Bures Walk

We couldn't do this walk last Thursday as planned as the weather was pretty horrid in the morning, so instead we did it this afternoon. This was the original invite from Joyce...

"We are all walking in a group on Thursday ! Did you ever think it would happen again?

Let’s meet at Bures Carpark opposite the Primary School (Nayland Road, Bures CO8 5BX) at 9.30am. If this car park is full then re trace your steps and park near the church that you would have driven by already.

I can’t promise you public toilets anywhere on this walk I’m afraid. The walk is just over 11 miles and very nice. Please bring drink/food with you. At the end there is a Deli on the green where we can buy a coffee/tea afterwards."

Our start was at the later time of 12:30 and we had a glorious sunny day for it. Now I am  into my 3rd year of walking and blogging, I am seeing more and more walks join up with and retrace part or all of previous walks. Today we did a circular walk that headed East from Bures along the Stour Valley Path in Essex and back along the St. Edmund Way in Suffolk. It joined up with the Sudbury to Bures Walk we did last year and overlapped with the Suffolk Walking Festival walk, the Stour Valley Dragon Walk I did the previous year, but going nearly twice as far. I enjoyed both of those so was looking forward to this one.

This was our route....

Here are a few of my photos.

There were 6 of us on the walk today for the first time since before lockdown and it gave me a chance to catch up with Peter, Steve and Tina who I hadn't seen for ages.

We did the walk in the anti-clockwise direction, meaning we came across the picturesque Bures Mill early in our walk.

The barley in the fields is ripening nicely.

There are still some merry clusters of poppies around.

What's this? A hill? My legs aren't used to those.

We gpt a nice view looking back once we got up it.

Our first drinks stop was at St. Andrew's Church, Wormingford. You can read all about its history here.

We were glad of the shade in  the churchyard. We speculated about the name of the village. It says here..

"The modern form of the place name, recorded from 1254, gave rise to three stories of dragons, ('worm' meaning serpent or dragon). The first story says the village is the location where the patron saint of England, St George, killed his dragon; a mound in the village is said to cover the body of the legendary dragon. The second, also unsubstantiated, is that a crocodile escaped from Richard I of England's menagerie in the Tower of London and caused much damage in Wormingford before being killed by Sir George Marney; a stained glass window in the parish church (St Andrew's) depicts this legend. The third, written in 1405 by John de Trokelowe, a monk, told of a dragon who threatened Richard Waldegrave's territory near Sudbury but fled into the Mere when pursued."

Onward and back down to the Stour to cross over into Suffolk.

I spotted this plant as we passed through a belt of trees and over a stream. It looks an orchid of some type, but I've not been able to identify it yet.

We were impressed with this raft on a pond we passed.

We had views of Stoke-by-Neyland church in the distance, but we wouldn't be getting that far today.

We traversed a field of oil-seed rape. It's looking quite ripe now and was a bit scratchy to walk through.

The Stour ran placidly under us as we crossed it....

...and then stopped for another drinks break.

Onward to the delightful St. Mary's church of Wiston, which dates from 1135 or even earlier.

We admired the porch and its lantern.

As we passed this house, Steve told us about a previous walk past it with his wife where they saw a big wild cat in the garden. Could it have been a wild panther? He said someone told him a big cat has escaped from Colchester Zoo, but I can't find any evidence of it. This article, though, says there have been many sightings of black panthers in Suffolk.

The Galloway cattle here were having a lie down.

But this deer ran off when we disturbed it by walking by.

We reached St. Stephen's Chapel. dedicated in 1218 and built on the site of the coronation of King Edmund in AD 876.

And here we had a great view of the Bures Dragon.

It made me wonder. Did Steve actually see the dragon reincarnated?

Then it was down the hill back into Bures and to the river.

 

On my way back to my car I enjoyed this sign outside the pub.

I'm looking forward to being able to go to a pub again for pint again soon!

Thanks Joyce for the great walk and to Jane, Tina, Peter and Steve for their company too.

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