Surprise View

LETJOG PEAK No 44: Cold Overton Park, Rutland (197 metres)

Walk Date: Tuesday 22 August 2023

Rutland, at a mere 147 square miles, is the smallest of the provincial English shires and has just 40,000 inhabitants, but whilst this most modest of counties may lack something as far as rankings are concerned it certainly makes up for in terms of identity, aesthetics and historical interest. Metropolitan counties aside, my visit to Oakham is the first occasion on my LETJOG Peaks journey where I have been able to walk directly from the county town up to the shire peak, and this certainly adds some sense of unity and wholeness to the day’s exertions. And what an eye-opening walk this circuit proved to be, with the gentle countryside providing new interest at every turn of the path.

It has been a couple of decades since I have visited Oakham, and so I arrived this morning early, with some time in hand to explore the centre and to gain a little understanding of the history and tradition of this pleasing town. I was joined once more, first over a coffee and then on our twelve-mile ramble through the fields, woodlands and villages of rural Rutland, by close friends Rick and Eleanor. You may have seen the three of us together in some of my earlier Blogs, and on the trail today we certainly enjoyed the warm sunshine and some light-hearted banter as we meandered our way through the gentle Rutland countryside.

Perhaps my heading today ‘Surprise View’ is pushing the point a little; Rutland is perhaps not spectacular from a topographical perspective, but Oakham, the villages and the countryside itself all convey a unique identity and a subtle splendour that have been quite a revelation to me. This smallest of shires is yet another area where I have done very little walking previously, and being well within a couple of hours’ drive from home this is something of an omission on my part; the rural county, with its buildings of ironstone, brickwork and thatch, and it’s pastures and fields of green and gold is easy on the eye at this time of year, and full of interest, particularly in and around the affluent historic villages through which we passed. I intend to return soon! My thanks, as ever to Rick and Eleanor for joining me again, for their lively conversation, and for feeding and accommodating me at their home in neighbouring Northamptonshire this evening – great to see you again on this latest, and memorable, stage of my LETJOG Peaks journey!

Given such a small headcount, my research into ‘Rutland music artists’ didn’t achieve a great many ‘hits’, but one local singer-songwriter, Sam Carter did ring a bell, and it is his song title ‘Surprise View’ that I have borrowed for my Blog heading today. Carter hails from Rutland, and he achieved his breakthrough in 2010 when he was announced as ‘Best Newcomer’ at the Radio 2 Folk Awards, with the station’s Mike Harding hailing him as ‘one of the most gifted acoustic guitarists of his generation’. The artist’s self-composition ‘Surprise View’ is a moving song (unique, in my experience, for including ‘walking boots’ in the lyrics); it appears on his 2020 album ‘Home Waters’ that has been praised for evoking ‘rich emotional landscapes’, whilst Carter himself describes the work as ‘a search for a sense of belonging and stability in unfamiliar territory’.