Between two shires – a world of difference

Moonshine Gap, Cambridgeshire I watch a bird, listen to its dainty movements, then walk over into Northamptonshire, into the wood and signs of rural mischief

Moonshine Gap: what does that name say? When I saw it on the map it said something probably over-romantic, definitely nefarious, the sort of feature found in literature of the Kentucky backwoods. Or older, when the transit of and sightlines to stellar objects were watched, noted and sometimes immortalised. Seemed a stretch for this place.

Gap is like col or pass, a place where the ground gives to allow a way between this place and that. All are mountain words, so a strange find in this flat place. This "gap" marks a straddle between Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire, so maybe that's why. It's not new: there it is on the 1889 map, attached to a wedge of wood amid crackle-glaze fields.