Leicestershire

The Frank Whittle Memorial roundabout in Lutterworth

On our leisurely drive back from London, we paused in a delightful Leicestershire village called Dunton Bassett. Inside the ancient village church, we chatted with two elderly women who had lived their entire lives in Dunton Bassett. They pointed at the medieval stone font and said that they had both been christened there and one of the women said that both of her parents and her grandparents and her three children had also been christened in that same font. I find something very attractive and natural about that kind of belonging to a place. It is a dying phenomenon in the modern world where lives and families are often spread like seeds on the wind.

Dunton Bassett parish church

After Dunton Bassett, we stopped at Narborough where I was hoping to buy an old cast iron pub table from a company called Trent Pottery. In the event the tables turned out to be modern imitations so we left and carried on to Leicester. Round the outer ring road and then onwards to a town we had never visited before - Melton Mowbray - famous for Stilton cheese and pork pies.

We bought a handmade pork pie from Ye Olde Pork Pie Shoppe and had a delightful traditional afternoon tea in Mis B's Tea Shop on the High Street - Victorian tea pot and a strainer for the tea leaves. Through the window we could see the impressive tower of St Mary's Church - especially praised by the architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner.

The Regal Cinema - Melton Mowbray

"The Generous Briton" pub in Melton Mowbray

Fourteenth century alabaster tomb in St Mary's Church - Melton Mowbray

Caption on shoppe - Melton Mowbray

The town's free guide sheet claimed that the expression "To paint the town red" originated in Melton Mowbray:-

...a tale dating from 1837. It is said that year is when the Marquis of Waterford and a group of friends ran riot in the Leicestershire town of Melton Mowbray, painting the town's toll-bar and several buildings red.

That event is well documented, and is certainly in the style of the Marquis, who was a notorious hooligan. To his friends he was Henry de la Poer Beresford; to the public he was known as 'the Mad Marquis'. In the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography he is described as 'reprobate and landowner'. His misdeeds include fighting, stealing, being 'invited to leave' Oxford University, breaking windows, upsetting (literally) apple-carts, fighting duels and, last but not least, painting the heels of a parson's horse with aniseed and hunting him with bloodhounds. 

After two hours, it was time to leave Melton Mowbray and head back Up North, through Broughton Astley, Nether Broughton and the curiously named Ab Kettleby. Earlier we had stopped briefly at Frisby on the Wreake. Such evocative names! Onwards to Nottingham and thence to the M1 which leads to the land of milk and honey - Yorkshire, my Yorkshire. Ahhh!

View across a rape field to Frisby on the Wreake