Day 59 - Looking for Tolkienesque inspiration

“The road goes ever on and on, down from the door where it began. Now far ahead the road has gone, and I must follow, if I can.” –J.R.R. Tolkien

When you walk around England, you soon gain an appreciation for why so many wonderful writers come from here. Beyond ancient towns, they surely gained inspiration from the very land itself. You pass ancient Oaks, wide and knotted, with faces seeming to stare out at you. You hear movement coming from the ferns covering the floors of dark, damp forests. Streams appear out of nowhere, and sparkle as the water tumbles over thousands of smoothed rocks, only to disappear under fallen branches and leaves forming long, hidden bridges.

J.R.R. Tolkien was inspired by the Cotwolds and surrounding areas when he wrote The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. In Moreton in Marsh, as we've mentioned in an earlier post, The Bell Inn is thought to be the inspiration for the Prancing Horse pub. On today's walk from Moreton in Marsh up to Stow on the Wold we couldn't help but think of how the many places we walk through may also have held inspiration.

We left Moreton in Marsh through a part of town we had yet to explore, passing St David's Church. It is from here that we hear church bell practise on most Wednesday evenings and then regular bell ringing on Saturdays and Sundays. We passed through some pretty housing before coming to a huge garden allotment (I'll write more about those in another "work day" blog). Beyond this, you are soon into very level farm land -- which makes for easy walk ... for now. Today's path crossed straight across several recently ploughed (or plowed in Canadian), and you can't help but feel a bit guilty as you step over plants struggling to grow.

The first village we were searching for today is called Evenlode. This is a name that sounds like a desitination in LotR, don't you think? We passed over a low bridge spanning what looked to be an almost hidden creek. This is actually the headwaters of the Evenlode River eventually joining the Thames River near Oxford. When we came to the sleepy village of Evenlode, we pulled P&J sandwiches from the backpack and enjoyed them on a bench on the village green, while we listened to bird song, the breeze and a woman racking leaves ... that's all you could hear!

We caught glimpses of a large manor (they didn't invite us in for tea, so didn't catch the name) as we made our way to the village of Adlestrop.

Adlestrop has the prettiest post office/local shop you can imagine. Can't you just see this as the local shop for the Hobbits in the Shire?

The sun sets now around 4:30 (when we hoped to be walking into Stow) and we had quite a distance to go before then, so we had to quicken our pace, even though from this point we were mostly beginning an uphill climb. We battle some of the local traffic for a bit (for some unknown reason the Macmillan path we were following decides to go along the side of a rather busy B road, which is void of a pathway for pedestrians. So we had to continuously hop off the road into the narrow bit of tall grass available between the road and the large bushes and trees that lined the road, all to avoid being hit by the locals who know the road and are racing to get home to supper.

Finally we found ourselves on a much quieter road walking through the villages of Lower Oddington, Oddington, and Upper Oddington (I guess they got tired of thinking up names to inspire Tolkien).

The sun was just setting as we entered Stow, the last couple of kilometres on very heavy legs. In total,we walked 19 kms today, so had earned a well-deserved drink at a pub. The choice for today was The Porch House. Phil had the usual and I had a lager shandy (which is beer and lemonade ... and lemonade here is really fizzy lemon drink).

And before I leave the day, there is another place in Stow that probably inspired Tolkien. Check out this picture of St. Edwards church....yes, it's real!