Iain Cameron's Diary
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2005-06-17 - 1:09 a.m.

I went to Kettering for a meeting this afternoon. On the way back I turned off the A14 and went south across an unfamiliar landscape of ridges and wide valleys until I saw a sign for a saxon church. I followed the signs through the village to All Saints Brixworth - the grandest surviving building from the 8th century anywhere north of the Alps in Europe. It is 150ft long and is probably made from the masonry from Roman buildings at least in part.

Besides being an exceptionally old church it is made in part from some of the oldest rock in England - taken from Charnwood Forest. There isn�t a good explanation of why this enormous weight of stone was carried so far - over difficult landscape - no rivers to help in the transport. One possibility is that the stones were first used for a Roman structure in Leicester. The church was open and so I had a chance to sample its amazing atmosphere and buy a few pamphlets about different features of the church - for example the relic of the saxon saint that was found at the start of the 19C.

Aspects of the church design have been traced to Syria and indeed I began to wonder about similarities with the 2nd century church remains I saw last year in Lycia.

The saxons entered Mercia via the river valleys - they came up the river valleys from the sea but Brixworth is on the top of a hill. From some points of view the hill looks cloven and some say that this means that B was site of an early synod - at the place of the cloven hill.

From Brixworth I picked my way west along country lanes until I found the Northampton to Rugby road. Stopped for a drink in nearby Dunchurch then along the south bank of the river Leam to Offchurch.
Just before Rugby there s a very strong transition - over the edge of the Jurassic scarp - looking down on Rugby and the nearby field of radio masts and the upper Avon valley - then under the M1 into a 21st century logistics park - a completely different world.

Dunchurch is full of restaurants - I think it was there before Rugby ( a railway town) - its on the way from Coventry to somewhere else.

I am working on a disc of my AV stuff for Peter Chatterton - also talking about programme management as a skillset and service offering.

Currently enjoying the Vamp-U2 combination.

Also working on the two pieces for Friday at Lewis�s church.

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