It is one of those season-hinge days when the slightest atmospheric whim might swing it either way. There is some warmth in the intermittent sunshine and autumn’s colours are still bright, but the wind is pure north and it carries smatters of cold rain. The river is swollen, with violet reflections in oxtail-brown water – an ominous palette of decay.
This stretch of the Derwent was once used to transport stone a mile from the ancient Whitwell Quarry to Kirkham, where in 1122 a local nobleman founded an Augustinian priory as a memorial to his son, who died falling from his horse on the hill above. For 400 years, monks went about their practical and spiritual business here. Orchards spread on to the surrounding slopes, fishponds were excavated on the flood meadow.
Then, on 8 December 1539, the priory was surrendered to the agents of Henry VIII. A way of life dissolved and the stones of a sanctuary built to last a millennium were scavenged into nearby homes and farms, leaving only the skeleton of a building. Even so, there is still respite to be had from a biting wind in the nooks and angles of truncated walls, and every crack is crammed with life – mosses and stonecrops, chamomile and groundsel.
Just beyond what is left of the monks’ kitchen, a squat tree stands out. It is heavy with dark green Mediterranean-looking foliage. From a distance I wonder if it might be a laurel, but closer inspection reveals it to be a chimera – the glossy leaves belong to a massive, profusely flowering ivy. Of the supporting hawthorn, all I can see is a few spindly branches protruding from the ivy thatch, each with a crimson spatter of fruit.
The ivy flowers are a slightly bilious shade of green-gold, and they are heaving with insects. There are corpulent bluebottles with armoured backsides the colour of midnight and eyes of old-bruise red. And there are hundreds of wasps, impotent with cold. Their meticulously precise bodies circle the flower globes like listless clockwork, seeming to go through foraging motions without actually bothering to feed. I wonder if they sense their life-spring winding down, or care that this sanctuary might be their last.
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