Walking to Camelot (16 page)

Staying an extra night in Stow allows for a salubrious diversion to the lost medieval village of Widford. The remnants of this deserted village lie on the beautiful River Windrush a few miles southeast of Stow, in a lovely rolling meadow surrounded by copses of beech and oak. All that remains of Widford now is a few houses and the thirteenth-century church of St. Oswald's, which stands stranded in a field with no access road. The village was ravaged by bouts of the Black Death in 1348 and 1360, and never recovered.

In June 1348, two ships docked at Melcombe in Dorset. On board one of them a sailor carried with him from Gascony the germs of bubonic plague. Soon people were dying swift deaths all along the southern coast, the lymph nodes painfully swollen in their necks, armpits, and groins. This “Black Death” spread inland like wildfire, carried by fleas that infested black rats. Poor sanitation facilities and wayward garbage disposal had contributed to a sharp rise in the black rat population in the fourteenth century, causing the disease to spread extremely rapidly. Young and old, rich and poor, none were spared. Millions died across Europe. In Britain, between one-third and one-half of the population was wiped out within twenty-five years.

The Welsh poet Jeuan Gethin wrote in 1349 of the plague's onset, “We see death coming into our midst like black smoke, a plague which cuts off the young, a rootless phantom which has no mercy or fair countenance.”

Hundreds of villages disappeared overnight. Many others dissipated over just a few years. The survivors barely had the energy to carry the bodies in wheelbarrows to be buried in common pits. Virtually no one knew the cause of the abomination, but of course the Church preached that God was punishing the wicked for their sins. A popular nursery rhyme of the period ran:

Ring-a-ring o' roses,

A pocket full of posies,

A-tishoo! A-tishoo!

We all fall down.

We walk about the deserted field where a few hummocks protrude from an undulating sward of buttercups and wild poppies. Hawthorn, honeysuckle, and plum cherry bushes are abuzz with bees; larks caper and cavort overhead. Backdropping the scene is the church, a tiny Early English Gothic structure. There was a chapel here as early as 642, when monks carrying the body of St. Oswald stopped to rest on their way to Gloucester for the saint's interment.

As I stand poised to click a photo of this enchanting scene, two gentlemen dressed in Victorian-era formal black evening clothes carrying hickory walking sticks suddenly pop into my line of vision, swaggering down a path through the field. One of the gents is tall and built like a bull, the other slight and barely five feet tall. I turn to Karl.

“Where did they come from?”

“Don't know, John — they just appeared from nowhere.”

The two apparitions recede in the distance and we step forward toward the church. Inside we are immediately struck by its simplicity: scratched, time-worn box pews, carved corbels, and a rustic tub font survive. Archaeologists have confirmed that the site was used by the Romans as a bathhouse connected to a villa.

The church is only accessible by walking path, and the ghosts of a once-thriving village lie buried, unmarked, their dwellings now just mounds in a grassy field. I can't get the two mysteriously dressed figures out of my mind. They looked like they were strolling to a Victorian theatre performance. Were they real, phantom, or did they just step out of a time capsule? Even Stephen Hawking is now on record as admitting that time travel is theoretically possible.

Next morning, back at Old Stocks, Jason and Helen bid us adieu.

“Now don't be getting into any mischief, you two — and John, I hope you don't run into any more traffic cones!”

“We will be back, Jason. Just keep those wretched orange cones off of the old stocks; the tourists deserve better!”

He laughs heartily and stands waving with Helen until we are out of sight.

We cross the busy
A
429 and turn south into a labyrinth of quiet villages, attractive Cotswold lanes, and fields so well clipped that they appear coiffured. The honey and cream cottages add a luminescence to the landscape even on a drizzly spring day. At Hyde Mill, swans glide gracefully on the mill pond formed by the River Dikler. We stand for a moment on a footbridge watching them.

“Congrats, Karl, we are now precisely halfway along our journey — 145 miles done, another 145 to go. Plus another 60 miles off trail.”

