Bury St. Edmunds Ramblers Walk - Dedham

This was my first Saturday walk with the Bury St, Edmunds Ramblers. Saturday walks are longer than Tuesday's and Friday's and generally more than 10 miles. Today's was just over 10 miles.

The car share meeting point was just along the road for me, so I turned up there and was able to give 3 ladies a lift. In total we had 13 on the walk. This was our route...

Well almost! I forgot to turn my tracker on until we stopped a the toilets to admire the decorations. From Dedham, we followed the Essex Way to Manningtree Station.

Along the way we found someone had gathered their hay while the sun shone. The church tower we could see was St Mary's church in Dedham.



We stopped for a drinks break at another St Mary's church, in Lawford.



Some parts of the church date from the 14th Century and the nave windows are rather unusual with interesting carvings. Here are the owls...



As we headed onto the St. Edmunds Way we found some new signposts. Time for Ron to get out his new hammer and do some waymarking...



We stopped for our picnic lunch by the river at Flatford and saw the sights while we were at it, including Willie Lott's Cottage.



We diverged here from the St. Edmunds Way to walk through the countryside rather than along the river. Here we had a great view down to the river.



We rejoined the Stour just outside Dedham. Gosh! The river and riverbank were busy!





So thanks to Ron and Rosie for a great walk, and the others for their company. I'm sure I'll be doing more in future.

You can see details of our route here and a more of my photos on Flickr.