Peterborough Ramblers venture to the very edge of civilisation

Pictures by Mandy Tobin and Tony Attwood.  Commentary by Tony Attwood

The 3 July 2025 walk from the Sun Inn, Great Easton

The village of Great Easton is one of those thoroughly misleading places, perhaps in Leicestershire, perhaps in Rutland, and certainly bordering on Northamptonshire (of which it has been said).

It was perhaps this uncertainty of its countyology that made some members of our group decide that perhaps this was one step too far – a walk they could perhaps not take in – or maybe it was just too much after another night of heaving night mowing

to meet the eternal demands of an ever-growing lawn.  One did not enquire.

And perhaps this is right for this is a land of far-raging and indeed far-ranging terrors, where beasts dating back to primordial times (or at least half past three) wander freely, asserting their rights to live now as they did in the days or yore, uninterrupted by the contemporary desires of Ramblers to, well, ramble.

And yet Ramble we did, without fear or favour, venturing thither and yon as it our wont.  Or want.  I am never quite sure.

And worthwhile it was for far  beyond the wild beasts of primitive days, this turned out to be a land of times gone by, a land in which churches could best be described as singularly modest affairs, accommodating the faithful but few more if not one or two less.

Of course we are not people to interfere with the ways of those in the counties that we tread up, even if it is Leicestershire, (of which it has been said), and so we ventured forth at a modest pace, aware of the hills, valleys and whatnots that would be forced upon us as the journey became ever more complex.

For having started thus we felt we could somehow hold onto the simplicity of the landscape that we behoved.  as one might on occasion say.

A road upon which cars have not yet trod, although the tarmacadam was in place should they ever choose to do so, and yet perhaps they prefer not to venture so far off the track, beaten or otherwise.

A road that probably even today sits there alone, wondering at the lives of such places as avenues and motorways, of cul-de-scas and the common or garden street.

And indeed as we moved on having witnessed stranger and stranger manifestations of village life and all that it entails I feel none of us had any idea of what it was that we were finally to aspy at the fulsome point of our journey.

For surely sights such as these, turning up as they do in villages upon which one happens are surely to count as enough strangeness for one day.  But there was more.

For it appears that lands that are without the proximity of the unknown territory that is Northants are indeed of a different nature and culture from those worlds normally perceived by the Ramblers of Peterborough.

And yet, I for one weclome this opporunity to see these strange and prviously unexplored lands and I can tell you with an absolute certainty that in part twoof this epic adventure there will be sights of which you will indeed be amazed to behold, unless of course you were there in which case you will be able to say “I was there” or worlds of that sort.

But now I must leave you in suspense as I have run out of developing liquid and so cannot as yet process the remainder of the pics.   More anon.