we returned to Belchford and walked to Horncastle. This is another of those Lincolnshire towns (like Barton on Humber and Louth) where the clocks seems to have stopped in about 1970. This is not necessarily a bad thing: it has two proper hardware shops, always the sign of a good town centre; several butchers (they like their meat in Lincolnshire; and an extraordinary number of antique/vintage/junk shops. I think the verb declines as follows: I deal in antiques; you trade in vintage items; he sells junk. Next to our hotel was one such establishment with a large white parrot in a cage. We were rather concerned, seeing it shut up in a cage at night, but when I returned the following morning, the bird had the run of the shop. It screeched "Hello" repeatedly followed by a series of alarming screams. If it is imitating what it's heard, I can only assume that the owner has murdered a number of customers. The bird turned out to be called "Sally" and seemed to be left in charge of the place while the boss was outside smoking. 
Horncastle has two famous former residents: Joseph Banks, the naturalist who travelled with Captain Cook; and William Marwood, hangman and inventor of the "long drop" technique (remember this - bound to come up in a quiz sometime). It was also the home of Mrs Alfred Lord Tennyson (Emily Selwood). Considering it has had the misfortune to have a Tesco plonked on the edge of town, it is a surprisingly bustling place. 

From Horncastle we had a straightforward if longish walk to Woodhall Spa, along a canal and then a disused railway. I found Woodhall Spa a strange place. Its prosperity was founded on waters discovered by accident during some early nineteenth century attempts to find coal measures. More latterly it has become famous for its golf courses, across one of which we walked, dodging the competitors in the English Women's Golf Championship, with which we happened to coincide. There are various large hotels, and some surprisingly fancy shops. It is like a little piece of Surrey, transported to the Lincolnshire countryside. During WWII it was surrounded by airfields, and the Dambusters were based nearby - their officer's mess was based in what is now the Petwood Hotel. 
There is only one tiny settlement - Stixwold - between Horncastle and Woodhall Spa - and the latter is only a small place. We did get some impression of how extraordinary it must have been for the inhabitants of a very sleepy and thinly populated part of Lincolnshire to have thousands of airmen descend on them: the first British, but from all over the UK; then Canadians and Poles; and finally the Americans. 

This was a long day: 14 miles - and we had done 18 miles the day before. We were tired and hungry and rather late on our return to Horncastle. We felt we needed a bath and a sit down before finding somewhere to have dinner. This was a mistake. Horncastle shuts, for culinary purposes, at 8.30. We were turned away from the Thai. We were rebuffed at the Bull. The Admiral Rodney, where we were staying, wouldn't feed us. Eventually the Chinese agreed to give us a takeaway, but refused to consider letting us eat it in their empty restaurant. The Rodney were persuaded to supply us with some plates and cutlery, but then told us we couldn't bring food onto the premises, so we rather furtively sneaked it upstairs. This quite tasty Chinese food was given some added savour by its being very slightly naughty to eat it in our room. But the experience put me in mind of Matthew 10:14 -  "And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet."
Photographs: Horncastle Farmer's Club; impressive former court building in Horncastle; picturesque ruin; Viking Way sculpture.

Hassocks!

There has been an eleven month interval since our last visit to Lincolnshire to walk the Viking Way, and we finished last September in the middle of section 4, partly for practical reasons but also because we were a little footsore from walking distances which generally seemed somewhat longer than those set out in Lincolnshire CC's otherwise admirable (and free to download) guide. As a result we have been slightly out of sync with the sections into which the guide divides up the route. So on 23rd August, having spent the night in Horncastle, we returned to Ludford, site of disused airfield which was the home of 101 Squadron. From here Lancasters took off towards Germany; later it was home to the Thor ICBM: but now the airfield has almost disappeared into peaceful farmland. 

From Ludford we headed to Wykeham, where we could just about make out the site of a lost village. Around this point we met the only other Viking Way walkers we encountered on the whole trip - two middle-aged(ish) chaps who were doing the whole route from end to end and going a lot faster than we were. 

As we continued at a moderate pace through rolling farmland I was getting messages about flooding in Leeds: the basement of my old chambers was underwater! Traffic was at a standstill! My parents (near Derby) reported a tremendous thunderstorm over them. This seemed ominous as we assumed the rain would be heading east and the deluge would be with us in an hour or two. And so it did: the clouds massed; the sky grew dark; a wind got up; the heavens opened. After about ten minutes they closed again, and that was all the rain we had for the whole trip. Enough to make us reasonably damp for an hour or two, but otherwise we have been incredibly fortunate with the weather (as we were last year).

As the rain descended we arrived at Biscathorpe, an out of the way spot with an interesting-looking but disappointingly locked church. Little St Helens is still used for the occasional service, apparently - we were surprised that whoever looks after it felt it necessary not only to lock the church but also chain up the gate to the churchyard, thus making access unnecessarily difficult. 

While still drying off we reached Donington on Bain, where there is a fine church built of the local greenstone. There was a curious custom, in existence till the 19th century, of hassock throwing. When a couple got married the older ladies of the parish would gather in the church and throw hassocks at them as they left. This custom was quashed by the Reverend Veners - clearly a dull chap - who took exception on being struck by a (possibly) misaimed hassock. The church is now full of brightly coloured hassocks - so I revived the custom, despite protests from my sister. You can't do much harm with a hassock. 

Onwards then, across one of Lincolnshire's many disused railways, to Goulceby, Scamblesby and finally Belchford. When we calculated, using the GPS on my sister's phone, the mileages for today we discovered we had walked 18 miles. Belchford was a little too far: we should have stopped at the previous village. Unfortunately doing a linear walk using two cars ties you to a particular destination. It was by then a glorious sunny evening. 

When I did the Coast to Coast a few years ago it seemed that I would fall over almost every day, usually onto something soft and muddy. I decided to revive this tradition by falling over in Scamblesby. We spotted a disused shop, formerly the Post Office, the windows of which were festooned with rather sinister looking stained white cloths (rust? blood?) and which had a useful display of VHS video tapes inside. While walking up to the door the lace of my boot bizarrely hooked itself round part of a bootscraper, bringing that foot to an abrupt halt while the rest of me carried on. The bruises will last for some time.

Photographs: multi-storey haystacks; Grims Mount (a barrow which we passed); the locked church at Biscathorpe; hassocks at St Andrew's, Donington on Bain; Provence or Lincolnshire?; the shop at Scamblesby; the locked church at Biscathorpe.

Saturday in steampunk Lincoln

TESDEY3NDHTESDEY3NDH

After an enormous number of strides (literally) being made by the intrepid crew of Sarah, Chris and me during the first three days based in Horncastle, we decided to have a shorter walk today.
We are now based in Lincoln. The weather is glorious, so we returned to Bardney where we finished yesterday and walked to Stainfield.
We set off across fields containing stubble and some unidentifiable crops, intending to visit the remains of Bardney Abbey. We kept to public footpaths through an abandoned piece of farmyard but realised we were being stared and pointed at by some locals. We came to no harm and arrived at the Abbey. Sadly there was little to see apart from a curious talking model monk (shown below). We carried on through another abandoned farm at Snakethorpe and on to Stainfield.
There is a beautiful mid-18th century hall next to the stunning church of St Andrew, claimed to be designed by Christopher Wren. Wonderful restored textiles shown below.
We returned to Bardney and were suitably refreshed in the Old Angel Inn.
We then had an entertaining walk around Lincoln which was host to the Steampunk Festival!