Week 14: Leek Wootton to Leicester — A Crooked Trail or Two

What a week it has been!

Christi and I and the pups are all safe and sound, and so grateful for that… but many friends were evacuated from their homes this week as the Cameron Peak Fire grew to be the largest wildfire in Colorado history. As of Thursday morning, October 15, it was at 164,140 acres and 56% containment.

That happened because on Wednesday, with the high winds and dry conditions, the fire ballooned in size. The skies were so darkened by the smoke that it looked like twilight all day long. On Friday, Estes Park Trail Gazette photographer Brett Rios captured these photos of the Cameron Peak Fire peeking up over the edge into Estes Park, as well as a crew setting up a fire-spotting station (the solar-powered camera can be operated remotely, to observe the fire’s progress).

Cameron Peak Fire peeking over the ridge into Estes Park. Photo by Brett Rios, published in the Estes Park Trail Gazette

Somewhere on the scene of the Cameron Peak Fire on Saturday, October 17, photo by Larimer County Sheriff Justin Smith.

Some of the ash that rained into our yard. It’s unsettling to hold them, still warm, even though we’re 10 miles from the fire.

Setting up the solar-powered observation camera. Photo by Brett Rios, published in the Estes Park Trail Gazette

Later on Friday evening; Estes Park’s ominous view of the Cameron Peak Fire. photo by Brett Rios, Estes Park Trail Gazette — Later on Friday evening; Estes Park’s ominous view of the Cameron Peak Fire. Photo by Brett Rios, Estes Park Trail Gazette

Somewhere on the scene of the Cameron Peak Fire on Wednesday, October 14, photo by Larimer County Sheriff Justin Smith.

Today, after a huge wind event over the past day and a half, the fire sits at 203,253 acres, 62% contained… earning the Cameron Peak Fire the terrible distinction of being the first wildfire in Colorado history to surpass 200,000 acres.

With the ongoing days of raining ash and smoky air, my virtual run from Land’s End to John O’Groats continues to be a virtual row, from the safety of my garage. So, hoping the wind will die down here in northern Colorado, let’s get back to rainy Great Britain…

We begin this week making our way north along the River Avon. Soon, we reach Kenilworth Castle, which was founded in the early 1120s by Geoffrey de Clinton, Lord Chamberlain and treasurer to King Henry I, one of William the Conqueror’s sons. It was expanded over the years, and local streams were even rerouted to create defensive moats.

Kenilworth Castle (photo by Jaszmina Szendrey)

In its long history, the castle has found itself at the heart of many dramatic events. In 1266, the castle found itself under siege for six months as the baronial forces led by Simon de Montfort sought to hold out against those of King Henry III, one of the longest sieges in English history. Kenilworth was also the scene of the removal of Edward II from the English throne, and the French insult to Henry V in 1414 (during which ambassadors from the Dauphin of France Charles VI presented him with a gift of tennis balls – an insult implying that he was only a young man, and thus ‘should have somewhat to play withal, for him and his lords’), apparently provoking the campaign that led to the Battle of Agincourt (the subject of Shakespeare’s play Henry V).

Readers of Walter Scott’s 1821 novel Kenilworth might also associate the castle with a drama between the Earl of Leicester Robert Dudley and Queen Elizabeth I. In that book, Dudley is Master of the Horse to Elizabeth, a favorite courtier of hers, and someone who is so ambitious that he conceals his marriage from the queen, as a way to continue to cultivate her affections. By the end of the book, Dudley’s wife is murdered under suspicious circumstances, Dudley is disgraced and disinherited by his father-in-law, and nobody lives happily ever after.

Elizabeth being welcomed to Kenilworth Castle by Robert Dudley in 1575. Illustration by Ivan Lapper.

As with most stories, this one is more complicated than that… but the way that Kenilworth Castle’s ruins ignited Scott’s imagination is a reminder of the powerful feelings these historical sites can evoke. So just as we thanked Nat Fiennes for his conservation work on Broughton Castle when we passed by in week 12, it’s worth tipping our hats to Sir John Siddeley, whose 1932 purchase of Kenilworth Castle helped to preserve it for us, and for future generations.

Just outside Coventry, Lunt Roman Fort is a partially-reconstructed Roman fort that demonstrates Roman ingenuity and artifacts. Sited near the junction of two major Roman roads, the Fosse Way and Watling Street, excavations indicate that the site originally functioned as an army camp occupied by a complete Roman legion (5,500 troops) around 60 AD, amid a conflict with the native Iceni people of East Anglia. Lunt is also the only Roman site in Brittania to have evidence of a “gyrus,” a round pen the Romans used to train horses.

