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Maple Cross

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Maple Cross

Maple Cross is a village in Hertfordshire, England, which up until the Second World War consisted of an inn, a blacksmith's shop and a few cottages. Today there are around 800 postwar council houses. Some of these have been sold into private ownership. The area is close by junction 17 of the M25 motorway, which makes up the western boundary of the village. It lies on the western fringe of Rickmansworth, about 5 miles (8.0 km) west of Watford and 6 miles north of Uxbridge.

Maple Cross is thought to be a contraction of Maypole Cross and the village was once a place where maypole dancing took place. The nearby village of Mill End is on record as having complained to the lord of the manor about the noise of the dancing in 1588.

The village stands on the western edge of the River Colne flood plain with the river a third of a mile to the east. It sits on the A412 Denham Way which itself follows the Old Uxbridge Road along the dry land above the floodplain on the river's west bank. To the west the land rises gently towards the dip slope of the Chiltern Hills, although there are some local steep inclines where dry valleys in the chalk make deep incisions. Two routes to the west join the Uxbridge Road at this point, one to the village of Chalfont St Peter, the other to Chalfont St Giles. They made it a convenient place to stop and rest and possible gather for May festivals.

The ancient route known as Old Shire Lane runs in a north south direction at the summit of the rising high ground half a mile to the west. It is at least of Saxon age as it designated the boundary between the kingdoms of Wessex and Mercia. Today it forms the boundary between the counties of Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire. Parts of it take the form of a hollow way from centuries of use embedding the path into the earth.

Until the Second World War it was little more than a hamlet with some cottages for agricultural workers and two businesses providing services to travellers on the road, an inn, and a farriers.

After WW2 it was intentionally developed as a dormitory for workers in the nearby towns and at the new sewage treatment plant by the river.

The village has no churches, historically it lacked the population to support one and its residents were part of the parish of St Thomas's West Hyde a mile to the south. There are two historic buildings, The Cross Inn which dates back to the seventeenth century and a barn just to east of the Maple Cross road junction of a similar age.

The public house called The Cross stands on Denham Way, the main road from Rickmansworth to Uxbridge and is a listed building with parts dating back to at least the 1700s. In 2010 the pub was sold by its brewery to property developers who intended to demolish it and build new homes on its site and car park. Strong local opposition prevented demolition and the original historic building still stands, converted into dwellings with a small close on the rest of the pub's site.

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