Joyce was free for a 1:1 walk today. She had a few suggestions, including one she had seen on my blog from 2018 that included some villages she hadn't visited before. So we plumped for that one - a circular walk from Acton I had done with the Bury St. Edmunds Ramblers, as described here.
It was a cloudy day and the wind was a little cold so I was glad to have my light waterproof over my T-shirt. we met and set off just before 9 am.
This was our route today. We only deviated from the planned route once, when I missed a turning off the airfield, but we decided to retrace our steps rather than just walk along the road.
Here are a few of my photos.
We started in the car park of Acton Village Hall.
Heading up Barrow Hill, we soon came to the Acton Wildlife Reserve. There is a new display board there with a little note apologising that the pictures of the Wren and Chiff-chaff had got transposed.
We had a walk along the main runway of Acton airfield, former home to RAF Sudbury.
Some of the land is set aside and colonised by wild flowers.
The path took us along the grand tree-lined drive of the impressive Grade II listed and moated Chilton Hall .
The it was on to the redundant church of St. Mary, Chilton.
Soon we came to our second church, St. Lawrence, Great Waldingfield, with a funny little turret at the top of the rood loft staircase.
We stopped for a drink in the churchyard before heading on towards Little Waldingfield. We found plenty of wild carrot (also known as Queen Anne's lace) coming into flower, with a red flower at the centre surrounded by frothy white blossom.
We passed through the hamlet of Upsher Green with it's pretty cottages.
Our third church was St. Lawrence, Little Waldingfield, first seen from the road behind these scabious flowers before we did a loop around to come at it from the north.
There are some impressive houses in the village.
Joyce also took a photo of the village sign to send to Glen. I wonder if he has been here?
On our way out Great Waldingfield for a second time, this time on Ten Tree Road, we came across this walnut tree and stopped to chat with the man who's garden it was in. He pointed out to us that there was a hazelnut tree just a bit further on. I asked if his walnut tree was one of the ten the road was named after, but he didn't know, and the village website doesn't say.
We liked this notice we found on a field gate.
Our last church was All Saints, Acton, right at the end of our walk.
One last job for Joyce with the secateurs - to clear the foliage hiding the footpath sign beside the pub.
So thanks Joyce for joining me on the walk. Maybe one to tweak if we do it again, perhaps. We spotted plenty of options to vary it.
You can see more of my photos here on Flickr and more details of our route here on MapMyWalk.
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