“Where's our next drink, John?”

“Is that all you ever think about?”

“No, and that's a foolish question — I think about sex and hockey too.”

Lower Slaughter is one of the most photographed villages in England. The water mill with its high chimney stands on the banks of the River Eye, and it is our luck to have the sun break through and reflect in the water as a group of equestrian riders cool off their mounts in the stream. Although the mill is of red brick, most cottages here are Cotswold sandstone and boast attractive mullioned windows, some with projecting gables.

Karl remarks that the well-manicured lawns, clipped boxwood hedges, herbaceous borders, and freshly painted cottages represent the finest in village pride. But I am uneasy with such perfection: villagers must get up at the crack of dawn to pick up every twig, trim every branch, mow every offending blade of grass, touch up the paintwork on every cottage window — even the spiffy little footbridges that access their homes bear the marks of recent paint jobs. Moreover, the picturesque mill wheel has been tweaked to revolve soundlessly. In short, it's too much like a storybook movie set. The name “Slaughter,” incidentally, does not denote violence, but rather is simply a mangling of the Old English word
slough.

Folks here do not like change or competition. A recent press report states that the parish council is fiercely fighting a young lad who insists on selling ice cream from his tricycle, seven days a week for six months of the year. Council argues that such “trading times” are excessive, and the resulting increased footfall will prevent grass from growing — and children might climb onto their trikes holding their ice cream cones and fall into the adjoining brook! I am amused by this, because when I was ten years old, I was busted by Vancouver City Council's jackbooted bylaw officer for selling, door to door, raspberries that I had picked on my grandfather's farm. I had neglected to purchase a pedlar's licence for $75 — a prohibitive sum for a child. Where can I sign up to contribute to this tricycle kid's legal battle? Why can't councils go fight adults instead of picking on kids!

The Cotswold stone belt reaches its apogee of perfection in Gloucestershire. J.B. Priestley passed through the Slaughters in 1933 and commented, “Even when the sun is obscured and the light is cold, these walls are still faintly warm and luminous, as if they knew the trick of keeping the lost sunlight of centuries glimmering about them. This lovely trick is at the very heart of the Cotswold mystery.”

Cotswold stone tends to be a mélange of cream, yellow, gold, ochre, and various shades of grey. The villages seem to just grow out of the ground, so blended are the hues of nature with man's buildings. This effect is enhanced by the deeply sunken lanes plus the weathering process. There are subtle changes in the tints of the façades due to the variations of stone from quarry to quarry. All seems in harmony. And in springtime, white may-blossoms, yellow celandines, and wild violets line the verges of village lanes and paths.

It is a supreme irony in this traditionally class-conscious society that it is the humbler cottages of this region that tourists rave about — cottages originally built for the carpenter, the shepherd, and the labourer. Such dwellings were made of lesser-quality stone that has weathered to produce a quainter, more aesthetically pleasing look than the great houses of the rich built of the finest, unblemished freestone blocks. The patchy nature of the modest cottage façade gives it a unique charm.

Simon Winchester, in his
The Map That Changed the World,
confesses to an emotional reaction to Cotswold villages: “A huddle of warm-looking Jurassic stone houses, clustered amicably in some river carved notch in the meadows, can be so lustrously perfect, so quintessentially English, that seeing it brings a catch to the throat.”

Lower Slaughter leads us into the Windrush Valley. To my mind, there is no stream in England more beguiling than the little Windrush, which bubbles and babbles and sings its way through one enchanting village after another, intent on bringing joy wherever its winding course may lead, eventually emptying into the Thames.

Though our
Guide
authorizes a diversion to Bourton-on-the-Water, the best-known village along the Windrush, we decide instead to visit the Notgrove Long Barrow. It's a sweaty grind up a steep hill on a humid June day. Notgrove is surrounded by trees at the summit. Only the faint outline of the ancient barrow is visible; because the stones were deteriorating, Gloucestershire County Council decided to dump loads of soil over them. This was a major site for the ancients. There is a forecourt, five internal chambers along a central passage, and a double wall surrounding.

