A recent episode of the BBC’s Springwatch made mention of the demise and conservation of the Corncrake a ground-nesting bird with an unmistakable loud, repetitive, grating krek krek call. The bird is on the Red list of birds of high conservation concern.
In 1831 an anonymous writer in Hone’s Yearbook described the route out of Northampton towards Kingsthorpe:
“Beyond the Barracks again there another interval of hedge and field before you came to Leicester Terrace. On the east side there were a few houses, and only a few, with like intervals of hedgerow and garden ground. On that side the last house northward was the pretty was “Belle Alliance Cottage”1 at the corner of the Racecourse, scarcely a cottage ornée, and conspicuous chiefly by its row of noble Poplars. Just beyond the last house in Leicester Terrace there was a gate opening into a field, where the corncrake might be heard on a summer’s evening.”2
- Now the site of the Co-operative Funeral Service
- Hone, William. The Year Book of Daily Recreation and Information : Concerning Remarkable Men and Manners, Times and Seasons, Solemnities and Merry-Makings, Antiquties and Novelties, on the Plan of the Everyday Book and Table Book … / by William Hone., 1831.
© Copyright : Graham Ward. All rights reserved.