A mile from Hinxton, Ickleton is at first sight an unremarkable village, having the usual mixture of narrow streets, venerable houses and cottages, a pub, a Costcutta shop where we buy our chocolate bars and newspapers, a couple of bus stops, a cluster of grey council houses, an old school, a field with some horses. There is that total absence of people which is characteristic of an English village at rest.

Next to a tiny, triangular village green, the church looks pretty average, until you go inside, where you come face to face with one of those marvellous accidents of preservation and discovery that occur every so often in this ancient country.

In 1979 an arsonist set fire to the church. Fortunately, although there was some irreplaceable damage, the fire was extinguished before it destroyed the entire building. And during the restoration that followed a wall full of frescoe paintings was uncovered. The images look blurred and ghostly, because they consist mostly of the pigment that soaked into the wet plaster and are missing the surface detail. But you can make out figures and activity, and imagine what the church interior must have looked like 600 years ago. There is nothing as fine, apparently, in the rest of Cambridgeshire. It is well worth a visit.

We've had a few pints in the Ickleton Lion. But behind the village is the ominous and ever-present roar of the M11, just a couple of fields away.

Ralph At Large in Great Britain

Hinxton, Cambridgeshire

Whittlesford, Cambridgeshire

Newcastle, Northumberland

Leeds, Yorkshire

 

Public transport — a rant

What lies behind the net curtains of England?

 

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