Wortham and Diss Walk

Today we had a relatively gentle walk on the Suffolk Norfolk border from Wortham to Diss and back. 

This was the invite from Joyce:

"Monday Jan 31st. A 10 mile circular walk from Wortham to Diss. Please park at Wortham Village Hall, near the tennis courts for a 10.30am start,  Willow Corner, Church Road, IP22 1PS. This walk involves some road walking, a visit to Wortham Church, a walk around Diss Mere and a coffee stop in Diss. It's not a taxing walk at all, a gentle stroll and a chance for a good ole chat." 

This was our route which, as you can see, followed a section of the Angles Way on the way to Diss.

We met as planned at Wortham Village Hall. It was sunny enough but there was a strong cold wind blowing all through our walk so we had to keep moving.

Here are a few of my photos.

When we met, there were a few hardy souls playing tennis, some with their coats on.

We had some paths across fields but they were all dry.

Our first stop was St. Mary's Wortham Church. Simon Knott tells us that it has the biggest round tower in England, "fully 10 metres across".

What is everyone looking at?

We were admiring the bench ends carved by Albert Bartrum, builder and churchwarden at the end of the 19th century. They are supposedly inspired by the words of Psalm 104. Here is one of the "things  creeping innumerable" in the great wide sea (v25).

Outside again, we admired the tower before heading on. You can't get into it, though. As Simon says, "Although you can't go inside the tower, you can see the inside of it from the west. It probably dates from the early 12th Century. It is open to the sky now after the roof collapsed in the 1780s, but you can make out where the internal floors were, and what looks like it might have been a fireplace.The perky little bellcote was added at the end of the 18th Century."

A little further on we found what appeared to be a bit of a golf course. Well a few holes, anyway.

On the Angles Way now, we went by this charming thatched cottage...

...shortly before reaching Wortham Ling, a Site of Special Scientific Interest. It features in this Discover Suffolk leaflet of circular walks from Wortham and Burgate... which explains the green and blue circular walk markers I noticed on our walk.

We came to Fair Green and found this interesting memorial. We didn't see the elephant burial, though.  As their site says... "An important aspect of the history of Diss was its great Fair, an annual event for nearly 700 years. For 400 years, it was held on Fair Green, where various fairs and public events are still held today."

Approaching the mysterious Diss Mere, which gave the town its name. It is the only market town in England built around a large lake. 

See how blue the water looked.

There are many stories about how the mere came to be formed, including that it is in the crater of an extinct volcano. A this EADT article says, though, that is mere (ahem) folklore and "Weird Norfolk grudgingly accepts that the most likely explanation for the formation of Diss Mere is that it is a natural basin caused by the collapse of the chalk bedrock at the end of the Ice Age".

We stopped for coffee here out of the wind.

We all thought this painting looked familiar. What was it? A print of a work of one of the French impressionists?

But no. It is "Café Après-Midi" aka "Lunch on the Boulevard" by the English artist John Haskins. See more of his art here.

We continued into the town circumnavigating the mere. 

We visited St Mary's church. Although it dates from 1290-1330, it was built on many times and, as Simon says, "Being a grand, urban church, I am afraid that St Mary is almost entirely Victorian inside." I liked the roof, though.

Round the side of the town council offices in the "Heritage Triangle"...

...we found this rather pretty map...

Image of the map reproduced by kind permission of the artist Daisy Fearns

...but there was no access to the Wildlife garden and boardwalk.

So now we were on our way back and crossed back from Norfolk into Suffolk over the River Waveney.

Another church, but one we didn't visit today. It is St. Remegius, Roydon which has an interesting tower with an octagonal top on a round base.

Back at the large green of Wortham, we had to skirt this pond to avoid crossing a ditch.

But soon after we were back at the village hall where we started. Thank-you Joyce for leading us around and the others too for the company.

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