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John Dunn
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John Dunn home page
A motorcycling vignette
A pilot low cost YouTube production
Searching for an ambience of bitter-sweet nostalgia
In search of Water End
The story board
Hugh Massingham’s Chiltern Country, published in 1940… and the old bridge at Water End.
And can you see him there? the man on the punt in the river stares back at us through time.
A pen and ink drawing by cycliing artist Frank Patterson of the same sylvan scene…
Does this little bridge in the Gade Valley still look the same?
I decided to find out…
I approached the Chiltern country via Dagnall...
The B440 runs up one of the more gentle approaches to the chalk hills of the Chiltern Hills.
There’s the sign that tells me that I’m leaving Buckinghamshire to enter Hertfordshire.
Just the type of road for which this single cylinder motorcycle was made… a road typical of the pre-motorway era… just thumping along… heaven…
The source of the River Gade arises here, near the road, close to my left, as a tiny streamlet.
The cross roads mark the turning for Pipers Hill to my left and the hamlet of Hudnall to the right.
But my quest takes me straight on...
The sign tells me that I’m approaching Great Gaddesden.
I’ll only skirt the edge of the village, which took its name from the River Gade. As you’ll imagine, there is a Little Gaddesden not too far away…
The old centre of Great Gaddesden is down the road to the right, just here.
There’s the sign for Water End.
At last, Water End with its quaint rows of many-dormered Chiltern cottages hugging the road side.
I rounded a bend and came upon the little narrow bridge suddenly.
The surprise and slowing down for that lovely old Aston Martin diluted my attention.
I resolved to repeat the approach once more.
This time, the bridge to myself.
I turned to take a closer look.
I parked my motorcycle and walked over to the bridge to photographed it for my self.
Not quite the right angle.
There thats better.
I had discovered the sylvan scene still as it was.
Only the man in the punt looked up no more…
In search of Water End
© John Dunn.
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From the archive:
Felix culpa
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The Oxford to Cambridge Arc 4
Further additions to the project, starting with the Newport Pagnell to Bedford leg of Ogilby's Oxford to Cambridge route.
John Dunn
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Just a thought:
The world came into being in an act of spontaneity. There was no pre-determined reason for its creation, which was an act of total freedom. The spontaneity of this act was likened by Dante to a child at play who turns eagerly to what delights it. Such unrestrained freedom became the foundation for positing our own human freedom. (Renaissance: Counter-Renaissance) John Dunn
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How happy ye mortals
The Orphic and Hellenic tradition on Eros is certainly important to understanding the true meaning of love in the Johannine corpus of the New Testament.
John Dunn
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