retiredmartin

July 2025. Northampton.

These 4pm pub openers that dominate even the busiest towns nowadays force us tickers to seek out cultural diversions.

And at the end of Drum Lane lies Northampton’s gem, the parish church rebuilt after the 1675 fire.

I always thought the great fire was in 1666, forgetting that London was a different world (still is).

The centre point of a large market town, a European gem,

and I’m the only visitor.

Outside the big cathedrals, we really underrate our churches in the UK.

It takes American pub tourists to appreciate what we take for granted.

Whether anyone would appreciate a half hour sermon on the Book of Esther (1:8 And the drinking was according to the law; none did compel: for so the king had appointed to all the officers of his house, that they should do according to every man’s pleasure) in 2025 is an interesting question,

but the hymns are better known.

I spent longer here than I did in my target pub,

and stuck a fiver on the contactless reader, a reward for not being pestered by volunteers bombarding me with names and dates.