Oakham; Saturday, 03 July, 2021

Oakham isn’t blessed with a large number of attractions for the tourist to see – and it turns out that I’d seen all the outside attractions the previous evening. One of the main sites is the castle and the great hall, which is only open for a couple of hours each morning Wednesday-Saturday. So, after breakfast in the hotel I headed over there to visit, timing to be there just as it was due to open. Sadly, the great hall also doubles as the main registry office for the county, and with the massive backlog of weddings caused by the pandemic the local council had taken the decision to book them in throughout the day and keep the great hall closed to visitors – so that ruled out that as an option.

The only other inside attraction in the town is the county museum, but that didn’t open until 13:30, which meant I now had about 3 and half hours with very little to do. Thankfully, as I’d already assumed I wouldn’t be spending three hours looking round the Great Hall I’d checked the times of the few buses that do run from Oakham and had planned to head north into Leicestershire and visit Melton Mowbray. If anything the castle being closed turned out to be a bit of a blessing as I made it to the bus station just before a wave of light, soaking, drizzle passed through. I also arrived in time to take the more interesting of the two bus routes from Oakham to Melton.

Providing links across the county there are two bus routes branded as the Rutland Flyer. The RF1 runs from Corby in Northamptonshire, up through Rutland to Oakham and then on the main road up to Melton Mowbrary, taking about 30 minutes to do the final leg. The RF2 starts in Oakham and meanders around many of the villages in the northern half of the county before finally making it to Melton about 75 minutes later. I arrived at the bus station a few minutes before the next RF2 was due to leave.

It was a very pretty ride through the countryside, down lots of narrow lanes – which is always interesting in even a small single deck bus, and through several picturesque Rutland villages. After arriving in Melton Mowbray I wandered through the centre of town, past the memorial gardens and then looped back into the town centre to make a visit to one of the towns claims to fame.

Melton Mowbray styles itself as the Rural Capital of Food, its from here that the eponymous Pork Pie comes from, as well as Melton being one of only six places in the country (the other five all being within close proximity) which can make official Stilton cheese. As it was fast heading towards lunch time I headed over to Ye Olde Pork Pie Shoppe, located right by the market place in town, to sample a real Melton Mowbray Pork Pie.

After lunch, and a little bit more of a wander, stopping off at the impressive St Mary’s parish church, I headed back to the bus stop and caught the RF1 for the direct route back into Oakham. I had just enough time to pop back via the hotel for a quick use of the facilities before popping next door to the Rutland County Museum to have a look around that.

Having completed the County Museum I had now seen pretty much all there was to see in the town. Thankfully I’d taken the decision to buy a network day ticket rather than a return to Melton Mowbray so I headed back to the bus station in time to take the next RF1 service south to explore some more of the Rutland countryside.

Helping with the exploration was some major engineering works taking place on the railway bridge a little way out of town, so rather than being able to take the direct road the three miles from Oakham to Manton everything was on a major diversion the whole 12 miles round the other three sides of Rutland Water, great for the sightseeing – probably not so great for local connectivity.

After just over an hour the bus made it to the end of the line in Corby. I very quickly realised that I probably should have just stayed on the bus and headed straight back, so I found a coffee shop and had a slow cup of coffee in there before catching the bus 75 minutes later back to Oakham. On the way back in the bus took a slightly different diversion which meant that it stopped right outside the hotel, so I didn’t even have to walk back from the bus station. I hopped off and headed up to my room to freshen up before heading out to grab dinner.

After dinner I had a little bit of a wander around the town, before noticing that it appeared to be getting dark far faster than normal, at which point I noticed the sky and make a quick beeline for nearby shelter, getting undercover just as a big rumble of thunder rattled round the skie and the first spots of rain started to appear, within seconds the skies had opened and it was bucketing it down for a good 10 minutes before it finally eased up enough to risk walking the final 150 yards or so back to the hotel in relative dryness.