Club Walk from The Stag's Head, Maidwell

A CHRISTMAS STAG'S HEAD STROLL

Our leader emailed to say we should expect mince pies and mulled wine at 10.30 at The Stags Head in Maidwell, so your scribe and Mrs Scribe duly arrived at 10.33 - to find the car park deserted!  Is this the right place, we said?  Then a familiar car was espied, and a swift foray into the bar found everyone already there, with mince pies and mulled wine being consumed by our fellow walkers.  Luckily, there was some of each left for the late arrivals.

Suitably fortified against winters chill we set off, after the obligatory Elf & Safety talk, which neglected to point out that the first thing we had to do was take our lives in our hands by crossing the Harborough Road!

Taking the Draughton Road, suitable deference was paid to Past District Governor Andrews home before we reached the fields and the spectacular views over our Northamptonshire countryside.  The overnight rain has made some parts even muddier than they were during our leaders test walk two days earlier and your scribe, having left his walking boots warming on a radiator at home, tried to minimise the effect of the mud on his shoes.

We then walked down to the Brampton Valley Way, which we joined at the rather artistic skeleton of what was once a wrought iron bridge over the railway track.  With better going under foot, we soon made our way along to Green Lane Crossing, where our leader had scheduled a stop for a small libation.  He produced very fine bottle of homemade sloe gin from his backpack, and we all soon felt the benefit of the warming liquid.  It was even more warming after a refill or two, and it was with some reluctance that we moved on, after the usual photo session.

This is where our leader told a minor porkie as we walked uphill, saying that this was the end of the uphill part, only to proved wrong, when we came to another hill - and then another.  Admittedly they were not much in the way of hills, more gentle inclines, but some of us were beginning to feel the effect on backs, hips and legs!

Soon we realised that we were actually in sight of our destination, at which point the pace quickened. and the thought of our pre-ordered lunches (and maybe a pint of good English bitter) spurred us on.

As we came into Maidwell the inscription in stone, near the impressive gates, was noticed.  After some attempts to read this, one walker brilliantly suggested taking a brass rubbing.  An idea immediately shot down on the grounds that there wasnt any brass!  Another suggested, rather more aptly, that an angled flash photograph might throw the letters into greater relief.  This suggestion was adopted with some degree of success, and most of the inscription could now be deciphered  We learned that the gateway had been restored in May 1914 and were opened by no less a personage than Field Marshall Lord (John) French, then Chief of Staff of the British Army.  This gateway opening, however, was carried out in his capacity as President of the Royal Horticultural Society. An example, perhaps, of plow-shares into swords, as he went on later in the year to command the troops on the Western Front.

Back at the Stags Head, the previous holder of the much-coveted Walker of the Month trophy, Peter Davies, expounded on his selection criteria for this months winner.  He had looked for moments of brilliance by someone, and were there any interesting conversationalists, in the group?  (There was, but discounted for the trophy)  He reflected on the nonsense of brass-rubbing on stone, and a few other similar daft suggestions, or actions.  In the end he decided that as one walker had forgotten his boots, arrived late and was unable to use the time delay on his own camera, that the trophy should go to and natural modesty forbids me say more!

John Evitt