Trains Through the English Countryside in Autumn

I have spent a lot of time on trains this week and I can say, irrevocably, that there is no better way to see the changing colours of an English autumn. If I was in Canada right now I would have probably spent some time hiking in the Gatineau amid red, gold and cinnamon leaves, their bruised bodies crunching under my soles. I tell my British friends about this famous Canadian landscape and tell them there is no better place to see the seasonal change. But a mid-November train ride up north might have proved me wrong.

I am sitting on a Tuesday morning train from London Euston to Manchester Piccadilly – a work journey for a three-day conference in my second favourite English city. I am supposed to be finishing up a feature for our December issue but I cannot seem to tear my eyes away from the countryside outside my window. The rolling hills are tarnished a faded green, spotted with the fluffy white bodies of countless sheep. All this standard scenery is visible through the last leaves of autumn, clutching in bright ambers and coppers to their summer branches.

This is not to say that London is not performing in the dramatic colour change as well. It is a very green city and thus has become a very orange, yellow and red city over the past two months. My backyard has a solid carpet of damp fallen leaves and the naked branches above are saluting the coming of winter. But there is something about the vast spaces of the English countryside that is just so much more aesthetic and idealistic.

Two weeks ago I also got an eyeful of the autumnal change as I drove up to Oxfordshire with my cousin Pearl. From the throes of Saturday morning traffic on the M40 I admired the valleys lit up like fire in the sun’s spotlight. We spent a night in Benson at my cousin Mary’s new house, unpacking glassware, putting up curtains, constructing Ikea cabinets and hanging pictures. The open concept kitchen and living space is almost ceiling to floor windows, so the colours outside reflected through the sunlight as we completed our chores. One afternoon I accompanied Mary to the Red House, where she has lived for the past 40 years, and spent some time wandering the gardens for perhaps the last time, breathing in the crisp autumn air and soaking up the millions of colours around me.

It is three days now since I began this entry and I can report that Manchester was colourful too. Staying in Castlefield – where Manchester was born as a Roman city – I got a front row seat to the weaving canals that are autumnally littered with the descended leaves. The burgundeys and gingers that were still clinging bravely to branches were a stark contrast to the metallic bridges and railways that intimate Manchester’s industrial past.

Two days later – and on the third of six trains before I would be back in London – it was clear that, while the countryside of Oxfordshire and the train journey up north to Manchester were colourful canvases of the season, there is nothing to compare to the landscapes of Yorkshire.

I had already gathered evidence of this when I came up north in May. The rainy season had brought with it a descending cloak of mist over the rolling Yorkshire hills, as well as a spring renewal that dyed the green valleys a fluorescent hue. Despite an inability to actually see too far in front of my face, it was picturesque and echoed the wholly romantic visions that I came to love from novels like ‘Wuthering Heights’.

This second journey to Yorkshire – and more specifically, my cousin Clair’s house in the pictorial village of Knaresborough – was thankfully void of rain. (I did enjoy the aftermath of the downpours in May and the clinging mist across the Dales and Moors but dampness in November in Britain means a chill in your bones that you just cannot shake.) It was very cold up north – much colder than I had expected – so the lack of rain was very welcome.

On Sunday we went to the town centre for the annual Remembrance Day ceremony where I was treated to my favourite Knaresborough view, framed with the oranges and crimsons of the season. From the foot of the war memorial and the ruins of Knaresborough Castle you can look out over the River Nidd as it winds along the riverbank and under the picturesque viaduct. The colours of autumn were lit up as a border to this stunning view. There could be no better scene to finish up the weekend up north.

Now I am on the last leg of my journey back to London. Unfortunately, it is late on Sunday night and, the gold and orange countryside is now just a pitch-black canvas sporadically spotted with lights. Despite feeling disappointed not to have witnessed the changing of seasons in my beloved Ontario for the second year in a row, the scenery I was treated to in Oxfordshire, Manchester and Yorkshire more than made up for it this year.