I walk up the lane in the dark. Inside the car, all the glows betrayed the sky, but now I’m out, I can see its light goes deep. Deeper with every step.
Soon I’m the only sound. I slow my walk and lighten my steps. I’m hoping for owls, which I’ve seen hunting here. What I hear is rodents, agitating the hedges to the left, and at my feet when I climb a stile, its surface shimmering with frost. Now in the field, I look right until the house appears.
It’s a husk: chimneys from a square, like bottles in a carrier. Anyone who comes up here could find many things to ponder about what this place could represent with the slightest of metaphysical squints. I’ve done it myself. The ruin of what in the 17th century was a commanding house, on a hill – rare in itself here – now crumbling, and surrounded by a trifecta of time and place: the stone town of Stamford one way, the A1 another, the grand estate of Burghley the last. And in the middle of this intersection, Wothorpe Towers.
Mainly I come here because it’s atmospheric. By day, the road-roar corrupts any serenity, but late at night, it lessens. And nothing’s lit. No unnecessary “accent lighting”, as planners call it. A few cottages with lampglow in the windows down the hill, and that’s it: a column of pristine darkness, or close enough.
As a human, the towers conjure unease. Empty windows like skull sockets, evoking the rural spooks of MR James or Susan Hill. But the nature around it, particularly at night, unexpectedly calms the edge. The grand tree to the left. A tawny owl, which I can’t see but hear. And the luminous sky.
Stars go back in time, of course. A glance at them and you’re seeing light that left its origin four, 10, hundreds of years ago, thousands for some. A million temporal journeys, and here you are to receive them all. I look at the tower, and at the stars. Think of the twitch of the rodents, and the hiss of the traffic. All parallel lifespans, all intersecting, and all here.
• Country Diary is on Twitter at @gdncountrydiary
