Hereward Way: Oakham to Empingham

Oakham

Oakham is the county town of Rutland, Britain's smallest historic county. It is a bustling, friendly place with many shops and cafes to visit, and still hols markets on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

Go a short distance away from the main road and you reach streets of beautiful limestone houses and cottages, many topped with roofs of Collyweston stone or thatch. Much of the stone comes from nearby quarries that utilise an outcrop of the same stone that has made the Cotswolds so famous.

The town is well served by busses and also has a train station that is served by trains running from Stansted to Birmingham via Cambridge, Peterborough and Leicester. Its traffic problems have thankfully been significantly eased by a recent bypass of the A606 to the east of the town.

Oakham Castle

Oakham Castle is situated on a mound right in the centre of the beautiful market town. It is best approached through the imposing gateway that leads from the Market Place, and is well worth a visit. Only one building is still extant, the late twelfth-century Great Hall. This was never part of a true castle, but belonged to a fortified manor house.

The inside of the castle is often open to the public; entrance is free. The Norman architecture of the interior is highly reminiscent of a church despite its secular origins, with columned aisles supporting a broad roof. A vast number of horseshoes in varying sizes hang on the walls: an old tradition says that a Peer of the Realm visiting the town for the first time has to surrender a horseshoe to the castle. The oldest was given by Edward IV in 1470, and it is fascinating to see how the sizes of the horseshoes vary according to the importance of the particular visitor.

The Peterborough to Leicester railway line

In 1848 George Hudson and the predecessors of the Midland Railway opened a line from Syston, to the north of Leicester, to connect with the Northern and Eastern Railway at Peterborough. Coal in the area was increasing in cost and traders were keen to see a railway that would reduce their haulage costs. Sadly the full opening of the line was delayed due to troubles with a major local landowner called Lord Harborough, who wanted to prevent the railway from opening across his estate, Stapleford Park. There were fights between his staff and the railway's surveyors, leading to a fight called the 'Battle of Saxby'. Because of these troubles, the middle stretch of the line between Melton Mowbray and Stamford opened later than the western and eastern ends.

The line nowadays is surprisingly busy, carrying not only passenger trains to the east of England, but also containerised freight traffic to the east coast ports. It also provides a useful resource for walkers on the western half of the Hereward Way.

Rutland Water

The post-war industrial expansion in Britain led to a shortage of water in many areas of the country. Many of the northern towns could be provided with water from reservoirs in the Pennines, but the situation was harder further south. In the end it was decided to build a large reservoir in the twin valleys of the small River Chater.

Construction of the 35-metre high dam started in 1971 and filling started in 1975; it took four years to fill the full 3,100 acre reservoir. The completed reservoir has an unusual shape - it stretches a little over four miles from the dam in the east to the western tip near Oakham, and is a maximum of two and a half miles from south to north. However a spit of land containing the village of Upper Hambleton stretches across most of the middle of the reservoir, splitting the mass of the water into northern and southern limbs.

The village of Nether Hambleton was flooded by the reservoir, as were several farms. Also lost was much of the estate of the Earls of Ancaster. Their main house, Normanton, had been demolished before the Second World War, but several buildings including the estate's rather grand private chapel remained. This was in the way of the reservoir and plans were made for it to be demolished. However a campaign led to the church being filled up to the window level and the rest surrounded by a bank and causeway connecting it to the shore. Thus what was to be lost became a feature, and the church is now a museum. The church is now the signature image of the reservoir.

The reservoir has a 25-mile long cycle path running around it, which includes a visit to the peninsula of Upper Hambleton. Bikes can be hired from the visitors centre on Whitwell or Edith Weston. The reservoir is also very popular with sailors, and boats are often to be seen out on the waters.

Empingham

Rutland may be Britain's smallest county, but it is jam-packed with picturesque villages. Empingham is no exception; the small village sits on the A606 immediately to the east of the dam that contains Rutland Water. It is dominated by the 13th Century St Peter's Church, which seems perfectly formed from the outside with a tall spire. Unfortunately like many churches it got renovated in Victorian times, a process that all too often destroyed period features and made churches simulacrums of each other. Perhaps this is being unfair to this particular church which still has maintained a lofty, spiritual air. The village has a pub and a shop.

Hereward

Hereward the Wake is one of the historical characters whose deeds have been exaggerated through the fog of years. After William the Conqueror defeated King Harold at the Battle of Hastings, he went on a long campaign to try and subdue his restless kingdom. Because of their waterlogged nature the Fens proved hard to subdue, and Hereward first came to prominence by sacking Peterborough Cathedral in 1070 (perhaps in tribute to his Viking roots). A year later the Normans besieged his army on the Isle of Ely, only gaining access after a number of years by bribing someone, perhaps a monk, to tell them the safe dry route onto the island.

Hereward is one of the little-known heroes who has captured the national imagination from time to time, and some of his deeds were incorporated into later Robin Hood legends. This is perhaps strange as he was a Viking rather than an Anglo-Saxon, although the two peoples had mostly merged by the time of the Norman invasion. Indeed several kings of England, such as the infamous Cnut (Canute) were actually Viking.