The Maxey Walk: a tale in words and pictures

Maxey is a village in the Peterborough unitary authority tucked away between Peterborough and Stamford and southwest of The Deepings.  It has a population of just under 700 people.

According to the all-knowing Wikipedia the “focal points” (as Wiki likes to call them), are “the one remaining public house (Blue Bell), the Church (St Peter’s) and the village hall. Each provides a range of social functions throughout the year. There are a surprising number of businesses based in the village, including a few working farms.”

We parked (safely off the road) at the edge of the village which we found has another feature around it: water and quarries – many of the latter filled with a lot of the former, complete with numerous warning messages of water being just a few degrees above freezing and the quarries far deeper than one might imagine.

The dwellings (as estate agents are known to call them) are of a very mixed variety with plenty of cottages (some with tilted chimneys), and the more modern dwellings.  We did not detain ourselves with a study of such locations, but the you can see a sample in the second picture.

The village’s one remaining public house was indeed as described by Wiki – just two of us decided to venture forth on this occasion, at the end of the walk, and were happily and cheerily greeted by the locals who wanted to know where we had been and were indeed happy to have visitors to their part of the county.

We sat outside, partook of our drinks (one alcoholic and one not, to show that we are not judgemental about such issues)  and were still there ruminating on life by the time most of our fellow walkers had undoubtedly reached their time.

And indeed we could have left earlier, but these locations were built at a time when life was not so hurried, and timetables were as much controlled by the weather as anything else, so it seemed fitting to just sit and chat.  Thus chat and sit we did.

We have indeed has as many as eight of us on occasion at such end of walk stops; it depends on the urgent appointments and essential shopping that needs to be seen to.   But then not everyone cooks.  Or shops.

Our picture does not do the public house the justice it deserves, but then we would not like to be thought of as a group that walk just to create an opportunity to visit a hostelry – for nothing could be further from the truth.

Indeed only one of our number has attended all the public houses at the end of each walk since we were allowed by the state to walk again, and that is because he has the job of completing this blog, which would be hard to do if indeed he were not participating in all the arrangements.

But moving swiftly on, we return to the issue of water.  In this locale there is a lot of water, gathered, as previously mentioned in the quarries, which are still be quarried (if that is the right word).

Once part of the Soke of Peterborough (no relation) archaeological excavation of the area has provided ample evidence of continuous occupation for over 4,000 years, which is rather impressive.

Various river beds have been created throughout the area to aid the drainage of the water from the quarries – and are undoubtedly maintained by the quarrying companies that work the area. 

But despite the working the landscape remains calm and peaceful, at least as far as we can tell from the well-marked footpaths.  The village houses too hardly reveal any sign of activity – not even a lace curtain was twitched at the approach of 25 walkers.

Yet we must mention the houses, we ranged from the most fulsome modern design back to some which looked several hundred years old to this writer’s non-expert eyes.

It was a five mile walk, taking a couple of hours, with fulsome chatting (by those who wish to chatter) all the way around, and was classified by those of us to work on this blog, by the official Ramblers classification of walks as “Extremely enjoyable.”

It was one of those walks to which one might bring a friend in order to show just where it is us Ramblers go.

If you would like to join us for a walk just to see what it is like, we’d very much welcome you along.

At present we do ask everyone who is wanting to join us on a walk to send a text message to say that you would like to join us. Simply text the leader of the walk with your name and the date of the walk that you would like to attend. The leader of each walk is shown on our Forthcoming Walks page

We do encourage non-members to take one or two walks with us to get the feel of what we do, before inviting you to join the Ramblers. This is done through the Ramblers national website and you will find out much more about the activities of the Ramblers nationally on this site.

August 2021.