Smalltown Boy

LETJOG PEAK No 6: Arbury Hill, Northamptonshire (225 metres)

Walk Date: 1 April 2023

How wonderful to enjoy my first rain-free LETJOG Peak with two of my oldest friends, Rick and Eleanor Hewitt, amongst the rolling fields of their lovely backyard in rural Northamptonshire! Our start point was the pleasing village of Badby, just south of Daventry, and our destination summit, Arbury Hill, the ‘County Top’ of the shire.

Our oblong anti-clockwise ramble from Badby to Arbury Hill, and on through Charwelton, Fawsley and Badby Wood

Northamptonshire is unique amongst the counties in England in that it has two joint-equal high points, namely Arbury Hill and Big Hill, both standing at 225 metres and with a prominence of 102 metres. The latter is not accessible to the public (and in any event is a fraction lower by some accounts) and so, for us, the former Iron Age fort atop Arbury Hill it was. Here is how our walk panned out:

The honeyed tones of the sedimentary ironstone outcropping in these parts of the East Midlands lend a special charm to the local buildings and villages, as here in Badby

Outside the village, an early climb up Arbury Hill through pastureland

Nearly there, up through stands of gorse; the earthworks, square in plan around the hilltop, mark the remnants of a defensive barrier dating from Iron Age times

The flat and indeterminate summit of Arbury Hill within the ancient fortifications was used in 1784 for triangulation purposes, as one of a number of suitable locations in an attempt to calculate the exact diameter of the earth: this northward view from the top shows Big Hill, the twin peak of the county, whilst westward vistas extend on a clear day to the Malverns

For a while our path followed parallel to the embankment of the former Brackley to Rugby section of the Great Central Rail Line that fell victim to the Beeching Axe of the mid-1960’s: the embankment itself was made redundant in 1897 by the building of a two-mile tunnel, serviced by five air shafts, by the Catesby Estate whose then owner had tired of trains passing through his domain

Passenger trains continued to use the Catesby Tunnel until the closure of the railway in 1966; then in recent years the tunnel has been adapted for use as a world-leading testing facility for aerodynamics and vehicle performance under controlled conditions.

Looking across the ha-ha at Fawsley Hall . . .

. . . and over the meadow to the 13th century Church of St Mary the Virgin . . .

. . . that I just about managed to squeeze in to!

In Badby Wood, with the bluebells awaiting their moment . . .

More mud on our return approach to Badby

So ended a lovely walk, replete with historic interest and the rural beauty of emerging springtime. Thank you to Rick and Eleanor for putting me up and for feeding me last night, and for your company on today’s memorable hike through a Top County!

Music-makers required at The Maltsters at Badby, where we enjoyed a late lunch after our exertions

‘Smalltown Boy’, my Blog heading for today, is taken from the title of the debut hit in 1984 for synth-pop group Bronski Beat, featuring the falsetto vocals of Jimmy Somerville. Fellow band member Richard Coles (subsequently more widely known as the writer, presenter and Reverend) hails from Northamptonshire, born into a prosperous shoe manufacturing family whose prospects, along with those of the industry more generally, took a dive in the 1970s due to cheaper foreign imports. Instead of joining the failing business Coles moved to London as an aspiring musician, joining Bronski Beat in 1983 before forming The Communards with Somerville two years later. The duo’s success in this latter format was cemented by their covers of ‘Don’t Leave Me This Way’ and ‘Never Can Say Goodbye’ ahead of their split in 1988. Coles went on to become a Church of England minister, as well as hosting BBC Radio 4’s ‘Saturday Live’ programme and appearing regularly on various TV panel shows. He is currently touring an ‘Audience With’ show chronicling his unique life, and he appeared in Berkhamsted in January whence Rachel and I enjoyed a most entertaining evening.

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