Moving on from Leicester, we made the half an hour trip up the line to the town of Oakham, in England’s smallest county (not include City of Bristol and City of London), Rutland…
Oakham:
Status: Rutland, Town, England
Date: 17/01/2014
Travel: Virgin Trains (Preston – Birmingham New Street), Cross Country (Birmingham New Street – Leicester/Oakham)
Eating & Sleeping: N/A
Attractions: Oakham Castle, Oakham Museum, Bandstand, Parish Church, Market Square, Butter Crosses etc
Once you move out of the area around the train station, you enter the historic town centre. Nearly all of the buildings look similar to those in the above picture. Lovely old stone buildings, and the odd one or two even had a thatched roof. It’s only a small town but there is a lot to see in Oakham.
In the centre of the town is a large park, called Cutts Close Park, a lovely open space lined with trees, and the Bandstand at it’s centre. The street lamps are quite ornate and it’s a shame we couldn’t stay until it got dark as it would have looked lovely all lit up.
From the park we moved through to All Saint’s Church, a stunning church, with some parts of the building dating to the 13th century, including the main porch. In the 14th century the tower and spire were added and can be seen from miles around, dominating the skyline of the town. Lovingly restored between 1857 and 1858, the church looks brand new, and is by far the largest building in the town.
We didn’t have time to go inside unfortunately as we had to get round the rest of the town before our train home, so we moved through to the Market Square. It contains two butter crosses, one at either end of the square, and was constructed before at least 1611. They were used to sell dairy products to the towns people, and the one nearest the church comes with a set of stocks, which unusually has 5 holes, whereas they would usually have 4, to fit the arms of two felons.
A market is still held in the square today, on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
Also in the square, at the church end, is Oakham School, a major public school. Founded in 1584, it can take over 1000 students, and presented a number of firsts in British Education:
1) First boys independant secondary school to take both male and female students in all years not just for sixth form in 1971.
2) First public school to go on-line in 1995.
The building itself is a grand stone one, and you don’t see that many of these beautiful old school buildings so it was a pleasant surprise to find it in the historic Market Square.
This is the second butter cross in the Market Square. We have never seen two together before in one square so Oakham is pleasantly surprising us at every turn.
A short cobbled street leads off the Market Square, through a stone arch with iron gates, into the grounds of the Castle. Above you can see the Great Hall (from 1180 – 1190), the only surviving part of Oakham Castle, with the spire of All Saint’s Church in the background.
The Castle is free to visit, and an information board outside tells you where the other buildings would have been in the large grounds. Although a Castle is technically a building with fortifcations, Oakham Castle did have defences around the Great Hall and a Gatehouse.
Oakham Castle was the place we were most looking forward to seeing, so we went to explore inside. There was a very helpful man sat at the reception desk who gave us some information cards with a history of the Castle.
You might have noticed the giant Horse Shoes on the wall? The ancient tradition in Oakham was for visiting peers of the realm to present a large Horse Shoe to the mayor of Oakham on their first visit. The oldest horse shoe in the Castle was given by Edward IV in 1470. Something else you may have noticed is that they are hanging the wrong way up, as for luck horseshoes are generally hung the other way up, but not in Oakham.
We even got some miniature souvenir Horseshoes in the Castle gift shop.
We had one more major stop in the town, at Rutland County Museum, which is directly opposite the above building, the impressive Rutland County Council building.
The museum itself is housed in the old riding school of Rutland Fencible Cavalry, which is a few hundred years old and was completed in 1795. Inside the museum there are various exhibits, from medieval farming equipment, local archaeological finds including an actual skeleton in a glass case, as well as exhibitions showing how a kitchen would have looked in the town over a hundred years ago (shown above).
In one of the other exhibits were old horse drawn carriages, as well as an actual gallows, called the Oakham Gallows, which is the oldest New Drop gallows in the whole of the UK. It is the first gallows we have ever seen and there was something sinister yet fascinating about it.
The museum marked the end of our trip to Oakham, and we starting walking back in the general direction of the train station. On the way we passed the thatched building again. Outside it is a blue plaque, and these can be found all around the town so keep an eye out for these fascinating little snippets of information about some of the building, such as their inhabitants or when they were built. For example, the one outside the thatched building read:
Hudson’s Cottage: Jeffery Hudson, Smallest Man From The Smallest County In England 1619 – 1682
We went from here to the train station, and started our long journey back to Preston via Birmingham. Oakham is well connected on the railway network with regular trains to Leicester, Birmingham, Peterborough, Ely, Cambridge and Stansted Airport as well as daily trains to London.
Local buses can take you all the way around the county, including around the shores of Rutland Water, one of the largest man made lakes in Europe. It is also the largest reservoir in England by surface area, but for capacity the title goes to Kielder Water in Northumberland, England.
The lake is very popular with cyclists, boat enthusiasts and bird watchers, and is the perfect place to relax. We hope to return to Rutland in the near future and visit the lake and maybe even find a hotel near it. The lake also acts as a reservoir and provides water for this area of England. Oakham itself is only a half an hour walk away from the shores of the lake.
By road, the A606 goes around the town, coming from Corby in Northamptonshire and leading further down to Kettering and Northampton. Northwards the road takes you into Lincolnshire and Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire, as well as around to Leicester. There are direct main roads to the only other town in Rutland, Uppingham, which isn’t far away. The beautiful town of Stamford in Lincolnshire is also nearby.
Oakham is a genuinely beautiful place and Rutland is a fascinating little county, and one we certainly want to explore more of.
The British Isles were the limit, but now the world! 