Long Melford Walk

"Monday 1st July. We are planning on walking about 7 miles from Long Melford to Kentwell Hall and onwards through woodlands and along a stretch of Chad Brook . Please bring a drink/snack to enjoy at a brief stop in a play park, and there are plenty of places to choose from in Long Melford for refreshments afterwards. We will meet at Long Melford Old School car park (CO10 9DX), more or less opposite Long Melford Hall to start walking at 10 am. Alternatively meet at the usual Wyevale Garden Centre (now Dobbies) meeting point at 9:30 am for a car-share.", said the walk listing from Joyce, but it was actually me leading again. As I had done for last Friday's walk,  I took a walk I had enjoyed with the Bury St. Edmunds Ramblers about this time last year. This time I chose to just retrace it rather than adapt it. Thanks Janet, who's walk it was. See my write up of that here.

Mondays are not a great day for most people in the group to come walking and, in the end, today it was just me and Julie. We didn't mind as it gave us a nice chance to catch up and we were able to keep up a good pace. We managed to get round in about 2 3/4 hours.

Only a couple of photos from today as we were too busy chatting, but I've interspersed a couple of others from my recce and my walk last year to give a flavour.

We headed from the Old School car park past Melford Hall...

... towards Holy Trinity Church.

According to this article, "The nave, at 152.6 feet (46.5 m), is believed to be the longest of any parish church in England. There are nine bays, of which the first five at the western end are believed to date from an earlier structure."

We then went on to Kentwell Hall. On my recce it was open day for the Tudor re-enactment Weekend. There was a fieldful of school coaches!

I remember taking the family to one a few years ago, as described here. Julie reminded me they also have an annual event of a different kind that my eldest daughter went to with friends a few years ago - Scaresville! Nothing scary there today although I did hear plenty of screaming schoolkids when I did my recce last week.

As we headed on through the countryside we came across a wonderful field full of  large daisies.

We descended to Bridge Street along a wide path through the fields with a wide view.

These benches were perfect for our half-way stop for a drink....

...in Bridge Street.

The Rose and Crown, alas, is no longer a going concern, so we couldn't get a drink there.

As we started on the path along Chad brook, we met a couple of ladies with dogs we had seen leaving the car park while we waited to see if anyone else would arrive. They were walking our walk in the opposite direction, and I was able to help them with their directions.

The fields are full of ripening crops.

It does look summery, doesn't it?

Near the end we found a unicorn tree...

We could have stopped for tea here at the garden centre, but we both wanted to get back to catch up on things to do at home.

Thanks Julie. And I think we might do it again for other members of the group some time, if there's enough interest.

See my photos from my Ramblers version of this walk last year here and from my Recce last week here. And you can see more details of our route on MapMyWalk here.