Redgrave Walk

Today it was my turn again to lead a walk for Joyce's Weekly Walks. This week I chose to do a walk around Redgrave Village and then up to and around the Redgrave and Lopham Fen Waveney route.

This was the invite.

"Wednesday 15th September. Please support John on his walk if you can. We will meet at 10.30am at Redgrave Activities Centre, 16 Churchway, Redgrave, IP22 1RL (To get to the Activities Centre car park, head east along Churchway from the centre of Redgrave village and look for a turning to the right into the car park just before the last houses on the left.) We will start by going through and around the pretty village of Redgrave with its thatched cottages and then on to St. Mary’s Church, where we will have a drinks break and admire the hop farm and Albert’s grave. Then we will head for  Redgrave and Lopham Fen where we will hunt for Fen Raft Spiders, Konik Ponies and the source of the River Waveney. We will stop for lunch + toilets here.  Expect a walk of about 9-10 miles with the opportunity for refreshments afterwards at the community-owned Cross Keys pub and plenty of blackberries along the way. Please bring drinks and a packed lunch as there are no places to buy food or drink en route."

Quite a few of the group couldn't make it, but I was joined by Lin and Peter on a gloomy but mild day. This was our route...

This was an extended version of the walk I had offered the Suffolk Walking Festival last year and this, but, although the festival never happened, I still did the walk on the appointed day in May last year. (See here).

Here are a few of my photos.

There was no activity at the activity centre. Just us.

We sympathised with the villagers over this.

Just around the corner from that was the library.

The Cross Keys pub turned out not to be open on Wednesdays. Maybe I should have scheduled for tomorrow.

We walked up the High Street and around the back of the village, passing through through Redgrave Green...

...before walking along Half Moon Lane, which has lots of lovely houses - this one, Priory Cottage, dating from 1550.

Passing Tanglewood we were out in the country and got a first view of St. Mary's church...

...our drinks stop.

The church was declared redundant on 1 April 2004. Following vesting in the Churches Conservation Trust, repairs and restoration were undertaken. The first phase involved repairs to the exterior, which were completed in September 2006. The second phase involved re-plastering and limewashing of the interior, repairing the fittings, cleaning and consolidating the memorials, and conserving the hatchments. In 2005 the local residents formed the Redgrave Church Heritage Trust and the two trusts have worked together. The church has been transformed into a community venue. Services are still held in the church, and it is also used for concerts, plays, and other events.

More recently the church bells have been restored, thanks to the generous legacy of £120,000 from Albert Driver, a bell-ringer there for 80 years.We went and found his grave...

...and marveled at how many graves there were in the graveyard for such a small village.

 

 

The church is just across the road from Hall Farm, home of Starwing Brewery....

...with it's own hop plantation.

On now to Redgrave and Lopham Fen, the largest valley fen in England.

The section of the Angles Way along the southern edge is still closed, so we joined the Waveney trail, which we followed all the way round, apart from going to look for the Fen Raft Spiders. Some of the flowers I saw on my recce 2 weeks earlier had sadly faded but there were still a few around. I think this is Purple Lossestrife....

...and this Red Admiral was among many butterflies enjoying the Hemp Agrimony.

We took a detour into the middle of the fen to look for the spiders...

...but we didn't see any. They prefer some sunshine to come out. 

We stopped for our lunch a the picnic tables at the Education Centre.

This is what the recent sightings board said.

The previous time I came, top of the list was "2 x children arguing". No children today - they are back at school.

We went on to look for the source of the River Waveney passing a proliferation of blues scabious flowers...

 ... before getting as near to the source as we could.

At the road we saw the birder between Norfolk and Suffolk. Over the other side was the source of the River Little Ouse. Both rivers form the border between Suffolk and Norfolk for a lot of their length.

We were now back on the Suffolk side of the fen and, passing a few remaining honeysuckle flowers and some wild hops we continued round. The sun came out... 

....but we never saw the Konik ponies.

Just before the end we had a little hill....

 ...and a nice view back to the church...

 

...and saw some deer!

Then it was back across the fields to our starting point. That was a nice, easy, peaceful walk, and all the better once the sun came out. And we saw some deer! Thank-you Lin and Peter for joining me.

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