Today was to have been the last walk I would lead in this year's cancelled
Suffolk Walking Festival. This was how it was described in the brochure...
"The Source of Two Rivers.
A circular walk encompassing Suffolk Wildlife Trust's Redgrave and Lopham Fen Nature Reserve, including areas of woodland and heath, and a stretch of the fledgling River Waveney. We return via the source of both the River Waveney and The Little Ouse, hopefully meeting Konik ponies along the way. "
As for my
SWF walk last week I was joined by Dawn and Ann. Of course if I had been doing it for real I would have done a recce beforehand as it is a walk I had done only
once before, with the
Bury St. Edmunds Ramblers.
I didn't quite follow the route as planned - we ended up doing the first bit of the walk in reverse at the end, but we never got seriously off track. This was our route today...
Here are a few of my photos.
We left Redgrave walking through fields with barley on one side and wheat on the other.
We had a distant view of the tower of the redundant
St. Mary's church, which we would visit later.
It was at this point I found we hadn't been following the path we should have followed. But no harm done, we had been heading towards the fen all right. But the original route should have taken us via the church first. "Do we go this way?" asked Ann. No. Not now, but we did later - it was the way we should have come to this point.
We found a proud single poppy at the edge of a field.
We arrived at Redgrave and Lopham Fen, the largest valley fen in England and one of the most important wetlands in Europe, and the
Angles Way. This required a change to the route - part was closed due to dangerous trees.
Never mind. It meant we did more of the Waveney Walk (you can see the trail map
here). The cattle were rather curious about us passing.
We saw some of the
Konik ponies a little way off..
We crossed the
River Waveney and continued beside it to the end of the reserve.
We heard plenty of different bird calls, including sedge warblers and this reed bunting.
A tree was down. "Do not walk under the dangerous tree", said the sign. We ignored it!
These bulrushes were very fluffy. Where they were standing had dried up with the lack of rain over the last 2 months.
We stopped for a drink at the Education Centre and chose a picnic table in the shade. The centre (and toilets) weren't open, of course.
We resisted the temptation to go off into the fen in the search of Great Raft Spiders and stuck to our route round the outside.
As we crossed a footbridge Ann and Dawn saw something moving and a little head
peeking out the water. It was, we reckon, a water vole. It fled into
the bank before I could get my camera trained on it, hiding somewhere in
here...
We found a swan, ducks and lots of dragonflies at this stretch of open water.
We saw some ragged robin in places.
We took a little diversion to find the source of the Waveney. The tyres and tarpaulin are still there. I wonder why?
We left the reserve and crossed the road to see the back to back signs.
Just beyond them, but inaccessible through the brambles, is the source of the other river - the
Little Ouse.
Recrossing the road and continuing along the path in the woods beside it, we came across a mass of sweet-smelling honeysuckle.
Now we could see across the fen to where we had walked round the other side after leaving the Education Centre.
Just before we left the Nature Reserve, we came across the ponies again.
We now took the route we should have done at the start in reverse and headed for the church. We had a nice view across the fields to Redgrave village.
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.
More recently
the church bells have been restored, thanks to the generous legacy of £120,000 from Albert Driver, a bell-ringer there for 80 years.
The
story is on display in the notice board.
We went looking for the war graves in the large graveyard. We didn't find them, but did find Albert's grave.
We returned past some lovely thatched cottages..
...to reach our starting point, the
Redgrave Activities Centre.
Well that was a lovely walk with lots of wildlife. Maybe I should offer it again for the Suffolk Walking Festival next year.
You can see more details of our route
here on MapMyWalk and more of my photos
here on Flickr.
