Hadleigh Ramblers Walk

Today's Bury St. Edmunds Ramblers group walk was a circular route from Hadleigh to Kersey,
This was the listing...

...and the walk leader, John M, was... me!

I based this on the shortened version of Joyce's walk in March, that I did with the family in April and with Steve when Joyce did the fuller walk again in July.

This was our route.

We assembled in the playground car park and Derek kindly agreed to be my back-marker again. We were a bit further from Bury St. Edmunds than usual for a Tuesday, and a number of regulars were away, but we still got a decent turnout of 21 walkers. It was also a bit more up and down than some were used to and there were a few tired legs by the end.

Here are a few photos from today supplemented with a couple of others from previous walks.

We started by crossing the River Brett ...

...and walking through the town centre, along the high street and then down Church walk. Here we came across people arriving for a funeral at the church and gathered in front of the Deanery Tower to admire it and the Town Hall and Guildhall.

To our surprise, the canon, Father Jo Delfgou, left the mourners arriving at the church to come and talk to us and gave us a brief history of the tower. (Read more about the church and Deanery Tower  here). He had to get back to his service, but said that if we were to come back in 45 minutes or so, his congregation would have gone and he could tell us more. But we had a 6 mile walk to do so had to sadly decline the offer.

We passed on down to the River Brett and crossed it via the Toppesfield bridge. we then took the broad path up the side of Constitution hill and along the top to Coram Street and past some lovely houses. This is Coram Street Farm house.



We crossed the main road, the A1071, and headed towards Kersey Vale, with good views of Kersey Church which was our planned drinks and snack stop point before we descended.

The house at the bottom (which was yellow, but is now white) was at the end of Vale Lane.

We followed Vale Lane up towards Kersey, passing the coronation oak...

...and Kersey Primary school...

...before arriving at the church.

...and a lovely view of the village below.

Here we surprised the rector Rev. Jackson Crompton-Battersby, who asked us if we would like a quick guide of the church and its history. Yes please!

Read more about the church's history here, We heard that the shrine will be rededicated on 8th March next year. "You will have to bring us on another walk here then, John", said someone.

Here we are crossing the river by "The splash".

A couple more pictures of the village...

We had a bit of road walking before heading back to Hadleigh across the fields. Of course the harvest has been and gone now, but this is what they looked like in July.

That last one of the Suffolk prairie, got used on my Suffolk Witbeer bottle labels.

But back to today's walk... One last climb before getting back to Hadleigh.

Well that turned out well. We were triply blessed by encounters with members of the clergy in both Hadleigh and Kersey and by some beautiful weather, perfect for walking,

Thanks to everyone who came and I hope you all thought it worth coming.

You can see more details of our route here in MapMyWalk and more photos from March and July  here and here on Flickr.