John Clare Cottage 6.9.20This year is the 200th anniversary of poet John Clare's first
publication. On the 20th July 1841, he left the asylum in Epping and
walked 80 miles to Northborough. I intended to follow in his footsteps
and undertake this walk; now140 miles as it traverses motorways and
circumvents private land. This is the story of my walk in prose and
poetry including one published in 'The Meeting'.
Out of Epping
Epping Forest as ‘common land’ is highly accessible and
can be approached from any compass direction.
An exemplar of ‘being unenclosed,’ without walls or fences;
No convoluted journey to search for pedestrian gate or stile.
Enter from the Twittens of Loughton, Ivy Chimneys of Theydon
Or the footpaths converging on the Copt Hall cerviduct.
Chime over Bell Common, or jump over Chingford
Find your own route and walk in your own gait or style.
Make time to visit every feature, greet every tree,
Relax up Pole Hill - or from the resident artist- buy a CD;
singing of past antecedents, until one day, you may find yourself
at Lippitt’s Hill staring at the plaque ‘John Clare lived here’,
here in this asylum, until he broke free.
Then it will be your desire to find a route ‘Out of Epping’,
far more difficult to navigate, crossing reservoirs and smoking business parks
motorways, Roman roads, pathless roads and pathless paths:
March the Prime Meridian; lope the Lea Valley; Greet the Great Ouse; Inspire along Icknield Way.
At first, a lack of seriousness prevails, as hotels are closed.
Requiring a return to source each night, cuts down the time to march.
The body desirous only of selfies and landscape photographs;
Tempting to play with found items with friends, like a riding crop in Bury wood.
Or divert to red forts at Rye House; globes at Great Amwell; or
Google the bewildering concept of a village at Enfield.
But with each leg more distant from London’s comforts,
Great Anglia rail and Thameslink become my helpmeets.
A compass essential and water quite precious
Limited signage and no shops along Ermine street.
As time gathers time - rivals, you may find
No time to photograph those relics of the industrial past
and palaces built to pump water
along the New River cut, that vast canal.
Only just time to pick and pocket
an acorn from an oak in Hertford.
Plucked from a corrugated, caravan park of a modern industrial estate
Not a broad-bodied, breath-leaved wood.
The damp Clothall road came at me in the nick of time,
It was eerily dark when I met old Pesthouse lane.
Metaphorical tumbleweeds loomed cheerlessly.
Relieved me indeed, as we always did have this need of you, Baldock.
But the next day, there was no time to see if Natter’s bats
were returned to Ashwell’s Gothic church,
Only time to remember their finder, my late friend
Who always wore black, smoked (a lot) liked cars and cats.
No time to sit by the ford at Sutton
Or read about the Packhorse bridge
No time to fill my pipe at Potton
As John Clare required (as I don’t have one).
No time to watch linnets flick about sun-dried wheat ears
But I gave 3 cheers, to hear they were there.
No time to pay regard to ancient artefacts
Exposed in fresh turned farmland soil.
No time to taste the roadside apples of Sutton or
Marvel at their size in Awalton.
But I would have preferred to never have gone
Through the dark abyss that is Huntingdon.
Totally buried under the A14 or is it the A41
In daytime you find the streetlights left on
No wonder pilgrims trespass, * farmland footpaths are almost gone, gone, gone.
Although, Huntingdon, I won’t step on your toe
regarding the beauteous water meadows.
Nationally revered by the long-expired Daniel Defoe
Who was altogether our hero’s hero.
At St. Neots I thought it a good time to eat ‘but grass’
In memory of our poet who had ‘nought to eat’.
But not at Paxton pits where:
2 people and a dog go- walking;
2 people and a dog go- walking;
2 people and a dog go- walking.
Oh Stilton, gateway to paradise
Bell Inn provider of breakfast delights
Do not doubt,
I will return to roll your cheese.
Stilton, where I lay a-bed in Fen Lane all night wondering….
If the Mill Lane of Awalton connected to Mill Lane at Milton
if it’s severed by the Nene I would be undone.
Have a functional bridge please, please.
Stilton, gateway to five villages, where small things delight:
The pop, whistle crack of starlings perched over a stream;
A beetle ravaged cow pat and deer crossing paths, crossing paths;
A simple exchange with the keeper of the village bench,
And the prescience to rub in sun cream.
Stilton, you may have bought me time, but that was insufficient
to attempt to understand why the Hurn road is disappearing
under a puzzling juxtaposition of freight and passenger main line
Jeopardising the view of the A15, where are inscribed John Clare’s beautiful lines
‘I love to walk these fields, they are to me
A legacy no evil can destroy
They, like a spell, set every rapture free’.
So, at least to Maxey cut where we used to play
The only homage I could pay, was to sit on your bridge
and eat sandwiches
No time to feel epic, near the end of my pilgrimage.
As from John’s Northboro’ cottage, I now need to rush
There was only just time - courtesy of the Delaine bus
to visit Mum in Walton (the first since March)
when began all this damned Covid fuss.
John Clare rested on stone heaps
But we sat in the garden on director’s chairs
to a symphony of geraniums and bizzy lizzies
Mum and her yellow cone flowers, sparkling like Perseids.
*The Trespass was written after being found trespassing at H. Hall gateway to the Greensand Ridge.
The Trespass
I think it a bit rude, to come all this way
If you don’t mind me staying.
Just to rest my poor feet upon your good seat
By getting in without paying.
I will turn my cheek, when I see that squirrels on heat
Have been caught in the Ginn on the fencepost.
The Fenn traps on the golf course, are totally your business
Just contrary to ethics and the terms of your lease.
Of course, animals get in the way, when farmers make hay
And the results in the field can be carnage.
Leverets, partridge and skylark, easily, ousted by a dog’s bark
flailed in the tines so bloody and savage.
A friend made her first soil, in an old farmhouse at Theydon,
when there were no electronic gates at the end of the lane.
For a birthday present, I took photos of her homestead,
while the Little Gregory’s were away.
Despite a battle hard won, for land at Norbiton Common,
Enclosure is not a one - time process.
When our neighbourhood paths gone and Gated estates en plan,
Every time I leave home, I will trespass.
Three Days
Our forest network of downy threads
Are compacted by your feet.
Ouch, we are constricted by
the weight of your heavy clouds.
Fungus gnats scatter as you approach
and save us from the hole-makers.
As stillness returns, they lay eggs
and larvae consume us into doilies
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