At Lunt Roman Fort, visitors learn about how as the Romans secured territory, they would typically build a quick fortification out of turf and timber, then reinforce the structure in stone if needed.

The gyrus at Lunt, reconstructed on the original gyrus site in the 1970s, using technology of the Roman time.

I find it interesting that this site was only recognized and set aside in the 1930s, when large quantities of Roman pottery were found here. And the discoveries continue: Canadian students found evidence in 2001 that Saxons continued to occupy the site after the Romans left. The layers of history that continue to be uncovered will keep scholars busy for a long time.

As we make our way into Coventry, there are a lot of interesting sites to see, including the Lady Godiva clock, a cuckoo-style clock constructed to allow Lady Godiva to perform an hourly ride through town, and Coventry’s 15th-century Doom mural, recently restored within Coventry’s Holy Trinity Church, which dates from the 13th century.

In the 1400s, whether you could read or not, the meaning of the mural of Christ ushering souls to heaven or hell would have been quite clear to you, as you exited Coventry’s Holy Trinity Church.

We’ll make another quick stop at St Mary’s Guildhall, construction of which began in 1340. The building was meant to be a gathering place for merchant guilds that Coventry’s businessmen formed, which helped to run commerce in the region. It also served as a place for members of the guild to entertain special guests. One story claims that the meal served here to King James II was so lavish that the table collapsed under the weight of all the food and fine dishes.

The Great Hall of St. Mary’s Guildhall, Coventry

It’s made me very happy to write about these intact old buildings (and to learn that there are others I could’ve mentioned here too!) because before this week, my only association with Coventry was through the verb the city inspired: “coventrize.”

It means “to destroy an entire city in a single bombing raid.”

Downtown Coventry, after the November 14, 1940 bombing raid. Photograph H 5600 from the collections of the Imperial War Museums. — Downtown Coventry, after the November 14, 1940 bombing raid. Photograph H 5600 from the collections of the Imperial War Museums.

As the Second World War began, Coventry was a regional manufacturing hub of about a quarter of a million people, where many of England’s munitions factories were located. It also was the site of factories that manufactured cars and airplane engines, making it a target of the German Luftwaffe. So starting in August 1940, Coventry was the site of numerous bombings. But even those raids, which had killed nearly 200 people, couldn’t prepare the city for what was coming.

The night of November 14, 1940, Coventry was the site of a concentrated attack from the air by more than 500 bombers in a mission code-named “Moonlight Sonata,” with an aim of destroying Coventry's factories and industrial infrastructure. And it was quite effective: about a third of the city's factories were completely destroyed or severely damaged, with another third badly damaged. 4,300 homes were destroyed, and much of the city center was destroyed. About 600 people were killed, and another 900 sustained serious injuries.

Fortunately, the effects on war production were only temporary, as a lot of the city’s industrial companies - thinking an air attack like this might come - had already opened “shadow factories” in the suburbs that were already churning out munitions. And there was such motivation to get the damaged factories back online that repairs were completed in just a few months.

Sadly, one of the buildings that was mostly destroyed in the Coventry blitz was Coventry’s cathedral.

Coventry’s cathedral, built in the late 14th century, immediately after the November 14, 1940 blitz.

After the war, a competition was held to choose a design for a new cathedral, and the winning design came from Scottish architect Basil Spence. Rather than moving the cathedral’s ruins, rebuilding on the same exact site and erasing all evidence of the cathedral’s destruction, Spence’s plan was to stabilize the cathedral’s ruins as they stood, and allow them to remain in place, serving as a reminder of the destructiveness of warfare. The new cathedral he designed would sit alongside the ruins, linked visually through the fact that both cathedrals were built of locally quarried Great Gate sandstone.

The stabilized ruin to the left, with the new Coventry Cathedral on the right.

Though certainly modern, the interior evokes gothic architecture.

A stunning stained glass wall surrounds the baptistry. A rock from the holy land anchors it.

The foundation stone of the new cathedral was laid by Queen Elizabeth II in 1956, and the cathedral was consecrated in 1962. Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem, composed specifically for this occasion, was premiered in the cathedral. The War Requiem is a huge piece in every respect, calling for a large scale orchestra, a smaller chamber orchestra accompanying three soloists, a choir of adults and also a boys’ choir. Today, when it is performed, two conductors often work together to lead the 220+ musicians involved.

