From Stortford to Standon with Mary Epworth
Some people drive to Standon Calling, some people take the train and some people catch a coach. Mary Epworth walks and checks out the wildlife on the way. Ahead of Mary Epworth and the Jubilee Band making their Standon debut here’s what she discovered:
I live in Bishop’s Stortford, quite near to the Standon site, and though I’ve never been to the festival before, I visit the village itself every year, to see the Morris dancing, cake baking and all around air of merriment that surrounds May day. I love the village, but the journey there by car is a straight one, down a bypass that cuts a line through the countryside, and skirts past little hamlets and streams and fields, giving tantalising views of valleys and streams and woodland beyond.
So I decided, upon hearing that the band and I had been booked to play Standon Calling, that I would see if it was possible to walk to the site from my house. I brought my band member and producer, and all around cohort Will along with me for the journey, and we set off one sunny day in June, armed with an OS map, a bottle of water and a couple of muesli bars. We set off from Bishop’s Stortford, following a path that leads between two school fields, and quickly past an old farm, over another bypass, and into the green stuff proper. After approx 10 miles, we finally ended up in a pub in Standon high street, where we celebrated our achievement with cider, ale, and pork scratchings.
Bury Green Buzzard. Almost as soon as we left Bishop’s Stortford, just across the road from the busy bypass that cuts a circuit of the town, this beautiful Buzzard appeared, surfing the thermals.
Tumbledown thatched cottage. Halfway between Bury Green and Hadham ford, on the corner of dog-leg road that becomes a rat-run come 5pm, we found this incredible moss-strewn cottage. A kindly chap informed me that the inside is in fact, “immaculate”.
Little Hadham stag. After an hour of walking, Will and I spied a welcoming looking pub from afar, and walked there dreaming of a cool drink. Sadly this pub, like the next one we came to, was shut for the afternoon, and we wandered on.
Caley Wood Hare. Tentatively walking through a golf course, Will spotted this handsome fellow, and I crept almost close enough to get a good photo, but not quite.
Triffid. “Is that the Police? I’d like to report a sinister looking shrub.”
Puddingstone sign. Standon village is always worth a trip to see the glacial fertility goddess that sits at the top of the high street.
