Tuesday 8 February 2011

Lode, Cambridgeshire

Oh dear. I shouldn't judge the Victorians but you've got to be an aficionado to find anything to appreciate here; it's soulless and depressing but, and this is a redeeming feature, it was open.

ST JAMES. 1853 by Rohde Hawkins. Stone, with a W bellcote and a big timber porch. Windows lancet and also Dec. - Embroidered silk ANTEPENDIUM, C18, Italian.

St James (2)

LODE. Here where the pastures glide into the Fens was the landward end of the Bottisham Lode, the waterway for the fenman’s barges. Here it left its cargoes, and gave the village its name. The village has a group of thatched cottages, and, hidden in trees, the fine Elizabethan house called Anglesey Abbey, with a vaulted room remaining from its Norman days.

The village has long been one of the homes of the Broughtons, and it has a thatched village hall with golden walls given in memory of Urban Broughton MP, who was granted a peerage but died before he could receive it, so that it was conferred on his son, who became Lord Fairhaven. In his memory his widow and children gave the village hall, and in memory of his sister they gave to the simple 19th century church two great silvered candlesticks richly wrought with leaves. They also gave to the nation the meadow of Runnymede by the Thames, scene of the sealing of Magna Carta.

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