Redgrave Ramblers Walk

This was my first Tuesday walk with the Ramblers for a while. Here is the listing...

...and this was our route.

We started at the Redgrave Activity Centre and did a loop past St. Mary's church and up towards Redgrave and Lopham fen, which we almost circumnavigated. Along the way we took in a stretch of the Angles Way, beside the fledgling River Waveney, the Great Fen, the Education Centre (where we stopped for our drink and toilets break) and the source of both the Waveney and Little Ouse rivers.

Our leader today was Chris and, as ever, she gave us lots of information about where we were walking and its history.

Here are a few of my photos.

Chris giving us our briefing at the start of the walk.

We passed this in one of the gardens. No it wasn't real..

The redundant St. Mary's church is interesting. The initial building of the church was between about 1280 and 1350. Alterations and additions were made in the 15th century, and the vestry was added in the later part of the following century. The 16th-century tower was refaced in the late 18th century. Repairs were carried out in 1850, and further alterations were made later that century and in the 20th century. In 1506 the rector of the church was Cardinal Wolsey, later to be Lord Chancellor to Henry VIII.

The church was declared redundant on 1 April 2004. Following vesting in the Churches Conservation Trust, repairs and restoration were undertaken. The first phase involved repairs to the exterior, which were completed in September 2006. The second phase involved re-plastering and limewashing of the interior, repairing the fittings, cleaning and consolidating the memorials, and conserving the hatchments. In 2005 the local residents formed the Redgrave Church Heritage Trust and the two trusts have worked together. The church has been transformed into a community venue. Services are still held in the church, and it is also used for concerts, plays, and other events.

As Chris told us, more recently the church bells have been restored, thanks to the generous legacy of £140,000. The bells were rededicated only last Sunday.

This sign was just across the road.

There didn't seem to be many hops to pick.

We crossed into Norfolk and the Nature Reserve.

We followed the Waveney trail from here. The fen is the largest remaining area of river valley fen in England and consists of a number of different fen types, including saw-sedge beds, as well as having areas of open water, heathland, scrub and woodland. It is also one of only three sites in the UK where the fen raft spider Dolomedes plantarius is known to be found, But we didn't go in search of that.

Chris told us how the fen was used as a source of peat and fresh water by the locals. In 1959 a borehole was drilled at the Fen to provide drinking water for the local population, with a capacity to take 3,600m³ of water every day from the underlying aquifer. This diverted water from the springs that fed the fen and the water table began to fall. This led to a change in the Fen’s hydrology in the early 1960s as it went from a year-round water supply to alternating summer drought and winter floods. With a net loss of water this caused the fen to begin to dry out.

A new borehole 3km SE of the reserve is now used instead.

Seen at the education centre...

I think it says "Black Poo" and then "Lots of fallen down trees". Interesting spelling!
Then we were okf on our return leg,

We passed the cows but not the Konik ponies.

This is the source of the Waveney.

And just across the road here, the source of the Little Ouse, which forms the boundary between Nortfolk and Suffolk for a lot of its length.

As we returned to Redgrave, we could see St. Mary's Church again across the fielsds.

Thanks, Chris, for a very interesting walk.

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