"Friday's walk is going to be a daffodil walk from Hadleigh to Kersey. After you have found a car park space, we will meet outside the Kings Head Pub, 90 High St, Hadleigh, Ipswich IP7 5EF. Our walk will be approx 9 miles long. We will stop at the Kersey Bell pub for a drink but pls bring a sandwich to munch for lunch. I would like to start the walk at 10.30am. If you would like a lift from Bury Wyevale Garden Centre at 9.45am then pls get in touch."
Well it was my turn to drive so I picked up Miranda and Joyce at the garden centre and we met Aidan and Carolyn in Hadleigh.This was the route of our walk...
And what a great walk it was! Both Hadleigh and Kersey are lovely places and we got lots of lovely contryside in between, with more up and down than I can remember for any walk in Suffolk.
It's hard to pick highlights, but here are a few.
We found Aidan and Carolyn were in the pub.
"Hadleigh is an ancient Suffolk market town set in the fertile valley of the River Brett. It one of the significant Wool Towns that prospered from the Woollen Cloth Trade during the late 15th to the 17th Century. We are fortunate that the town has preserved its past and its character with 250 listed buildings. Amongst these are the fine Guildhall, St Mary’s church and Deanery Tower that create a unique setting. Six buildings of architectural merit, covering six different centuries can be seen from this place.", says the Town Tours leaflet.
The Town Hall & Guildhall complex is impressive.
We went into the church and found a coffee morning was on,
We didn't stop, though. Just outside the church is this hugely impressive Grade 1 listed Deanery Tower, dating from 1495.
We walked a little along the bank of the River Brett.
We heard plenty of birdsong. Here is a Great Tit we saw as well as heard.
And, as on last Friday's Cambridge walk, we heard and saw lots of skylarks.
There are some lovely farmhouses.
We didn't see many daffodils - still a bit early, I think.
We did see a nice patch of cyclamen, though.
We got plenty of good views as we approached Kersey.
We passed this yellow house on the way there...
We found a bench for a team photo, leaving a space for our missing putative Suffolk Walking Festival poster boy.
Oh by the way booking for this year's festival is now open.
As we passed the church going into Kersey, we came across a couple of residents clearing the ground in front of the church to improve the view from the bench.
They were planning on cutting the tops off the trees further down.
The buildings are fantastic
The Old Drift House sleeps 8 and has 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. Lovely.
This lantern holder on another house is very ornate.
Here are my fellow walkers on the footbridge bridge beside the 'splash'.
The house in the background is on sale with a guide price of £875,000. You can see the details here.
I remembered being in Kersey once before. My photo cataloguing has only got back to 2006, so this took a bit of finding...
It was August 2003, so William would have been only about 18 months old. The sights don't seem to have changed at all. And there are still no warning signs about the slippery surface under the water running across the road.
We lunched at The Bell Inn. As a designated driver for a couple of passengers, I resisted the temptation to have a beer even though they had 3 of my favourites on.
By now I was coming over all esurient and went to get my sandwich out to munch as we walked on. Alas, I had left it on the kitchen counter at home! But I did have my banana and fruit and nuts mix.
Across the road was the "village shop" - an unattended stall with selection of sweets, scones, eggs, fruit and vegetable and an honesty box for people to pay.
As we left Kersey we got our best view of St. Mary's church.
We passed a house with an orang-utan in a tree and., climbing some steps an walking down the field, "Ta-da!", said Joyce. "Do you recognise anything?" She had successfully brought us back to the yellow house we had passed at the beginning of our loop to and from Kersey.
As we headed back to Hadleigh, the sun finally broke through, giving us some nice views.
We returned along the stony path in the making, and found out it was being to be a relief route for traffic coming to the Hadleigh Show.
We found a large patch of snowdrops.
and ended up back at the river at the bottom of Constitution Hill.
Here is a slideshow of more of my photos (including the orang-utan in the tree)
You can peruse them all here on Flickr and you can find more details of our route here in my MapMyWalk log,
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