by Nick Corble
*
A cook had been recruited for my breakfast the next morning, and I was well into my rant about the state of the county’s footpaths when she informed me, just too late, that she was a local farmer’s wife. Somewhat indignantly, she assured me that her husband always sprayed the footpaths on his fields, and I can only assume it was his handiwork I was walking along shortly after. They were beautifully laid out, just the right width and exactly where the map said they should be. He was a paragon, an example to the rest of the county, his work a fitting testament on which to leave it. Just to top things off, I was privileged to see a hare scamper past in full ‘there’s a bunch of mad greyhounds chasing me’ mode, its powerful hind legs building up a remarkable speed.
When I’d set out some principles for my walk, I’d decided against acquiring a portable GPS, naïvely reckoning a map would suffice, and failing that, the map apps on my phone. My experiences on the previous stage had disabused me of this idea, and following my blog on the troubles I’d had, I’d taken up a suggestion to download the excellent Pathwatch app from The Ramblers. Not only does this allow the user to see where they are against a footpath map, but it also includes the facility to report blocked paths and dodgy signposting. Revenge was going to taste sweet.
Unfortunately, I’d also acquired a new phone, and the two hadn’t wanted to play together the previous day, which was one of the factors behind the decision to stay with the roads. I’d fixed this in the pub by employing the classic fix for anything computer-related, deleting it and reloading, and it was now working again. Its value wasn’t just in indicating wrong decisions, but also in providing succour, reassurance that a decision made was the right one. My hope was the app would minimise any mistakes and allow me to keep as close to my daily itinerary as possible.
It immediately guided me out of Staffordshire without mishap, bringing me out onto the road that marked the border. As if to confirm matters, a large sign welcomed me to Warwickshire, although to be honest I think it was aimed mainly at motorists. And, it seemed, some motorists had taken aim at it, for it was peppered with buckshot, with a bullet-sized hole at the bottom of where the ‘C’ and the ‘K’ met.
On the other side of the road, on the Warwickshire side, a clean and prominent fingerpost pointed me down a bridleway. Everything was going to be all right. I celebrated by drinking a bottle of water, most of which immediately seeped through onto the back of my T-shirt.
7
Searching for Middle England
The sheer undiluted joy of walking down a path and being absolutely certain you are going the right way is one of walking’s under-recognised pleasures. Just by doing the simplest of things like erecting wayfinder signs on the edges of fields away from a road makes such a difference. Warwickshire, take a bow! This also meant I was now making good progress, even if by the time I entered the small village of Warton my trousers looked like I’d been competing in a bog-snorkelling contest. This was no mean feat in what had so far been one of the driest early summers on record, and was the result of having to walk quite literally through a rape field that the last farmer on the other side of the border had ‘forgotten’ to spray.
My target that day was Atherstone, a historic town between Tamworth and Nuneaton, four miles inside Warwickshire. In one of many coincidences, my route for the next few days straddled the border between this county and Leicestershire. It also followed the route of the A5, the old Roman Watling Street, as well as the M1 motorway. This wasn’t too surprising given a straight line is the shortest distance between two points. Those Romans were no slouches when it came to roads and shortening distances. Equally, canals and railways would feature strongly in the coming days.
Before Atherstone however, there was a massive solar array to negotiate. Generating a total of 15MW, this most modern type of farm had recently been acquired by a joint venture which offered local residents and communities the opportunity to buy bonds with a 6 per cent annual return, which on the surface at least, came across as quite a good deal. More immediately, I was faced with a problem, or rather two. The first was, my path cut right through the array and there was no obvious way in. The second was sheep. Again. Four of the sheep grazing amongst the panels had escaped from the wire fence surrounding the array, and were chewing contentedly by the edge of the field where I needed to go.
A Land Rover appeared on the other side of the fence and a man in a blue boiler suit got out and beckoned me over. I could see security was tight and sensed a difficult encounter coming up. He didn’t look the type you could enter into an academic discussion about public rights of way with. I wandered over.
‘You the shepherd?’ he asked.
Yeah, as if shepherds regularly walk round with large rucksacks on their back.
‘Only there’s some need rounding up.’ His tone suggested that even if I wasn’t the shepherd, maybe I’d like to have a go.
I disabused him of this notion and got on my way, ironically towards the sheep, which promptly ran off, getting even more lost. I got to the end of the long field and turned left, heading for the next corner on the assumption I could pick the path up there. I could, but on reaching the corner spotted a fenced-off path right through the array. The footpath had been respected, cutting a diagonal (of course) path through. How had I managed to miss it?
Wandering through Atherstone later that evening, I got a positive sense. It felt compact and with some interest. Primarily a market town, Atherstone also used to be known first, as a centre for making first leatherwork and cloth and, later, for its hats, in particular felt hats. At its peak, the town’s hat-makers employed 3,000 people, which was not an inconsiderable number. Atherstone hats were particularly popular amongst West Indies slaveowners for supplying protection from the sun for their slaves working in sugar plantations. With the abolition of slavery, plus cheaper imports and less people wearing hats in general, the industry declined. The last factory, Wilson and Stafford Ltd, finally closed as recently as 1999.
