Easton on the hill: the May 2023 walk in words and pictures.
Pictures and rambling comments by Tony Attwood. Apologies but no one else wanted to.
Sometimes you just know what a starting point of a walk is going to be like, and thus it was with Easton on the hill, because the name of the settlement gave it all away.
And actually to be fair Easton on the hill is not only on a hill, it is in the north-eastern tip of Northants, which of course means that it is also at the top of the map, and might be called Northeaston on the hill. I have written to the council instructing them to change the name forthwith, to avoid any confusion.
Anyway, name or not, the weather was gorgeous, which is to say it wasn’t raining and hats were in a certain demand for those wishing for a spot of shade as one and all meandered our merry way.
Easton on the hill is of antiquity and thus we find the proper commemoration of those who have walked this way before, although perhaps in looking at this picture I am not sure how many of these people were actually ramblers.
But it was a very solemn and exceptionally well cared for graveyard, at a time when one does sadly find a number of which that cannot be said.
Moving on we found buildings of all shapes and sizes, some of which were quite unexpected and quite often for which the purpose could not be defined.
By which I mean, a tower that is only one and a half stories tall is quite frankly rather odd and somewhat difficult to comprehend.
I was all for taking a closer peek but our walk leader called us ever onwards and thus opportunity had I none.
Which is probably why the building is there – to attract those on a walk who will thus spend their time looking and pondering but finding that there are not only no answers but also by the time one gets there one has forgotten the question as well. For, it simply is.
We also found what appeared to be a giant Christmas tree growing and passers-by reliably informed me that each December his was dug up and sent to Norway as a commemoration of … well, I am not sure that I followed the detail at this point, probably ensuring that the village had an annual Formula 8, 200 metres race or something along those lines.
The village had a population of just over 1,000 in the last census but they didn’t come out to say hello which was a bit of a shame.
And I should mention All Saints Church dates from the twelfth century and has been enlarged and altered over the centuries. The church is a listed building but I was not able to find the list.
The commander of HMS Lutine, Captain Lancelot Skynner, came from Easton, where his father John was the rector for many years. The frigate Lutine sank during a storm in the West Frisian Islands on 9 October 1799, whilst carrying a large shipment of gold, but I didn’t see any of that either.
Now I know my descriptions of these walks are all pretty academic and not suitable for anyone without a GCSE in footpaths, which of course I obviously have, but we are nothing if not a jolly crowd as can be seen by these pictures. And indeed as you can also see we have plenty of members who do not want to “keep to the path” as they say in many a religious text, and thus insist on rambling “off piste” to use the technical term.
Indeed there is much explaining to be done along the way as to the nature of the environment, including of course the fact that the head office of the Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply (CIPS) is located at Easton House in the village, close to the church. We were all pleased to note that.
But like so many Northamptonshire villages this one is particularly well known for its humour, and it is more than likely some of these facts that I have gathered are no more than mere myths. Or misses.
As indeed was the tale of the local car park which actually didn’t exist at all save in the imagination of the person who stuck up the car park notice.
However, Wikipedia did tell me that in the 13th century this site was indeed one of the first car parks in Northamptonshire and was actually used by King John (1166 – 1216) when he was making his way with his crown jewels past this very spot en route to hvae a jolly good Wash. Or something like that (I may have missed one or two details along the way.
But anyway we did eventually find our way back home, and apparently, no one was lost “en route” (as we rambling people like to say) and we did indeed find ourselves back where we started, which for those of us who had parked cars thereabouts was something of a relief.
And I thought you would like to know as a final point that Easton on the Hill is represented in the House of Commons by the Member of Parliament for Corby, and is thus also my local MP, and a jolly decent cove he is, actually getting an Act of Parliament to have one extra word added to it during the pandemic at my request, even though I didn’t vote for him. That’s actually true, but I bet you can’t guess what that word was.
I suspect he’ll lose his seat (which is of course rather careless) next time around, but that’s how things go.
If you have been, thanks for reading. I know my meandering nonsense doesn’t do it justice, but it was an immensely enjoyable walk and well worth taking.