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With its back to the tidal River Nene, this was the South Brink Farm Shop on the A47 just to the west of Wisbech. In 1999 I'd been out on the Fens and on my way home I pulled in here."Do you mind if I take a photograph?" I asked politely. "You might as well" the proprietor said from his easy chair "Every other f----r does". I loved it. The handwritten signs shouting out like a market trader, the impromptu temporary feel to everything. Just look at that wheel-less Allinson Wholemeal Bread van sitting there. I had to buy big onions at £1.50 a stone, and think I said as a parting shot "As the French onion seller said as he sold his last onion: that's shallot". I can't be absolutely sure but I think he said "F--k off."
I drove by last April with the redoubtable Ron Combo, and noticed that it was not only closed but very substantially burnt to the ground. Anyway, if you'd like a signed A4 glossy print I'll knock one out (as they say) for twenty quid. Just drop me a line.
Having mentioned Fitton Hall in my last blog, I thought it would be churlish not to show it. At first glance I did think it was a derelict railway station, until I realised there was no sign of a platform, no sign of a dismantled line on my map, and in any case no earthly reason why there should be a station of this size here. No, it's just a simple Victorian house, not particularly pretty, but with some attempt made to liven things up a bit with courses of blue brick layered into the stock red. There's also been an attempt to produce a little bit of grandeur with the porch, into which is set a stone roundel with the name and date- 1869. But I think it has immense charm, possibly because of its comparative airy isolation, and because the cart horses and orange slurry tank lend it a certain Animal Farm ambience. The name Fitton comes from 'fit' meaning grassy banks on a river, and 'tun' for settlement. It's perhaps interesting to note that the River Nene is only a short distance away, but before the great reclamations of land around here nearby Wisbech was a port actually on the coast, (there's a section of old sea bank in the next village of Leverington). So previous manors here at Fitton End would have looked out on to the muddy reaches of The Wash, now over ten miles away.
