Cold Overton Park
197 metres
646 feet
21st May 2025
Herd Mentality
After the City of London, Rutland is the smallest county in England and sits pretty much in the middle. Which was handy for me, as it was just a slight diversion on my route to spend a night with my brother and sister-in-law in Nottingham.
It was mid-afternoon as I turned left off the A1 and started heading west across the county on the A606. The last time I had done this journey would have been decades ago, but other than a few sympathetically designed newbuild properties in the small town of Empingham, nothing much had changed.
Between Empingham and the county town of Oakham, the mass of Rutland Water flanked the road to the left. Until its creation in the 1970’s, by flooding a large part of the county, it’s probably fair to say that nothing much had changed in Rutland since the Roman occupation.
The objective was beyond Oakham to the west. I drove straight into the town and then came to a halt just short of the station. The level crossing gates had come down, and for the second time in a couple of weeks, in a completely different part of the country (Snodland), a red Class 66 diesel locomotive powered north with empty freight wagons dragging gracefully behind. *
After the excitement of the train moment (I already suspected that the rest of the day would now be a disappointment), I crossed over the tracks and carried west on Cold Overton Road. Leaving Oakham, the road continued up a shallow gradient for over a mile and until I turned left at Glebe Farm. Whilst it felt a little bit like a private road there didn’t appear to be anyone around, so I continued past a telecommunication aerial (always a good sign) to the end. I knew it was the end because there was a big farm gate dead ahead, and to the left another bigger gate preventing access to a concrete water storage facility. I parked up, looked around and went through the farm gate. A footpath sign gave hope.
Past the First Gate (I had hidden the car behind the fence)
The road continued onwards for a short distance beyond the gate, before opening out into fields on all sides. The first field, to the right, was unfortified, and I knew that if I just walked southwest across it, I would at get close to the top, but no further. For reasons I can’t quite pin down now, something about the field suggested private property, which it probably was, but in a rare moment of self-doubt I decided to reject the opportunity.
Looking south-west towards the top (my right to roam instincts let me down)
Instead, I tracked back along the line of the field to the south to where a footpath sign confirmed I was entitled to carry on, and at least to the point in the field just to the east of the trig point at the top. It was only going to be a three-minute walk but as I passed into the field, and on looking ahead, a rash of cows suddenly appeared (brown if I recall). Up until about twenty years ago I had never given a second thought to cows in fields. Around that time, and perhaps due to the deluge of news through new technology, stories were beginning to crop up about people being injured and killed by cows (whilst the numbers are relatively small, on average four people a year are killed). At around that time, and whilst on a short stroll through a field somewhere in the south, a herd of cows started moving towards me. At first, I gave it no thought, but their pace picked up and without trying to show panic, so did mine. At around 20 paces, the twenty or so brown heifers, or whatever they may have been, seemed to be getting very excitable, and I was beginning to fear the worst. By now I had reached the edge of the field, and whilst still not entirely sure of my fate, I chose the undignified plunge into the bramble thicket and trees that hid a small stream, rather than taking my chance on the open ground. Fording the stream didn’t appear to be an option, so I waited it out until the herd, no doubt disgruntled by their failure, slowly retreated back across the field, giving me enough distance to trot back to the entrance to the field and a liberating sense of relief.
And, with this historical encounter in mind, with just a hundred or so metres to the top of Cold Overton, I bottled it and slipped back to the car.
Cattle deterrent on the horizon.
So, I didn’t quite get to Rutland’s summit, but it was as much as I could do under the circumstances. Cowardice, or perhaps just sensible pragmatism, had got the better of me.
Apart from getting to Nottingham for six, I had one more objective for the day. Reaching the top of Leicester Unitary Authority. I turned left onto Cold Overton Road and continued west through what was left of Rutland (a small matter of about 200 metres), and then over the border into Leicestershire.
*A red Class 66. Hereford Station – Oct 2024 – Other colours are available
El Colmado 57 