March in October

One of the best things about being somewhere you don't really know well is the way in which serendipity plays a part in what you see.
Whilst in Cambridge we stumbled on the town of March, which was originally a place we were simply going to pass through, but which turned out to be really interesting, even if one of its major attractions turned out to be closed (and we wouldn't have had time to do it justice even had it been open)

March lies on the River Nene, one of the rivers which meander through the Fens on their way to the North Sea (although it meets the Great Ouse first!)  The first picture is of the Town Hall beautifully reflected in the river.

At one end of Broad Street is the fountain erected to celebrate the coronation of George V.

The fountain is very striking: cast iron, and supplied by the Saracen Foundry from Possilpark, Glasgow.  The Saracen Foundry specialised in ornamental cast iron work, although much of what they made has been lost over the last century - the Second World War in particular, with the necessity to reclaim cast iron for the war effort, made great inroads into the monuments that they had supplied.  In the heyday of the British Empire Saracen Foundry products were sold to many cities round the world.  The fountains often follow a fairly standard design - octagonal, and as in this case localised by the addition of relevant shields.  One of the shields in March shows a white stork, which is a little unexpected as even then the bird was really a rare visitor rather than a breeding species in the UK.