Today it was my turn to lead a walk for Joyce's Weekly Walks group. I decided to do a variant of the U3A Longer Walks Group walk I had done last month, trying to find all 3 dragons.
This was the invite.
"Thursday September 9th. Bures…. John will be leading a "Dragon Walk" via St. Stephen's Chapel, Tiger Hill, the lovely Assington Mill, Arger Fen, Wissington and Wormingford. It will be about 13 miles so we will start from Bures Community Centre, Nayland Rd, Bures CO8 5BX at 9:30 am. Please bring refreshments and a packed lunch as there are no facilities along the route. We will stop for drinks by the lake at Assington Mill and lunch at Wissington church. Expect plenty of ups and downs, lovely views… and (hopefully) more than one dragon."
We had an earlier than usual start of 9:30 as this was a little longer than usual at a little over 13 miles and I wanted to get to our lunch stop, which was more than halfway round at a reasonable time.
This was our route, going clockwise from Bures St. Mary.
Here are some of my photos. We met by the community where there is a nice map of shorter local walks.
We used the St Edmund Way to get to St. Stephen's Chapel, dedicated in 1218 and allegedly built on the site of the coronation of King Edmund in AD 876.
We were delighted to find it unlocked and had a good look round inside.
Outside it was still a bit misty after the rain early this morning, but we could see the Bures Dragon alright (see the top of this post).
There is a plaque that tells you all about it...
We left the St Edmund Way and headed north to Tiger Hill through the wood with "unsafe trees". We were safe enough and didn't see the tiger.
Over the hill...
...we skirted round these nice cows. Later we bumped into the farmer and had a very interesting chat.
Our drinks stop was at the lovely Assington Mill.....
...which Steve knew well. We bumped into the owner and they had a brief chat.
We returned to the St Edmund Way via Spouse's Grove, which I managed to navigate successfully and avoided the locked gate we had to climb over last time. We nearly missed this turning, though. Can you see the footpath sign?
We had our lunch stop at St. Mary's church, Wissington (pronounced and sometimes spelt Wiston), which dates from 1135 or even earlier.
And here we found our second dragon...
Simon Knott's site describes the other paintings, which date from 1280, but that the dragon is a later addition. "Being a later addition of the 15th Century, he is quite out of scale with the other images, and in quite a different style."
Now were on the Stour Valley Path and crossed into Essex. We were tempted to take a detour to push these bales down the hill.
After a bit of a climb, we got a lovely view back into Suffolk.
Our final drinks stop was at St. Andrew's Church, Wormingford. You can read all about its history here.
We saw a poster fora forthcoming "Dragon Day". But would we find the dragon here?
Yes. Here it is!
There is a framed document by it telling the story. I loved the bits "...swimming, crawling, ravaging it found its way to that small settlement on the banks of the Stour called Withermundford. The few natives were terrified at the new arrival and a rumour spread among them that it could only be pacified with human sacrifice and so long as the supply lasted they fed the creature with virgins. Doubtless the temporary prodigality of food kept the cocodrille well and happy but the supply of food gave out and the natives, at their wits end sent to sir George Of layer de la Haye, son of Eustice Earl Of Boulogne telling the gallant knight that their was a fierce dragon which had settled with them and which they had tried, in vain to slay with arrows which bounce from its hide and then had pacified it with virgins but, alas, there were no more virgins in the hundred."
You can read the full story here. It was very pleasant sitting in the sun outside, but we still had about 2 1/2 miles to go.
After one last climb, we looked down to the valley towards our journey's end.
And one more mill to pass on the way... the picturesque Bures Mill
A lovely day out and we did find all three dragons.... but not the tiger. Thank-you Ann, Roland and Steve for joining me.
You can see more details of our route here on MapMyWalk and more of my photos here on Flickr. Oh, and by the way Steve, as you asked, MapMyWalk says we climbed a total of 575ft, but it doesn't include the first couple of miles. Loading the full GPX into the Ramblers Planner, though, gives an ascent of 863ft.
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