Since then, Atherstone has benefitted from its position on the A5, which has also helped to define its main street. This is both long (with a disappointing lack of imagination it’s called Long Street,) and, it was good to see, is occupied mainly by local shopkeepers, rather than the anonymous chains, although there is, of course, a Costa Coffee. Tiles on a wall showed three hands, pointing towards London, Holyhead (the top left tip of the A5) and nearby Daventry. Just off Long Street there’s a small market square, and here Atherstone has its own re-purposed red telephone box, although in this case housing a defibrillator. What this says about the relative excitements offered by Harlaston and Atherstone it’s hard to say.
Back in the nineteenth century the town benefitted from the arrival of the railways (it still has a station) and, before that, the canal, in this case the Coventry Canal. After checking in to my hotel, this is where I headed next. Traffic on the water was leisurely, as tended to be the case, made all the more so by a short flight of locks. By the bridge stood the old Wilson and Stafford factory, now an empty shell, although some enterprising locals had found entertainment in breaking in and spraying graffiti tags. Although our acquaintance was brief, I liked Atherstone, both for its history and for the sense it enjoyed some kind of community. It had been various things over the years, and although it couldn’t be defined by a single industry any more it appeared to have settled into just being itself.
Wandering back to my hotel, I couldn’t help but notice a profusion of lemon-yellow ribbons tried in bows around all the bollards that lined Long Street. I asked what it was all about at reception, wondering if a lost soul had been found. The truth was sadder than that, yet at the same time quite uplifting.
‘Oh, they’re there to mark the anniversary of someone who was murdered in the town a year ago,’ the receptionist told me, continuing before I had time to take this piece of news in. ‘It’s typical of the town really, it’s a very close-knit community.�
�� I asked him what made him say that. ‘I’m from Tamworth,’ he began, ‘but every time I come here I get the sense that everyone knows everyone else. Many of them went to the same schools. They come to this hotel for family events.’
It was interesting that he’d picked up on the same vibe, even if it was less comforting to know that someone had been murdered in the high street I’d just wandered down.
Something else Atherstone is known for is its Shrovetide Ball Game, and although this is a community event, friendly it ain’t. As its name suggests, this takes place every Shrove Tuesday. It involves a heavy ball (too heavy to kick) made of thick leather, to which ribbons are attached. If anyone is able to grab one of these ribbons, they can be exchanged for cash, but the real object of the game is to be the last person hanging onto it. The ball is thrown out of the window of what is currently Barclays Bank at 3pm and the game goes on until 5pm, although the ball can be deflated and hidden anytime from 4:30. In the previous century, the game was played between two teams from Leicestershire and Warwickshire, but these days it’s just a free-for-all. There is only one rule: no one can be killed. Which was something, I supposed. It sounded more anarchic than the Horn Dance, more of a participant rather than spectator sport.
*
The following day offered the potential, in every sense, to be pivotal for my walk, for it was just outside Atherstone, in the neighbouring county of Leicestershire, that the middle of England awaited. I was aware that there were various contenders for this title, with the most widely recognised being Meriden outside Coventry. A tall sandstone pillar has been erected there claiming the centre, in much the same way that colonial explorers used to claim countries with flags. Some say this pillar is over five hundred years old, throwing legal precedent into the mix, but in truth it’s probably nearer two hundred.
Another claimant is Weedon Bec in Northamptonshire, which was chosen during the Napoleonic Wars as the place furthest from the sea, and therefore likely to be the last place Old Boney would reach should he undertake a successful invasion. Such was the level of perceived risk that a royal getaway was built there, along with a canal to speed the King on his way (if anyone can speed on a canal), along with a huge barracks and arsenal, presumably on the basis that if we were going to go down, we’d go down with a bang.
As I’ve already described, the matter was settled once and for all by the Ordnance Survey in 2002, when they settled on a point in a field located on private land belonging to the Lindley Hall Farm, just outside Fenny Drayton.14
On paper, it looked a short walk from Atherstone to Fenny Drayton and then onto the farm, but in the event it was anything but simple. A herd of cows stood in the first field I came to, drinking lazily from a water trough. Twenty bovine heads looked up as I crossed a stile into their territory, and they didn’t go back down again. I began to walk, my mind on other things: would I be able to get to see the plaque that signified the middle of England? Had the farmer received the letter I’d sent beforehand? Had I been right not to try to phone them first? Why were these cows following me in a line?
Two or three of the cows in particular were keen to make my acquaintance. Was it milking time, I wondered. Did they think I was leading them to the milking parlour? Did farms still have milking parlours? It seemed a weak theory. These were very young cows, at least I thought they were cows. I thought it was impolite, and perhaps impolitic, to turn around and check.
