Newbourne Walk - The Retirement Walk

Today we had a walk on new paths to us from Newbourne via Waldringfield Heath and Martlesham Heath... and we had a lovely sunny winter's day for it. 

This was the invite from Joyce..

"Thursday January 13th - Please park at Newbourne Village Hall, Mill Road IP12 4NP. Our walk will start at 10.30am and it is for the adventurous !!! Contact me if you'd like a lift from Skyliner Way, Bury. Our route will take in Waldringfield Heath, Martlesham Heath (coffee shop stop here), Kesgrave, Brightwell. It’s very likely to involve mud and also lots of cycle paths and industrial areas. I am aiming for 11 miles." 

For the adventurous? That sounded interesting. This was our route.

We headed West and the North at first before beginning a figure of 8 loop, including a stretch of the Sandlings Walk, which we've done several bits of before, most recently in Rendlesham Forest on last week's walk. Here are a few of my photos from today.

Joyce briefing the adventurers on the plan.

We started by visiting St. Mary's church, he east end of which was blown out in the great storm of October 1987. 

Soon we caught sight of BT's Adastral Park research facilities. You can see some old maps of the area here.

Enjoying the trees in Foxburrow plantation.

We wondered what this old tower is. It is not the control tower for Martlesham Heath Airfield - we would visit that later. [Update: Mr Retirement suggested it might be part of the Instrument Landing System for the airfield. It could well be the base of the glide slope transmitter. Martlesham Heath was the base for the Blind Landing Experimental Unit that developed and tested the system.]

We caught site of the dishes.

We avoided going this way and kept to the public footpaths. This whole area is subject to a large-scale development plan... read about it here.

We took a short diversion to Costa for our drinks stop.

Now we were on the Sandlings Path for a while.

We passed Suffolk Police Headquarters, which is built on part of the old Martlesham Heath airfield.

This was the control tower for the airfield and is now a museum.

In Kesgrave Wood we came across Dobbs grave. "According to one legend, John Dobbs was a shepherd in 1750 who hanged himself in a barn on Kesgrave Hall Farm (later Grange Farm), and was buried at the four crossways here with a stake through his heart. His grave was marked by concrete head and footstones, with a cross cut on the former, and these are now surrounded by a decorative iron fence after several acts of vandalism."

We came to the green at Martlesham Heath, where we stopped for a while.

Where are we and where do we go next?

At the edge of the green we found this boulder with the story of Martlesham Heath.

Fascinating. You can find out more on the Martlesham Heath Aviation Society website.

Passing through Martlesham Heath Business Park, we were amused by this business name...

According to its website Strictly Elvis is "... the UK's largest Elvis fan organisation. Dedicated solely to keeping the legend of Elvis Presley alive and sharing his legacy with fans not only here in the UK but across the globe. Since 1972 we've been proudly serving fellow Elvis fans with holidays and events worldwide and every year we have a packed programme to suit all tastes. "

We passed close to the satellite dishes on our return loop.

We crossed the strange landscape of the Waldringfield Quarry aggregate extraction and landfill site..

Now we retraced our route back the way we came.

And here we are at the village hall again.

Well that was an interesting adventure with lots of variety and a lot less mud than we had feared. Thanks Joyce for leading us and the rest for their company too.

Oh. And why is this called The Retirement Walk? Well I probably shouldn't say.

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