Reinterred: Stanton Walk

Today it was my turn to lead a walk for Joyce's Weekly Walks. I chose to do a walk from Stanton that I had planned to lead in October, which got cancelled due to bad weather so never happened. But today it would.

This was the invite.

"Tuesday Mar 8th. Please join John at Stanton Village Hall, Old Bury Rd, Stanton IP31 2BX to start walking at 10:30 am. To reach the car park, take the main junction off the A143 and follow the road towards the village centre. The first turning on the right takes you to the village hall and recreation ground. Our route will take us to the picturesque Wyken Hall, where we can have an early drinks break, before continuing on some lovely country paths to Walsham-le-Willows. We will stop at the church there for our lunch break before returning via more country paths, the mysterious and spooky Grundle and Stanton Windmill. The walk should be the usual distance of 9-10 miles with various opportunities to cut short in the event of inclement weather… or to add on an extra mile or two if there is appetite to do so on the day, but be prepared for some muddy bits along the way. "

We had a good turnout of 6 and we set off from Stanton Village Hall on time. This was our route.

The route was anti-clockwise, pretty much as described in the invite and we had great weather for it - sunny and not too cold. It was little splodgy underfoot in places, but nothing too bad, despite all the rain we had last week.

Here are a few of my photos.

Our route took us through the pleasant village of Stanton first.

We were soon at Wyken Hall, now the site of a vineyard, a shop and a restaurant, the well-regarded Leaping Hare. They weren't open today, but a lady in the shop saw us passing and came out to tell us they were closed. So we didn't pinch their tables for a drinks stop and had it a little further on instead.

I forgot to photograph Wyken Hall today, but here is a photo I took earlier.

Entering the village of Walsham-le-Willows along the edge of the stream that is a tributary of the Black Bourne, we passed some interesting houses....

...one of which had a mirror.

The Domesday survey of 1086 records the village as having 'half a church with 10 acres' and 'a wood for 68 pigs'. Much of the village is in a designated conservation area, which you can read about here.

We passed the Priory Room, intended when built to be used as a Sunday school - hence the inscription.

We stopped at St. Mary's church both to visit and use the porch as a lunch stop.

As Simon Knott describes, "The chequerwork porch is dated by internal inscriptions on the wood panelling at a fascinating moment in the fever of the Reformation. One one side, the inscription reads Gods wyll be done in Hevyn also Erthe, while on the other is eius ne fueris curiosus MCCCCCXLI ('in his works be not curious, 1541')."

Here is the interior with its original mediaeval roof.

We had a pleasant walk along the main street of the village next to the stream...

...before heading off into the countryside once more.

We enjoyed traversing the seesawing plank that got us across a wet bit.

I'm glad we weren't going this way. Footpath? What footpath?

New we reached the Grundle, previously walked in September and November 2020 (see here and here), "...a deep and mysterious half-mile long trackway, linked in language to the Anglo-Saxon lairs of monsters, demons and man-eating beasts". Read more about it here. It is in fact a stream bed that was formed by glacial melt-water. No meltwater today, but there was still a stream flowing along the bottom.