No running today, and it being very cold it was very hard to get started today. But eventually, after buying the usual load of uninspiring lunch things for work this week, I struck out for Hawton, across the fields, with the hope of doing a little geocaching there too.
The wind had dropped today, so it was a rather more pleasant day to be out but still cold and crisp. Not enough sun to make the sundial in the cemetery work, but nice all the same. I thought I might run into some winter thrushes out in the Grange Road fields, but there was nothing apart from a heron investigating the freshly ploughed field. Meanwhile I listened to 6 music, happy as ever.
My mother always asks me where do I go, and why. I tell her it doesn't really matter. I love to listen to the radio while I'm outside.
Hawton Church, with its carved faces on either side of the doorway, perhaps Thomas Molyneux and his other half, is the site of a geocache, a so called church micro which are usually placed nearby rather than on the church itself. I narrowed my search down to a park bench just the other side of the wall, but yet again I lucked out.
I'm a a bit hopeless at this new game of mine, alas.
Still, the church always looks splendid, I wish I could catch one of their little markets in summer.
Just along from the church, I noticed that the bizarre flock of guinea fowl I'd come across before was clustered in the entrance to a large house off the main road...aha, an ornamental flock. They are very strange looking birds, with huge (and tasty?) bodies relative to the tiny head.
Two were sat on the gate like edible sentries.
More mysterious goings on were taking place in a beet field on the way back into town. A couple of chaps were looking at a laptop mounted on a sort of trailer with prongs, towed by a quad bike. It was probably some farming related mundanity; the more excitable part of me hoped it was an archaeological geophysics investigation.
After that, it was off to Rumbles for a well earned and very large cup of tea!
Si
Showing posts with label hawton church. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hawton church. Show all posts
Monday, 13 November 2017
Sunday, 8 January 2017
Running to Hawton Church
Thought I'd bring you a bit of proper old history today, utilising a route that takes in some of Newark's Civil War History too.
Indeed I ran one of my usual routes, across the Grange Road fields, but halfway along took the left turn that leads to the Middle Beck.
It was proper cross country running today, lots of mud. A little egret looked at me from a distance, wondering who this other stupid wader was. I decided to avoid his contempt by taking the right turn along the Beck.
The Middle Beck actually marks the boundary of the Civil War encampment that General Poyntz and his Roundhead chums set up at Hawton Village, about two kilometres from the Queen's Sconce away to the North where Royalist cannons were situated. Within the fortification the church of All Saints would have already been standing, built as it was in the 13th-14th centuries.
The grounds were enchanting, for the simple reason that the grass was so soft and springy, it was almost like a bog but without the wetness. It was delightful, it really was. On inspection, this seemed to be because it was full of a sort of green lichen of some description. In turn the gravestones, some of them so old as to be illegible, were a home for other lichens of various shades from coppery green to a rusty orange.
The whole thing reminded me of the cover from REM's classic "Murmur" album that Guy Garvey was joy of joys playing on his 6 Music show at that very moment.
The church itself is famous for is carvings, from the gargoyles on the tower to the sculptures of two very royal and Plantagenet looking characters on either side of the porch. Looks too kingly to be the local landowning worthy - wonder if its Henry IV?
I ended up doing 8.5km in the end, a decent little run indeed!
Si
All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 07.01.17
Indeed I ran one of my usual routes, across the Grange Road fields, but halfway along took the left turn that leads to the Middle Beck.
It was proper cross country running today, lots of mud. A little egret looked at me from a distance, wondering who this other stupid wader was. I decided to avoid his contempt by taking the right turn along the Beck.
The Middle Beck actually marks the boundary of the Civil War encampment that General Poyntz and his Roundhead chums set up at Hawton Village, about two kilometres from the Queen's Sconce away to the North where Royalist cannons were situated. Within the fortification the church of All Saints would have already been standing, built as it was in the 13th-14th centuries.
The grounds were enchanting, for the simple reason that the grass was so soft and springy, it was almost like a bog but without the wetness. It was delightful, it really was. On inspection, this seemed to be because it was full of a sort of green lichen of some description. In turn the gravestones, some of them so old as to be illegible, were a home for other lichens of various shades from coppery green to a rusty orange.
The whole thing reminded me of the cover from REM's classic "Murmur" album that Guy Garvey was joy of joys playing on his 6 Music show at that very moment.
The church itself is famous for is carvings, from the gargoyles on the tower to the sculptures of two very royal and Plantagenet looking characters on either side of the porch. Looks too kingly to be the local landowning worthy - wonder if its Henry IV?
I ended up doing 8.5km in the end, a decent little run indeed!
Si
All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 07.01.17
Sunday, 29 March 2015
The Lungwort Bears Buzzy Fruit
After two hours in the cricket nets, distinguishing myself by batting equally badly both left and right handed, I immediately took myself out into another apocalyptic wind to search for...well, anything. I had no goal in mind, other than avoiding a soaking.
Indeed as I left my flat, I had no idea of where I was even going to go. But surveying the sky revealed it had a fair bit of blue, and this reassured me enough to head out on the Owl Road.
And Owl Road that I nearly got blown off the moment I headed onto it.
Some brown game birds were startled at my approach and headed off into the scrub at the northern end of Hawton Works, but I couldn't identify them at a distance but were probably female pheasant, which seem to be around in huge numbers this spring.
No matter which way I ran, the wind always seemed to be in my face.
In Hawton, the sun came out, skirted by grey veils of rain falling from darkly threatening clouds. Far too early in the year to make hay while the sun shone, but on the Hawton lungwort, someone was at work.
One of my contributors here told me to keep an eye out for hairy footed flower bees on this plant, but not today. This - I think - was a worker early bumble bee, one that had a middling day judging by its pollen sacs, but was going to mine this lungwort for all it was worth.
To see a bumblebee this time of year is still noteworthy, but mainly you see queens around at the moment and I don't think this was one. It even allowed me to get so reasonably acceptable photographs, before calling time on the encounter and heading off towards the churchyard.
While I headed for home.
Si
Indeed as I left my flat, I had no idea of where I was even going to go. But surveying the sky revealed it had a fair bit of blue, and this reassured me enough to head out on the Owl Road.
And Owl Road that I nearly got blown off the moment I headed onto it.
Some brown game birds were startled at my approach and headed off into the scrub at the northern end of Hawton Works, but I couldn't identify them at a distance but were probably female pheasant, which seem to be around in huge numbers this spring.
No matter which way I ran, the wind always seemed to be in my face.
In Hawton, the sun came out, skirted by grey veils of rain falling from darkly threatening clouds. Far too early in the year to make hay while the sun shone, but on the Hawton lungwort, someone was at work.
One of my contributors here told me to keep an eye out for hairy footed flower bees on this plant, but not today. This - I think - was a worker early bumble bee, one that had a middling day judging by its pollen sacs, but was going to mine this lungwort for all it was worth.
To see a bumblebee this time of year is still noteworthy, but mainly you see queens around at the moment and I don't think this was one. It even allowed me to get so reasonably acceptable photographs, before calling time on the encounter and heading off towards the churchyard.
While I headed for home.
Si
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| Veils of rain at Hawton |
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| Bumbling on the lungwort |
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| Not much pollen yet |
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| Get stuck in lad! |
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| Still busy |
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| Tree house |
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| Squirrel on the pergola |
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| Hawton church and the weather front |
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| Entrance to Sconce Park found this very fresh smelling flower on display |
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