Welland Valley Rail Partnership calls for Rutland reopening

A short stretch of reopened railway line in Rutland could reconnect the communities of Kettering, Corby, Stamford, Peterborough together with Luffenham, Whittlesey, March and Wisbech.

That's the claim of the Welland Valley Rail Partnership, which describes its plans like this:

The largest piece of infrastructure is a 3.5 mile section of track between Seaton and South Luffenham. This section is a small part of the Rugby & Stamford railway, opened in the 1800s, closed by Beeching in the 1960s.

This track is required because trains coming from Corby in the south can’t turn right at Manton junction to head towards Peterborough ...

There are 8 houses on the historic trackbed, but we have identified two alternative routes that would avoid any houses. 

The next stage of the project would be a feasibility study to evaluate these alternatives running past South Luffenham, along with the viability of the entire project.

Watch the amazing dancing straw bear

I saw the straw bear dance and caper, led by his keeper and followed by musicians playing his own loping tune.

So I wrote on Saturday night after attending Whittlesey's straw bear festival. In this short clip from the 2015 festival you can hear the turn for yourself.

What I have not worked out is why the bear sometimes has two little bears with him and sometimes only one.

I suppose with all that dancing he must get peckish.

Whittlesea station: Alight for the straw bear

Whittlesey does not just have the straw bear: it also has a rather desolate railway station with staggered platforms, a signal box and a level crossing. It also favours the older spelling of the town's name.

As Wikipedia says:

All the original station buildings are long demolished, and only the two platforms remain. Unlike many railway crossings, the gates are not automatic and are still opened and closed by hand by a person who sits in a small hut-like building by the crossing.

You can see the station in more prosperous days in the Peterborough Images Archive.

At least it did a good trade on Saturday.

Watching the straw bear dance through Whittlesey

Last year I read an account of the Straw Bear Festival in Whittlesey that described the bear as seeming to draw the winter sun along behind him. I had to see that for myself.

But there was no sun today - just a damp, Fenland cold that enters the bones. I shouldn't be surprised if I have caught the ague.

Yet I am pleased I went to Whittlesey (the festival website prefers the older spelling Whittlesea), which is a small town near Peterborough.

I saw the straw bear dance and caper, led by his keeper and followed by musicians playing his own loping tune.

And it turned out that Whittlesey, like Play School, has a big bear and a little bear.

Beyond that the day is a festival of dancing. There were the inevitable morris dancers, but also clog dancers (almost military in their noise and precision) and mysterious molly dancers.

The festival is a modern revival of a Plough Monday tradition that was suppressed around the turn of the 20th century.

I am all in favour of inventing ancient traditions: the Victorians did it all the time.

Anyway, the history page on the festival site will tell you more about this. It also appears from Twitter that there was a stabbing during the event.

I got out just in time.