The Kings Cliffe Walk 12 September 2024

Photographs and commentary by Tony Attwood

Now Kings Cliff is one of those annoying places that has multiple possible spellings and there is much time spent on the internet debating if it is Kings Cliffe, King’s Cliff, Kings Cliff, or Kingscliffe.

I of course have no idea which one is right so it’s all a bit of potluck.

Anyway as you can see we gathered and very neatly all agreed to park on one side of the road and then meander around.

I was particularly keen to take in Willow Brook which it was said was nearby (a tributary of the  River Nene which can be pronounced this way, that way or indeed any other way you feel, certain in the knowledge that everyone else will disagree with you.)

Now the village does indeed have a strange and debatable past, and indeed potentially a jolly future since the population seems to be forever on the increase – rising indeed by 40% in the past 20 years.

Where you may ask, are all these people coming from?   Well, I asked the horse you can see in the picture but he refused to answer me.  Indeed when I said, “well is the population growing?” he denied it.  (Actually he said “nay” which I took as a denial.)

The village is not far from Stamford of course, so that may explain everything including the local habit of actually growing vegetables on tables.  I’m not quite sure how they do it, but am told that the secret of “tableveg” as it is called is buried deep in the history of the locality and is not to be revealed to outworlders (which I, coming from Corby, am most certainly – at least in their eyes).

But again I digress!

As I noted we gathered, and much pleasant

chattering is there to be had before we “get on the road” as I believe the saying is, although in effect all we did at the start was cross the road, but I am sure you understand what I mean.  But if you don’t I’m not going to explain myself.

But to return to Wiki there is a very interesting comment about the education in the area.

“This new school is very large in size and is very advanced.”

But then we were off, and if it is possible to describe an environment as a cacophony then this was certainly an example, for if it were to be a sound it would be every instrument and voice all being used at the same time in different keys, each competing with the other.

And I really have to say that if there were a photographic competition on the theme of chaos I’d enter this picture.  Of course it wouldn’t win.

But as we entered the rurality of the area (if I may invent the word for the occasion), things settled down a bit and to me at least made a little more sense.

Curiously Wiki makes no mention of the visual impression made by the outskirts and I am tempted thus to create an award for “England’s most chaotic rural scene” but then again I have to go to the shops and buy some lunch, so maybe not.

But the question of the chaotic nature of this world into which we had walked remained with me, and as I pondered more and more, more and more chaos did I find.

Could it really be that the Black Death of 1346 (so just after lunch) really did decimate this land and leave it in this state?

Or were there deeper and darker forces at work?  I found myself urgently wishing to know.

But yes, lo and behold we turned a corner or three and there we were back in the normal and regular East Midlands countryside of trees, and grass and tufty bits sticking up.

I must say all that previous bit gave me a spot of the collywobbles (if you will excuse the medical term) but now my faith in rurality was restored.  The grass was green, and the walkers walked.  We could proceed.   And then what happened I will report in part two.    (Pictures and commentary by Tony Attwood who is currently seeking guidance.)