Silent Stars

A walk around my local churchyard on a frosty but bright morning revealed this slate gravestone. Of course in the early nineteenth century nobody would have thought twice about a Richard Burton marrying an Elizabeth, but from our 'modern' perspective the coupling is always going to grab attention. Old churchyards are happy (yes, happy) hunting grounds if you're interested in lettering and the decorative arts. In my local it's the Swithland blue slate ones that have survived the best, those carved from nearby limestone gradually becoming worn smooth by westerly rains. I go on about them in More from Unmitigated England, now stacked-up in your local bookshop. Oh, and I nearly forgot. In a village churchyard just down the road there's a Harry Potter. I won't say where it is in case coach loads of Potter Addicts turn up like others do to the Rosslyn Chapel to see if they can find the Da Vinci Code in the vestry.

The Owston White Horse

Out in lonely east Leicestershire is a lane that leads over to the little village of Owston. I often go there just to wander about in the churchyard, looking at the lettering on the Swithland slate gravestones, listening to the constant racket of rooks high in the beeches overhead. On my way there one afternoon I saw this signpost pointing down a bridleway. Just as I was ranging it up in the camera a white horse serendipitously moved into the background.