For Britten. the piece represented a protest of the very idea of war. And to embody that protest at the premiere itself, Britten wanted the soloists to hail from Russia, Britain and Germany. Accordingly, he invited Russian soprano Galina Vishnevskaya, British tenor Peter Pears, and German baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau for the vocal solos.

But just ten days before the consecration, Vishnevskaya was denied permission to leave the Soviet Union so English soprano, Heather Harper, stepped in to perform. (About a year later, Vishnevskaya recorded the work with the original cast.) It also had been hoped that Britten himself would conduct the premiere on his own, but due to a shoulder injury, Meredith Davies conducted the symphony orchestra, while the composer conducted the chamber orchestra.

Britten rehearses for the consecration of Coventry’s new cathedral.

Using a ruin as a memorial, and allowing it to remain standing, reminded me of the town of Oradour-sur-Glane in France, so I found myself wondering how common it is, in the aftermath of war, to use ruins for this public pedagogical and memorial purpose. It turns out that WWII alone generated many such sites that remain today. I’ll have to do some more reading to learn more about how common this practice was before that.

Finally, before we arrive in Leicester and end the week, we pass through a curious site near the town of Stoney Stanton: the most frequently dived maritime wreck in the UK.

“What?" I hear you thinking. “Aren’t we in Leicestershire, at one of the few points on this island that isn’t close to an ocean?!” And that is of course true.

But just as landlocked New Mexico’s Blue Hole is one of the most popular places for people to become SCUBA certified in the USA, Leicester’s Stoney Cove serves that same purpose in the UK. In the year 2000, a tugboat (with its engine and any other polluting parts removed) was sunk with great ceremony in this flooded granite quarry. In subsequent years, a helicopter, a bus, an armored personnel carrier, and other boats have joined it. Now, more people qualify as scuba divers here than any other place in the UK, and Stoney Cove is also used to train first responders like police divers.

Right about now, as ash falls from the sky here in northern Colorado, the cool clear waters of Stoney Cove could not look more inviting.

We’ll begin next week in Leicester. ‘Til then, have a good week, everyone!

Fancy a pint?

Unlike the Naylor brothers, who pledged to “abstain from all intoxicating drink” during their 1871 walk on this route, I’m not at all opposed to popping into interesting-looking pubs along the way. Here are a few along this stretch of the journey.

Near Kenilworth Castle, the historic Virgins & Castle pub has offered food and drink to the community and travelers passing through since 1563.

In addition to its historic setting and its local beers on tap, the pub offers lots of vegan options, and for those avoiding alcohol, it takes pride in offering thoughtfully-composed nonalcoholic mocktails and kombucha on tap.

Coventry’s oldest pub, the Old Windmill, dates back to 1451, and the building still has many of its original features, such as inglenook fireplaces and timbered rooms.

The pub prides itself on offering excellent service and local ales, an attitude that continues to earn it accolades, even into its 569th year.

Just north of Coventry, we might stop for a pint at Longford’s Greyhound Inn, which dates from the early 1800s. The canal-side atmosphere here is relaxed and scenic, and in addition to offering locally brewed beer, the Greyhound has an extensive range of wines and ciders from around the world.

The pub also has a lot of vegan options, so I could’ve included it below as a good option on the road to Leicester.

Sustenance for the Hungry Vegan

A yummy plant-based meal served at the Pod Cafe

Coventry is home to two exciting socially responsible ventures. The first, known as The Pod, is a public-private partnership that helps people coping with serious mental health issues to learn skills and gain professional experience.

The Pod includes a range of businesses, and the cafe it hosts serves a 100% plant-based menu.

And if what you’re craving is southern-style soul food, served up “vegan style,” head straight to Dirty Kitch.

Specializing in fried “chick’n,” mashed potatoes, slaw, and other southern favorites, health food it is not… but however else it may be decadent, at least no animals are harmed in the process!

The second Coventry restaurant engaged in doing more than just feeding customers is the Rising from the Rubble Cafe, under Coventry’s cathedral. This cafe helps people who were formerly homeless and/or addicted to drugs, and helps them gain work experience and stability in their lives.

The menu includes a lot of vegan options, and when you dine here you’re supporting a business and an important community service.