The hilltop is dotted with wildflowers. I note knapweed and harebells entangled in the long grass, but it is the colourful riot of yellow-wort that gives the scene watercolour beauty. I can see why neolithic Man would have chosen to hold celebrations and be buried here.

Archaeologists have found three hundred long barrows in Britain, and believe their construction was the last phase in a long sequence of ritual entombment of the dead that occurred between 4000 and 2400
BC
. Within the barrow was often a room-sized mortuary chamber support with wooden posts. The dead were placed here, but often they had been interred elsewhere and were brought to the barrow later.

All notable barrows in Britain are steeped in local legends that usually involve mysterious lights and music being seen and heard at night by villagers — many of whom were no doubt staggering home from the pub at the time. But the notion of ghostly beings originates with Celtic tales of the Sidhe, who were said to live in the “hollow hills.” On this June morning, there is a certain synergy, an enervating delight, being up here with the breeze touching the face, the yellow-worts spread in profusion, and magnificent views of the gentle hills in every direction. About us, the gnarled yet stately oaks stand guard over the mysterious tombs. The sun bursts through long cumulus masses swirling overhead like horses' manes.

We descend to the trail from our ethereal revelry and soon reach the village of Cold Aston. I am a little confused by the entry sign that reads “Aston Blank.” When I peruse the
Guide,
sure enough, “Aston Blank” is an alternative name for the place! How can a minute village of a few souls be so confused about its name? Well, it transpires that the village was known as Cold Aston from the thirteenth century, then changed to Aston Blank in the sixteenth century; in 1972 residents finally voted to change it back to Cold Aston again.

“But none of that explains why the entry sign still reads Aston Blank,” notes Karl, “given that the name was officially changed back to Cold Aston in 1972.”

“They'll get around to it, Karl. Maybe they left the sign as a sop to placate those residents who voted for Aston Blank.”

Karl and I rest on a bench under a towering sycamore tree and watch the world go by. The place may be tiny, yet everyone seems to be completely lost, rushing about like characters in
Alice in Wonderland
. We sit fascinated as at least three trucks stop at the pub within ten minutes, the driver in each case asking directions for some house in the village (there can't be more than twenty houses here). Then we spot an old codger dressed in faded tweed walking along with his bicycle, his groceries in a basket on the handlebars. He appears confused and keeps heading down wrong lanes, totally disoriented. We cannot help him, as we are but strangers here. Finally, a lady watching from her garden patiently directs him past us to an obscure lane to our right, calmly explaining that he will find his cottage and wife waiting for him at the end of that road. He laughs embarrassedly as he approaches us and points to the red telephone booth beside the pub.

“I would've phoned me wife to come and fetch me home, but I can't remember me telephone number!”

“That's all right,” Karl says with a smile. “The phone is likely out of order anyway.”

And so the poor codger straggles down the lane. I suppose we will all end up like him one day.

We could be miles from civilization here — yet the busy
A
40 is only two miles away. J.B. Priestley was astounded to discover on his Cotswold travels that although the area was not mountainous or wild, it felt incredibly remote. Turning off a main road, one is plunged into “one of these enchanted little valleys, these misty cups of verdure and grey walls, and you are gone and lost, somewhere at the end of space and dubiously situated even in time, with all four dimensions wrecked behind you.”

Karl and I regain our bearings by stopping for some ale and a hearty ploughman's lunch at Cold Aston's Plough Inn, where the burly proprietor tells us that the premises are haunted by a ghost named Old Harry. When I ask him if it is common for so many motorists to become lost in the village, he says that he spends a good part of his day directing people to their various destinations, like some traffic cop.

“That must cut into your time somewhat,” I suggest.

“It's quite all right, mate.” He smiles. “They usually end up coming back here for a pint or two later on, so it's actually good for business. No one forgets the Plough.”