Saxon and after: St Andrew, Brigstock

My tactic of getting off the bus at the first stop in a small town or village and walking into the centre paid off at Brigstock because I found St Andrew's by following a path beside a stream.

It is not Brixworth, but it is still a fine church with Saxon remains and a similar circular stair tower. You can read all about the architecture in its Grade 1 Listing.

Inside (besides the monument to a Liberal cabinet minister) there is a carved wood screen that is said to have come from Pipewell Abbey.

Outside in the churchyard there is a magnificent tree. Does anyone recognise the species? I assumed it would be a yew, but the leaves are wrong for that.

RAF Desborough

When writing about my walk from Desborough to Pipewell and Wilbarston, I mentioned that I cut across the corner of the disused World War II airfield RAF Desborough. That airfield is worth a post of its own.

The map suggested there should be a path from the airfield down to the village of Wilbarston. Standing on the runway, it was not obvious where the path was. The best candidate was a hedge, with the blackthorn blossom showing prominently.

When I reached it, there turned out to be two hedges either side of what was obviously an ancient lane - almost a hollow way. It had obviously once been metalled and there were what looked like the remains of wartime buildings or security precautions.

Sure enough, it took me down to Wilbarston, passing beneath the village's bypass with a bridge that was almost a tunnel.

When it reached Wilbartson my lane turned out to have the name Rushton Road. This suggests it is an ancient route - Rushton is miles away, beyond the high ground and down in the Ise valley. In the Middle Ages it was one of the most important towns in Northamptonshire: today it is only a village.

This ancient road and its hedges must have been severed when the airfield was built. A reminded of the forces that were unleashed to defeat Nazi Germany.

But I also wanted to write about RAF Desborough to pass on this anecdote from the BBC site WW2 People's War, which also brings home the realities of the era:

I was at RAF Desborough driving a crash ambulance. I was on duty one night when I heard an explosion which I knew from experience was a plane crashing. I told the medical flight sergeant who contacted the control tower and they knew nothing about it. I went outside and saw a glow in the sky from the crashed plane. The M.O. then told me to go and find the plane. We drove into Desborough and nearby was an American bomb dump. The gates were all open ready for us and right at the far end of the bomb dump we found the crashed plane. It was a Wellington bomber.

Everyone on board was killed. Searching the wreckage I found an officers cap which I knew belonged to the Chief Flying Officer of the camp. Apparently he wasn’t on a mission or anything but had gone up on a “jolly”. His body wasn’t discovered for some time, until after the debris was cleared in fact.

Hi wife stayed with his coffin all night in the church, not knowing that his body wasn’t actually in the coffin. The coffin only contained sandbags to give it weight. Indeed, the sandbags were still there when the coffin was buried at his funeral later. I don’t know if the family know to this day.

Some nights later I came across the medical officer and the flight sergeant digging a hole to bury his remains on the road junction. The site of this unmarked grave still exists today. I assume that his marked grave still contains the sandbags.

From Desborough to Wilbarston via Pipewell

You left me in Desborough, exulting over another tin tabernacle.

After that I walked to Pipewell (pronounced Pipwell). I last made this journey at least 30 years ago, but I can remember planning the route to pass what used to be an ironstone quarry in the innocent hope that there might still be traces of its railway system to be seen. That quarry turned out to have become a tip full of stinking rubbish and squawking gulls.

On Saturday I could not remember exactly where that quarry had been, but I suspect it was under one of the new estates of desirable houses being built on the outskirts of Desborough. Given the depressed state of the town centre, as far as it has one, I doubt that the inhabitants will shop there.

Pipewell, some three miles away along a busy back road, was the site of a Cistercian abbey was founded in 1143. The last of the ruins disappeared in the 18th century, but the earthworks in a field beside the road and the ironstone Pipewell Hall nearby give you a good idea where it was and where some of the stone went.

The only church in Pipewell now dates from the end of the 19th century and is pictured above. It is described by a website devoted to fighting proposals for a wind farm:

Pipewell church is reputably the smallest church in the diocese of Peterborough, it was originally the old school house where the teacher had a house and one small classroom.

The house was part of the Hambrough estate and in 1880 Mrs Hambrough who resided in Pipewell hall decided she would like a church in the village and through public subscriptions £600 was raised to convert the house into a church.

The East and West wings were added to the existing building to form the shape of a cross and it was named Pipewell Abbey Church. At a later date the name was changed to its current name of Abbey church of Saint Mary.

Today it looks like a cross between a lodge house and a folly as much as it resembles a church.

I sat on the village green opposite the church and decided where to go next - reaching Pipewell had exhausted my planning. The lane north through a remnant of Rockingham Forest looked inviting, so I took it.

Although stretches of the road were unfenced, for the most part the woods were regularly protected with signs saying "Private Woods Keep Out". How Lord Bonkers' old friends the Elves of Rockingham Forest get by these days, I do not know.

(On reflection, those notices may have been aimed at a particular soldier with a bad reputation in the area.)

Eventually I reached a T junction. I turned left and, after taking in a corner of the old RAF Desborough, I found an old lane that led to Wilbarston and its pub The Fox.

The bus service between Corby and Market Harborough is something of a mystery, but one turned up to take me home exactly as promised by the timetable on the village noticeboard.