Sudbury to Bulmer Walk

 

Today was my sixth walk in Joyce's Mini Walking Festival. This was the listing in the brochure...

"Sun: 20th Sept *A NEW WALK* Sudbury to Bulmer. An 11-mile circular walk in LoveJoy territory.**"

I had done this walk before at the start of August with Joyce and Roland, as you can read about here. Today we had two groups and I co-led the second group with Roland, starting some 20 minutes behind the first group, led by Joyce.

This was our route. It is based on this walk in Suffolk Magazine, but starting in Sudbury rather than Bulmer village hall.

It being a Sunday, the roads were quiet and I got to the start in Sudbury in time to see off the first group...

Here are some of my photos from our group's walk.

Assembling at the start outside the Kingfisher Leisure Centre.  Suncream on. It's going to be yet another sunny day's walk.

We crossed the River Stour near the Quay Theatre... currently closed, of course.

We navigated our way through the streets past the playpark heading uphill...

...where we got a good view back towards Sudbury town centre

It wasn't long before we reached Bulmer Tye. Too early for the pub, but we had only done about 3 1/2 miles. Here we stopped for a drinks break by the village green monument, which features Mr and Mrs Andrews as portrayed by Thomas Gainsborough (see here).

We turned right at the bottom of the green past this Tudor house.

At St. Andrew, Bulmer Church...

 ... we had a good view as far as Eyston Hall in Borley Green.

Spotted by the first group were these interesting cast-iron grave markers by the edge of the graveyard.

A little further on we caught up with the first group having their lunch break...

...but we carried on...

...to the church of St. Mary, Belchamp Walter, where we stopped for our lunch.

Helen hadn't noticed a peacock coming up behind her.

After our lunch we took advantage of the church being open to look inside.

We were just ahead of the other group now as we passed through Belchamp Walter village. We liked this house

Meanwhile, behind us now, the first group were admiring this face in the wall at Belchamp Hall (No, it doesn't look like me)...

...and themselves...

Then we had a stretch through some pleasant countryside along Belchamp Brook...

... to meet the River Stour again at Brundon Mill

As we headed towards Sudbury Common...

...we bumped into Dawn, leader of the Theatre Royal 200-for-200 last year. That was a nice coincidence.

There were plenty of people enjoying the river by the common...

...and plenty too at the Mill Hotel by the river.

We crossed the river once more...

..and returned to the car park via Friar's Meadow.

Another lovely day's walking in great company. Thanks for organising it Joyce. Two more days to go.

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