Like the moon's voice, the waves were awful

[ashlyme]

At the weekend we walked down to Hampton-in-Arden. Most of the way there is by verge - nobody seems to believe in the non-driver out there. A white bicycle chained into the hedge turned out not to be thrown away but a memorial to a cyclist killed in an accident. At Hampton you can smell the fields - but not as much you can smell the money. It's posh, even for this town. We sat in an enclosed green and watched a mated pair of buzzards fly close overhead. Then wandered into the grounds of Hampton Manor. It's a greystone Victorian Gothic pile, a (closed for now) hotel. I only had eyes for its clocktower. It's octagonal, carved on three sides with the signs of the zodiac; below them floral symbols and foliate heads. Even the clockface was a thing of beauty, chocolate-brown, bronze, and old gold, with Nouveau-ish numerals. I wanted to live in it, line the place with books and plants, old deep sofas. There was a kids' book programme on ITV in the 70s/early 80s called The Book Tower, hosted by Tom Baker amongst others; this should have been the place where they filmed it. We walked round the back of the manor , where I cooed over a blue-steel sundial (inscribed with something like In and about, above, below/tis nothing but a magic shadow-show... Victorians did like their sundials a bit emo) before we got politely evicted. I can't say I was embarassed about trespassing; more like gleeful. I'll give you an idea about how posh Hampton is: there is a bloody coat of arms outside the village shop. Yeah. In the plaster facade above that some 1800s craftsman had inscribed many-petalled flowers and ammonite-ish spirals (these wheel-like symbols were carved everywhere). Wasn't too surprised to find The Daily Mail uppermost in the paper signs. (The zodiac tower feels like a case for Valentine and Howard's The Connoisseur; I would like to set Kate and Furze on the village if only so one of them can call the inhabitants half-timbered Hitlers.) The village church is in the same crenellated style as the manor (I found out later my aunt's first husband was the lodgekeeper there). The clock on it would be handsome on another church. Some nice powdery old lichen on the gravestones - I was half-expecting Neighbourhood Watch to press the Prole Alert button while I had my hand lens out examining it. Sepia-stained-glass images of farmhouses in the porch. I remembered having a Monday night pint with a friend there in the early Noughties, when they had bellringing practice - sometimes I'd cross the road just to sit in the lichgate, smoke and listen. I have mixed feelings about having all that privilege down the road from me. But I'd still live in the tower.

Comments

[cmcmck]

Long time since I visited Hampton in Arden.

You should come over our way some time when things are sane once again!