Walking the Kettlethorpe Estate: Fenton, Laughterton and the Trent

It has been on my mind for months to find a walk that explores the Kettlethorpe estate as it might have been in the time of Katherine and Hugh. Not just to walk it, but to try—properly—to find Katherine within her own landscape here in Lincolnshire. With the help of a leaflet available in Kettlethorpe Church, I have finally managed to piece together a short 4.5-mile route that does exactly that.

In glorious sunshine this afternoon, with my wife Rosemary and Henry—our cockapoo, on his lead throughout—we set out from the door of Kettlethorpe Church to test it.

The route takes you first to Fenton, then on to Laughterton, before an out-and-back stretch down to the River Trent via Marsh Lane. On the surface, it is a straightforward rural walk. But look more closely and it maps almost perfectly onto what was once the core of a medieval estate of around 3,000 acres, centred on Kettlethorpe and worked through settlements like Fenton and Laughterton.

Fenton feels exactly what it would have been: working land. Productive, organised, and essential to the estate. Laughterton is different. Its long, linear form still hints at planning—at structure imposed rather than grown. You begin to see that this is not random countryside, but something shaped, managed, and understood.

And then, if you slow down and actually look, the land starts to give itself away.

In places the pasture rises and falls in long, gentle waves—ridge and furrow. Medieval ploughing, still there under your feet. These are the strips worked by tenants of the estate, turned over season after season, year after year, building up those ridges almost imperceptibly. It is one of those moments where the past stops being abstract. You are not imagining it—you are standing in it.

We stopped in Laughterton to read the memorial to the two RAF crashes in 1944. A Stirling lost on a training flight. A Lancaster returning from operations. It is a quiet, understated memorial, but it shifts something. The same fields, six centuries later, carrying very different lives and very different losses. It doesn’t feel like an addition to the story—it feels like part of the same place continuing.

From there, Marsh Lane takes you down towards the Trent. The name alone tells you what you need to know. This is marshland—low, wet, and always slightly uncertain. In Katherine’s time, before any modern drainage, this would have been ground that demanded attention. Sometimes valuable, sometimes problematic, always needing to be managed. The estate didn’t just sit on the land—it had to work with it.

And then the Trent itself. Wide, slow, and deceptively calm. A boundary, a resource, and at times no doubt a problem. Standing there, it is easier to understand the scale of what Katherine held here—not just status, but responsibility. Land, water, people, obligation.

This walk doesn’t give you spectacle. It gives you something better.

It gives you a landscape that still makes sense.

And for me, that is where Katherine is easiest to find—not in the grandeur of Lincoln Cathedral, but here, in the fields around Kettlethorpe, where her life was actually lived.

Alison Weir at Lincoln Cathedral

 On Saturday 14 March I had the pleasure of attending a talk by historian Alison Weir on Katherine Swynford in the beautiful setting of the Chapter House at Lincoln Cathedral.

It was a glorious spring day in Lincoln and the Chapter House looked particularly magnificent. Sunlight streamed through the stained glass windows, casting vivid colours across the stone walls and floor. Anyone familiar with the space will know how dramatically it can change with the weather; on a grey day it can feel rather cold and cavernous, but in bright sunshine it becomes a wonderfully atmospheric place in which to listen to history being brought to life.

Alison spoke for around fifty minutes about the life of Katherine Swynford. Her talk was eloquent, engaging and inspirational, and it was clear that the audience was captivated by the story she told. The structure of the talk followed the central arguments of her biography of Katherine, but what made it particularly effective was the way she interspersed the narrative with quotations from Chaucer and other contemporary chroniclers. These voices from the medieval world helped place Katherine firmly within the cultural and political context of the fourteenth century.

One aspect of the talk that particularly struck me was Alison’s effort to “rehabilitate” the reputation of John of Gaunt. In popular history Gaunt is often portrayed in a rather negative light, yet Alison emphasised his achievements and his steadfast loyalty to the English crown. It was a thoughtful and balanced perspective, and one that I suspect deserves more attention. It also reminded me that this is something I should address more fully in my own talks about Katherine.

The event itself was clearly a success. The Chapter House was well filled, the audience attentive, and there was a real sense of enthusiasm for Katherine’s story. It is encouraging to see such interest in a figure who for so long has been somewhat overlooked outside specialist circles. Perhaps it also signals that Lincoln Cathedral is continuing its journey in recognising the significance of Duchess Katherine within the history of Lincoln.

Finally, I must thank Alison Weir for such a wonderful talk. She came across as both charming and generous with her time, remaining afterwards to speak with members of the audience, sign books and pose for photographs. I was delighted to have my own copy of her biography signed, which will serve as a pleasant reminder of an enjoyable and memorable afternoon.