I upped my pace slightly, causing the cows to up theirs, before they paused. Maybe they’d lost interest? No, they were taking a run-up. Until then, I’d never realised it was possible for a cow to jump up in the air, cross their legs mid-jump and quite literally, hit the ground running. I was in trouble. I tried soothing noises and putting my palm out towards them. This had some effect and they kept their distance, even if this distance was only around ten yards or so, ground I’d recently discovered they could cover quicker than I could.
I was never so glad to see a stile, even if it was three fields away and the cows followed me all the way. If my initial theory was right and they were ready for milking, the farmer must have been mystified by their absence when he turned up to collect them. That was his problem; mine was getting my heart rate back to normal. I hoped these cows didn’t belong to Lindley Hall. Antagonising the farmer might impact my chance of seeing his plaque. Later, I was to come across a Twitter account called Killercows. I recommend it.
After the feisty Friesians I’d have taken anything, even another field of nasty rape. This was just as well, as this is what I got. The farmer here had sprayed a meagre path but it had become overgrown. Getting through it was like wading through a shoulder-high ocean current, with the added bonus of ankle-high shoots to trip over and tug at my laces. I limped into Fenny Drayton and rested on a convenient park bench. One last chance to make that call. No, I’d trust to fate.
The entrance to the farm was obvious to find, largely because there was a sign saying its name, painted in the shape of a tractor. Beyond it stretched a long drive, which I began to walk down. Just as I was approaching its end, an elderly woman appeared from a small bungalow, accompanied by a loud barking dog.
‘Can I help you?’ she enquired, and I explained my quest.
She didn’t look convinced, but when I said I’d written in advance she deferred to her daughter-in-law, who’d taken over the farmhouse. She let me continue and I felt like I’d passed the first test. Having turned a corner I walked up to the farmhouse, and then around another corner into the farmyard. I was now deep into potentially hostile territory. I could see that the front door was open with people chatting around a kitchen table inside, one of whom I presumed to be the daughter-in-law.
I approached a gate to the sound of another angry dog. I waved and introduced myself, repeating the letter story. She knew nothing of it. We were now in no man’s land. I explained my mission and how critical reaching the centre was to my project. I was even wearing a Diagonal Walking T-shirt and baseball cap as evidence of my earnestness.
‘I don’t know,’ she hesitated. ‘We got fed up with people coming to see it. People used to turn up at all hours unannounced. Some turned up at 9:30 at night.’
I sympathised and reminded her again of the letter, allowing us to bond over the failings of the Royal Mail. She was cracking, I was sure.
‘We have kids here,’ she added.
‘Yes, I saw the bike,’ I retorted, although quite how this was going to help matters I didn’t know, other than building empathy. I looked longingly over to where I thought the relevant field was. Maybe it was the cow eyes (something I’d recently become only too familiar with) that did it, but she caved.
‘Oh go on then.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, ‘I just want to say I’ve been there and take some photos,’ again not sure if that was helping.
By then however, she was walking towards the corner of the yard, and for a moment I wondered if she was personally going to take me to the spot. Instead, she pointed out a field boundary and a tree where she thought the plaque was. It clearly didn’t feature largely in her life, other than when strange, unkempt, muddy-trousered, rucksack-carrying strangers turned up and asked to see it.
I made my way to where she’d pointed, and after around five minutes spotted the plaques I’d seen in postings on the internet. Plaques in the plural, because there was more than one, in bronze, with black indented lettering. The first simply stated that ‘In 2002 the Ordnance Survey defined this spot as the Geographical Centre of England’, and gave the co-ordinates and grid reference. The second was erected as recently as 2013 and gave the names of a Councillor, the Chair of the Hinckley and Bosworth Tourism Partnership and someone who gave his title as Cultural Services Manager, a wonderful designation that meant very little. The logos of the Tourism Partnership and the council were included in the corners, along with thanks to the Farmer family. That’s right, the farmers were called Farmer.
I paused for some selfies, took one final look around and left. On the way back, I tried to spot both the current and former farmer Farmers, but there was no one to be seen. Not even a barking dog. It was a rather low-key way to conclude this seminal moment, but I took it. I’d done the best I could and was glad I hadn’t phoned on ahead and that the letter hadn’t arrived (or been opened), as it would have been so much easier to turn me down remotely. By turning up in person I’d taken a risk, but it had paid off.
Later research suggested it was doubtful that my cow eyes had been the decider, or that the killer cows from earlier belonged to the farm. The farm had been a victim of the foot and mouth epidemic early in the century and was now entirely turned over to arable. This research also revealed that the farm got its name from a hall that had owned the land roundabouts since the sixteenth century, the final iteration of which was demolished in 1925. An aerodrome occupied the land in 1943, but was disbanded shortly after the war. Where once planes had taken off and landed then became the proving ground of the Motor Industries Research Association. All of which went to show that it’s a mistake to assume that things are always what they seem.