Nowton Walk

Dawn and the Panda in Nowton Park. I think it needs a bit of TLC

It was  a lovely bright and frosty morning, so I thought we would do the walk I was going to do in the snow two weeks ago but the roads were a bit slippery so we just walked from home instead. It is the longer of the two walks from the Nowton Circular Walks leaflet. I had done and variants of it this plenty of times before, notably at the leaflet launch walk with the Bury St Edmunds Ramblers, but it was new to Dawn. This is the route...

Here are some of my photos. The theory was that the frost would freeze the mud so we shouldn't get our feet too muddy. Hmm.

We didn't remember this stream flowing so much ever before - in summer it is normally bone dry.

The trees in the Lime avenue are bare, but the daffodils are showing.

The lake was partly frozen. The pale stems of the bulrushes look almost bleached.

This is a path. Oo er. Even trying to avoid the mud was squelchy as the ground was water-logged.

Heading out from muddy Nowton Park we passed the Artisan Bakery and followed the path up the hill ti the paddocks. This old man's beard caught the eye.

Dawn enjoyed the views across the countryside and, a little later, down to Sicklesmere.

We found a few other walkers, but didn't expect to meet Venkat and Rachel, friends with children at Music School and King Edwards School alongside ours. It was good to catch up with them for a few minutes.

I love the silhouette of these bare trees against the sky.

We approached Nowton Church. The road here was somewhat icy!

Dawn admired the stained glass windows from the outside.

Venkat had suggested this bit was a bit muddy and that we take the private road, but it was fine.

We passed Nowton Hall. As this article on Nowton says, "the Grade 2 listed former farmhouse is dated 1595 on the chimney-stack, with the initials A.P. for Anthony Payne (d.1606). The house stands on the remains of a roughly E-shaped moated site. Prior to the Dissolution, the manor belonged to the Benedictine Abbey of St. Edmundsbury"

Yes the chimney stack says 1595.

We continued to follow the St Edmund Way passing this trig point.

But what was this we could see hovering just a little further along the path?

A female Sparrowhawk, perhaps?

And now we came to the muddy bit. Unfortunately the frost had been melting....

Maybe we should have avoided this bit like Joyce did the last time we walked this way. By the time we were half way across the next field I was about an inch taller.

On our way back now we passed what used to be Hardwick Middle School, which all three of our children had been to and where Dawn started her teaching career.

Along Breckey Ley we found this house had had all the trees chopped down.

And then, at last, we came across some snowdrops. Hooray!

And then we saw a few more as we entered Nowton Park once more.

Well that was a nice walk, but I should have followed Dawn's lead and worn my wellies. Good conditions for hippos, though!

You can see more of my photos here on Fickr.