Kersey Mill Walk

 

Today was the first Thursday of the month so time for the Bury St. Edmunds U3A Longer Walks group monthly walk. We met at Kersey Mill to start walking at 10am. 

This was our route...

Here are a few of my photos...

We met in the car park at Kersey Mill; eight of us on the walk today. Rosalind was leading and introduced the walk as having the most paths across fields we're likely to come across.

For a lot of the walk we could see St. Mary's Church sitting above Kersey

It wasn't long before we stopped for a drinks break.

We caught a glimpse of St Peter's Church, Lindsey, but we didn't visit it.

We did indeed have long stretches across fields. But January had been very dry.. and so were our paths.

Approaching Kersey, we found plenty of snowdrops alongside our path.

Here we are lining up for a group photo, which a lady walking her dog kindly offered to take on Rosalind's phone. If she sends me it I will add it here.

Right next to the bridge over 'the splash' is the Grade II listed River House, which has a stone inscribed "Ye Olde River House 1490". It is currently for sale for £1.4m, according to this article.

We visited the church. The shrine to our Lady of Kersey in the re-hallowed North Chancel currently has a rather lovely large prayer bowl full of pebbles with prayers attached. You can read more about that here.

At the side on the chancel is a small section of the church's medieval rood screen. It was recovered from a local farm and restored. The panels show saints and kings, one of the Kings (last on the right) being Edmund the Martyr, shown holding an arrow. You can read more about the history of the church here.

We had our lunch in the south porch before heading on... and across the middle of another field. Here is the view looking back at the church.

Approaching Kersey Vale. This house was yellow when I walked this path in on this walk March 2019.

Shortly before we crossed the River Brett at Cosford Bridge, we passed Cosford Bridge House, with a footpath sign pointing up the drive. We wondered where it goes (the answer, on consulting the map, is to Whatfield and Ash Street).

Across Cosford Bridge....

...and round the corner, we were back at Kersey Mill.... and time for tea.

The café was much larger than it looked and we ended up sitting in The Furnace... 

...which maybe explains why someone remarked "It was quite warm in there" when we left.

Well that was a nice walk and we were lucky the cross-filed paths were so dry. Thank to Rosalind for leading us round and to the others for their company. "who's leading the walk next month?", asked Chris. It seems I have volunteered.

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