Wednesday 12 November 2008

Old Street No 3


An afternoon stroll down the old Wardley Hill in Rutland. I reckon this stretch of road, now by-passed by a streamlined version a field away, hasn't seen holiday Austins desparately trying to overtake grumbling Albions for at least twenty five years. I was surprised that the double white lines were still visible, punctuated by intermittent cat's eyes in their perished white rubber holders. Except the glass lenses had been levered-out long ago with local schoolboy penknives. The undergrowth at the sides had not encroached across the road nearly as much I would have expected, and on one stretch the precipitous drop on the north side is still guarded by a crash barrier entwined with hawthorn. What's so fascinating about all this? I think it's because this was once a thundering highway, one of the very few west-east routes between the heart of the Midlands and East Anglia, and as a child I remember sitting next to the driver of a fully-laden Midland Red coach as he skillfully sorted the gears out for the long climb. The coach was one of a red and black convoy making for Norfolk, and the white-jacketed driver heaved a visible sigh of relief when the summit was reached at Uppingham. I tried explaining all this to a lady taking her dog for a walk, but she smiled wanly and hurried off over the horizon.

11 comments:

Thud said...

As a child I always wanted a cats eye...any left?

Peter Ashley said...

All gone Thud I fear. I did prise about inside them with my scout's knife, but to no avail.

Toby Savage said...

I have memories of a School skiing trip to Scotland in about 1967 (wooden skis, leather boots). We were taken from the Youth Hostel to the slope in some ancient bus. I can stil hear it grinding up the 1:4 hill in first gear, every rivett rattling, each tooth of the gear groaning in pain.

Jon Dudley said...

Atmospheric or what! Disused roads (and airfield perimeter tracks) have a similar fascination to disused railway lines...not quite the same atmosphere I grant you, but the sense of much use, much to-ing and fro-ing much business and human and mechanical activity now laying idle and inert. Spirits dwell here (or did I imbibe too much at The Green Awards last night?).

Affer said...

I too like these lonely, nearly-reclaimed-by-nature roads - except that in our overcrowded isle, one rarely gets the necessary sense of isolation....there's nearly always a good-life lady with a dog! Route 66 is series of old roads, especially in Missouri where I rode quite alone through Hooker's Cut on a long abandoned dual carriageway!

Philip Wilkinson said...

Ah, the ghosts of Albion. Great drifts of leaves and splotches of sunlight in the photograph too.

Toby Savage said...

Affa. Only you could ride a trail called Hookers Cut!

Affer said...

Even as I wrote it....

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