Hargrave and Chevington Walk

It was my turn to catch up with Joyce's Walking Group by walking with Joyce and hearing about the other 1:1 walks she had done with other friends.

"I am walking with Miranda on June 5th and until 11.30am so we could walk after midday if you fancy a 6 miler? ... I can then drive onto a new starting point but I’d prefer not too long a drive", she said.

So I did a bit of research and found this walk from Hargrave that seemed to fit the bill. I plotted up the route from the description using the Ramblers Route Planner and sent it to Joyce to ask if it suited. It did. So we arranged to meet at Hargrave Village Hall at 12:15.

This was our route.... not quite as the instructions said as I misread where we were at one point and missed a turn, but it was close enough.

I forgot to start my tracker at the start but we returned along the same bit of path we started on.

Here are a few of my photos.

I arrived early at the village hall. There was a cold wind blowing. It had been raining in the morning but the weather had improved. I decided to wear my waterproof jacket just in case. Joyce arrived in good time still a bit damp from her morning walk, but keen to do our walk as planned.

We set off along some lovely paths round the back of the village. Everything was looking freshly green after the monring's showers.

We looped back through the village and on past The Old Grove. What a lovely cottage and garden.

Now it was across the countryside towards Tan Office Green.

We passed some brambles. Wow! There are going to be lots of blackberries to pick here!

Across the fields and among the trees we had a glimpse of  this picturesque farmstead. I wondered if it was Pluck Hall, which we could see on the map in that direction.

We saw plenty of Ox-eye daisies. The seasons are progressing - we are in summer now and the spring flowers are gone, although we did see some magnolias later.

We passed some gardens with pinks and roses.

Not long after, we caught sight of Chevington Church, last visited on our Chevington and Ickworth Walk in December last year.

We passed some more gardens with pretty flowers. This plant with orange pom-pom flowers is a Buddleja Globosa.

Church Cottage has delphiniums.

And here we are at All Saints, Chevington Church, where we stopped for our drinks break in the porch.

Now onwards towards Hargrave Church. These flowers were popular with the bees. Not sure what they are thiugh.

We passed a whole fieldful of daisies.

We got a little sprinkling of a shower, but when we got here we found the road rather what. Luckily that burst of rain missed us.

It was quite a varied walk with some meadows as well as fields.

The rape plants have now all gone to seed.

We had some great country views.

Oh oh. Those clouds look a bit threatenting.

We arrived at Hargrave Church. again intersecting a previous walk , this time our Barrow Walk from October last year.

As we walked on down this lane it started to rain.

A bit more than a sprinkle this time! We sheltered under the trees at the end of the lane waiting for it to ease off. It turned to hail for a time, but soon we saw some blue skies coming and were able to do the last half a mile back to our cars as the rain eased off.

 It hadn't been raining for long, but Wash Lane was... awash!

We crossed one last field as the skies turned blue our feet collecting sticky mud as we went. This was all perfectly dry when we left.

But soon we were back at the village hall.

Well that was a lovely 6-ish mile walk and we didn't mind the weather, and great to cacth up with Joyce and get news of others in the group. Maybe we can start walking in slightly larger groups soon - I hope so.

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