A Stroll Down Memory lane
Wed 15 Apr, 2009, 19:20 pm
It was a lovely day today and there I was stuck indoors cramming for an exam on Friday. No, I am not some young early twenties student type, in fact although I don’t consider myself old, I have memories that go back more than half a century. Today was promised to be the best one so far this year, although from my window it was decidedly cloudy and quite breezy outside. My internet connection started to slow at about 2 pm so I thought “That’s it, I am off for a walk” it would clear my head. I decided to take a walk that I had not done since my childhood, as separate parts yes, but not as one long walk for more years than I care to remember.
I started off by crossing a busy arterial trunk road and found my way to a gap in the hedgerow opposite a row of old terraced houses, now desirable ‘town houses’. I remembered the old gate that used to be located here that led down past a farm set in green meadows. That farm once belonged to my great, great, Grandfather, but it is now the site of municipal football fields, I intended to cross the fields towards a pool that I used to fish in as a boy. I was met by a rather terse sign informing me that I was trespassing on council land, well as I used to play around here as a child and my ancestors used to own the land, I felt quite entitled to ignore their sign.
The ground had been landscaped many years previously to give a flat area for the football pitches, so I took the high ground of the embanked earth that rose up towards the road. I was now walking behind and parallel to a small wood that we used to gather conkers in, I stopped to take a break and looking down I saw a fan shaped area of marshy ground lying between the two football pitches.
The marshy ground, the old farm stood where the far goalposts now stand and the 'Cow Lane' would have followed the tree line at the back
I remembered an old sunken cow lane that ran from the farm (that would have been on my left) and around the far side of the football fields. This lane disappeared into a small wood then emerged to skirt the pool I was heading towards, alas that section had long gone under the developer’s diggers and a new housing estate now stood there. I wondered how many of the new residents would know that their streets and roads with names like Ashen Hough Close, Fox Gardens, Harecastle Road etc. were all named after farms in this area, all sadly are now long gone.
As I looked at the marshy ground a long lost memory stirred itself in my mind. I looked around me and yes I was right! I knew the reason for the marshy ground!
Many years ago, we would cut through this meadow at a place that we called ‘Little White House’ for indeed that was what it was, a tiny house built from stone with tiny windows, you would not have been surprised to see Hansel & Gretel or the Wicked Witch coming out of the tiny door. It was surrounded by a small garden and had a burnt lime white-wash on the outer stone walls, but more importantly, it had a spring. This spring never dried up or froze over and many of the terraced houses that I mentioned earlier would use this as a reliable source of water in an emergency or in severe cold weather when the water pipes could sometimes freeze up.
So now I knew the answer to the marshy ground, long ago the little house had disappeared and so had the farm, the local council had purchased the land and proceed to level and landscape the whole area. They never were aware of that spring at the top of the hill and probably wonder why the ground is so boggy. So as time goes by it is possible that I am one of the few people to know the spring’s whereabouts, hidden under the new hillside, slowly leaking water out of the hill as if by magic.
The site of the 'Little White House' and it's hidden spring.
I continued my walk and made many more observations along the way, but that is enough for now.
Thank you.