 

Katherine in Unexpected Places: A Fictional Hunt

I was recently given a copy of Cry God for Harry, the 1971 novel by Martha Rofheart. Unsurprisingly, given its title, it centres on Henry V of England.

The early chapters are narrated by a young Hal, long before he becomes king. What I had not expected, and what genuinely delighted me, was the appearance of Katherine Swynford as “Kat”, Hal’s step-grandmother.

She is warm, capable and beautiful. Entirely unthreatening. Loved by Hal and respected by his formidable father, Henry IV.

In short, she is sympathetic, human and entirely engaging.

Reading this portrayal prompted a simple question. Where else does Katherine Swynford walk quietly through fiction, sometimes almost unnoticed?

A Note on Historical Liberties

Before I am accused of romantic indulgence, a small corrective is necessary.

Cry God for Harry is highly readable, but it is not always historically precise.

In the novel, John of Gaunt dies at Monmouth. In reality he died at Leicester Castle in 1399. Monmouth is associated with Henry’s birth, not Gaunt’s death, making this a curious relocation.

More puzzling still is the suggestion that Katherine enters a convent after Gaunt’s death. There is no historical evidence for this. After 1399 she lived quietly, managing her estates, including Kettlethorpe, until her death in 1403. The convent episode feels narratively convenient but historically unfounded.

The book also refers to the Black Prince as “king”. He never reigned, having predeceased his father, Edward III.

None of these issues render the novel unreadable. Far from it. The book remains vivid and engaging, and its portrayal of “Kat” is genuinely touching. It simply reminds us that historical fiction, particularly that written in the 1970s, often favoured atmosphere over archival precision.

In that sense the novel is very much a product of its time, and that too has its own fascination.

The Obvious Katherine

Any exploration of Katherine in fiction must begin with the novel that defined her for generations of readers: Katherine by Anya Seton. Few works of historical fiction have shaped popular understanding of a medieval figure so profoundly.

More recently, Anne O’Brien has placed Katherine firmly at centre stage in The Scandalous Duchess, portraying her as a politically aware and determined woman navigating the complex world of the Lancastrian court.

Katherine also appears in O’Brien’s The King’s Sister and in her novel about Alice Perrers, The King’s Concubine, where she forms part of the wider domestic and political landscape surrounding John of Gaunt.

Elizabeth Chadwick is also preparing a novel centred on Katherine, which promises to place her once again within the broader political realities of the Plantagenet world.

Not every fictional portrayal convinces. Carol Sargent’s Katherine and the self-published The Mistress, the Matriarch and the Virgin Queen are earnest attempts, but Katherine is not an easy woman to capture. She requires subtlety, intelligence and a certain steel beneath the surface.

Katherine at the Edges of the Story

What has begun to interest me most are the novels where Katherine appears not as the central figure but as part of the background fabric of the period.

In My Lord John by Georgette Heyer she appears within the orbit of John of Gaunt’s household. She is not the focus of the narrative, but her presence is unmistakable.

In Emma Campion’s The King’s Mistress, a novel centred on Alice Perrers, Katherine appears as part of Gaunt’s domestic world. Again she is not the protagonist, but she is clearly there.

Bruce Holsinger’s A Burnable Book, a darker political thriller set in the 1380s, places Katherine within the tense atmosphere of Richard II’s court. Here she is less romantic heroine and more a figure within the machinery of power.

Even in the medieval mystery world of The Bishop’s Tale by Margaret Frazer she appears indirectly through the Chaucer and Beaufort family connections.

And then there is Katherine’s House by Sarah Hogg, which I very much enjoyed. In this novel Katherine becomes part of the memory of place itself, with Kettlethorpe emerging almost as a character in its own right.

A Persistent Presence

What becomes clear when looking across these works is that Katherine Swynford is remarkably difficult to avoid.

She may not always be the protagonist, but she remains central to the historical landscape of the late fourteenth century.

Any story involving John of Gaunt inevitably encounters her. Any exploration of the Beaufort line must acknowledge her. Even narratives centred on Henry IV are shaped by the altered domestic and dynastic context she helped create.

Sometimes she occupies only a page or a passing reference. Yet even then she changes the context of the story around her.

That may explain why she continues to surface in fiction in so many different ways. Not always as heroine, but as a necessary presence within the narrative structure of the period.

An Open Investigation

Which brings me to a confession.

This list is almost certainly incomplete.

There must be novels sitting on forgotten shelves, long out of print, perhaps even in translation, where Katherine appears quietly as a supporting figure. She may be called Kat, the Duchess of Lancaster, Philippa Chaucer’s sister, or simply the mother of the Beauforts.

If you have encountered her in an unexpected place in fiction, I would be very interested to hear about it.

Consider this an open investigation.

The heritage detective in me strongly suspects that Katherine Swynford is hiding in far more novels than we might imagine.

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