Even though it's a Bank Holiday for the Jubilee celebrations, it's still the first Thursday of the month and time for the U3A Longer Walks group monthly walk. Today we were led by Wendie and Peter on a walk from Bildeston.
We assembled in good time at the sports ground along a lane out of Bildeston. This was our route.
We had a good turn-out of 10 of us on the walk. Here is Wendie giving us our briefing.
"When you find a parish church remote from its village, as you often do in Suffolk, it is pertinent to ask why. More than once I've read accounts in church guides blaming the Black Death, but there's no real evidence to suggest this was the cause of the isolation of any Suffolk churches. But the removal of the village of Bildeston from its parish church is fairly well-documented and researched. Here, beside the church, are traces of a substantial manor house. Until 1960s hedge-removal and deep-ploughing destroyed them, there was also evidence of other dwellings, smallholdings, farmsteads and tenements.
They were much older than the church, but, of course, this church was built on the site of its predecessor, located for the convenience of the manor house. So, why are there no houses here now? Some time in the 13th century, people from this parish migrated down to the river valley, possibly to be near resources for the budding cloth industry. Soon, this new community was active enough to merit a market, and here, on the main road between Stowmarket and Hadleigh, it became a busy one. Changing patterns of agriculture in the late medieval period meant the disappearance of the remaining community from around the church, and so now St Mary Magdalene stands grand, isolated, and half a mile or so from the large village (almost a small town) of Bildeston. This, conversely, makes Bildeston a rather curious village, since it has a typical Suffolk market place, except for the fact that there isn't a church on it.".
"Chelsworth, formerly known as Ceorleswyrthe and later Chellesworth is first recorded in history in 962 AD, when King Edgar gave the village and its land to his step-mother Aethelflad of Domerham. The charter, written in Latin and witnessed by such notables as Archbishop Dunstan is held by the British Museum. The village boundaries are carefully described in Anglo-Saxon in charter. "
Then it was on to St Mary's Church.
The rape crops have gone to seed now.
Here we passed through some pretty daisies.
...which contained a display of fashion of yore.
We went by a house being rethatched...
...and were amused by the decorations on the house next door.
Our final stop was at the green in Wattisham..
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