Classic Driving Days tour 10 Rutland and the Fens
We were amazed at the diversity of the the things we saw along this 112m Rutland and the Fens tour. See our photos below.
Texts in "speech marks" are taken from the book Classic Driving days
Starting at Burghley House
Parking is free and much of the extended grounds can also be walked for free including through the gatehouse. "Burghley House is Britain's most opulent mansion of the first Elizabethan age." And if that is not enough reason to go it is also home to the British Motor Museum.
"Leaving the splendour of Burghley Park, a celebrated landscape designed by Lancelot 'Capability' Brown, we enter the town of Stamford, constructed almost entirely of locally quarried Lincolnshire limestone, bestowing immense character and continuity to the buildings. Such distinction assured Stamford's designation Britain's first Conservation Area in 1967"
Beware Highway men! a gallows spans the old Great north Road in Stamford
"Gentle country lanes lead to a surprising discovery at Clipsham where one hundred and fifty yew tree are exquisitely clopped into fantastical topiary, lining the former carriage drive to Clipsham Hall" Free parking suitable for motorhomes N52°44.479' W000°32.939' at entrance.
"Our route meanders pastorally to Empingham, a model village created long before its environs were flooded by Rutland Water." A small garage sells classic cars. See the sister tour book of the UK
Rutland Water. "The reservoir has the largest surface area of any in England and is also important recreational facility and outstanding wildlife. We had a picnic here overlooking the water, and a Muntjac deer!
"The road descends placidly from Uppingham to the broad Welland Valley spanned by a spectacular railway viaduct, whose eighty two arches and thirty million bricks march boldly across the flood plane of the river Welland."
"... beyond Stamford, the river remains a recurrent companion. From here the river slows in pace as it enters the Fens, where the river becomes a massive drainage channel." "...as the peatlands dried out the land contracted, resulting in many areas of the fens now being below sea level..."
"Driving across Deeping Fen, the road makes an abrupt twelve-foot accent, just as we meet the River Welland,... ... Look either side and the land is markedly lower than the river level." You pass many long passing places, perfect for watching the birds and dragonflies.
"The river has been deepened and straightened and where it and a tributary once flowed through the centre of nearby Crowland village, now there remains the great curiosity of am fourteenth century, landlocked three arched bridge, left high and dry."
"Crowland is also home to the atmospheric ruins of a Benedictine Abbey, the north nave being only surviving part, which has been preserved as the local parish church." Free parking here for church visitors.
Classic Driving days ISBN:9781738423606 has 19 more wonderful driving tours spread all over the UK. This blog follows tour 10.
