Haughley Walk

 

Today was Day 6 of Joyce's Mini Walking Festival and today's walk was from Haughley. It was a double-header with 2 groups - one in the morning and a second in the afternoon. This was the invite...

"We will meet outside The Parish Church on Duke Street nearest postcode is IP14 3QS. There is road parking along here. The delightful bakery does coffee and 100’s of baked items so grab something before or after the walk if you wish. We will head over to Shelland and Harleston for this 7-8 mile circular walk. Expect some traffic noise from the A14.

I was in the morning group and we met as planned at 9 am, but left the bakery until the end. 

This was our route...

Oddly, despite the fact that it was less than 20 minutes from home, I had never walked here, nor even visited the village.

Here are a few of my photos.

We met by The Assumption Church, Haughley

Our walk was mostly the other side of the A14. We crossed the old A14 at the infamous Haughley Bends by the picnic site. We didn't stop to explore Gallowsfield Wood. Maybe another day.

The paths across the fields were well defined.

I didn't manage to photograph any hares today, although we saw a couple, but did manage to catch these deer.

This house is undergoing some major work. It looks like it will be rather nice when finished.

We arrived at the green outside the church in Shelland, which I'd visited on this walk in June last year. We admired the village sign and note the crown on top...

...which must relate to church. King Charles the Martyr Church is one of only 5 churches in the country dedicated to him. As Simon Knott's Churches of Suffolk site says, "The church is unusual in another way, for it is what is known as a donative, a church building erected by a landowner, under his patronage, and with the living in his gift. As such, it is on private land, so a semi-detached Anglican church, if you like. A third unusual thing is simply that 18th century churches are few and far between in East Anglia - there are less than a handful." We didn't get to go inside and see the barrel organ and box pews.

We caught site of Great Finborough Church. I'll be passing that on the walk I am leading from Great Finborough on 12th May - I hope 5 of you will join me.

This new style has a doggie gate.

We arrived at Harleston Green. A big expanse with a whole catalogue of bye-laws saying what you are not allowed to do on it.

A little further on we got a view of 3 churches in one vista - Great Finborough, Buxhall and, behind some trees, One House church, last visited only a few weeks ago with Dawn (see here).

We didn't get close to Harleston Hall...

...but in a walk that's not on the blog, I passed the other side and saw the gates have an inscription "Crux Christi Lux Coeli". Could anyone on the walk translate?  I offered "The Cross of Christ, the light of the heavens". Close enough. When I checked here I found "The Cross of Christ the light of heaven." was the motto of the Pettiwards of Finborough Hall. Roger Pettiward remodelled the house in the 1830's.

We then visited St. Augustine's Church - remarkable for its thatched roof.

These old iron grave markers mark the bodies of five Armstrong children who died within six weeks of each other in 1891. The youngest was five, the eldest fourteen.

On our way back now, we got a glimpse of Haughley church again.

Back in the village...

..it was time for some to visit the bakery.

Thank-you Joyce for organising us and leading us round, and the others too for the company. Two lovely churches along the way and we joined up with two walks I had done before and came within a couple of hundred yards of a third. But I had never been to Haughley before.

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