History oozes from its comely golden stone like butter from a toasted muffinWhat’s going for it? You could set a period drama in Oundle. Something starring Penelope Wilton or price Rylance. With bodices,doublets and candle-snuffers. Something for a Sunday night on the sofa, after a supper of buttery toasted muffins. That’s Oundle. Comforting cosiness in three dimensions. I’m sure all sorts of evil has gone on in this former, and former town on the Nene. It’s smothered in history which I imagine having soaked into its golden stone like butter into the muffins. Fotheringhay Castle lies just outside,where Richard III was born (boo, hiss), or where Elizabeth I imprisoned and executed Mary Queen of Scots. Though its stumpy foundations provide little to flesh out that evocative narrative. Such harrowing history has evaporated,and all we are left with to judge the town are its bones. Such comely bones though: coloured like a sunset, and formed into Georgian town houses, or 17th-century cottages and medieval gables. It’s like an Oxbridge in miniature,its university: the eponymous private school, whose buildings are folded so thoroughly into Oundle’s fabric you are never fairly sure if the town is hosting the school, or vice versa.
The case against There’s a spirited cultural life,with a lit fest and the World Conker Championships, but it’s small, and so some might find their attention flags.
Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com