Old Newton Walk

Today we did a walk that had been on the list to do for quite a while but cancelled twice because of conditions underfoot and weather forecast. I did a walk from Old Newton in January (see here) and Joyce thought it might join up quite well with a walk she had planned from Haughley. The plan was to do it on Monday, but the weather forecast this time last week was for Monday to be rather hot. So instead we did it today and, because it was just an afternoon walk, shortened it from the estimated 12-13 miles to about 8.5 miles, with a plan to finish by 5pm.

This was the invite from Joyce.

"Wednesday July 27th change of day as Monday looked too hot. Please park at Old Newton Village Hall, Church Road IP14 4ED. We will start with our packed lunch (1pm)  and then start walking at approx. 1.30pm. The circular walk of about 8.5 miles leads us over to Palmers Bakery in Haughley and the toilet in the church. We then go on to discover an Air raid shelter and some railways. Come prepared for a dry/dusty/warm walk." 

This was our route, going clockwise from the start. It certainly was dry and dusty but it wasn't too warm.

Here are a few of my photos.

There were six of us today. Here is Joyce explaining the plan. For a lot of our walk today we would be following some of the purple (Tunnels and Halls) and red (Moats and Lanes) walks from this Discover Suffolk leaflet, entitled Haughley Walks.

Close to the start we walked through a field of beans, blackened not by the heat and lack of rain, but because that's how they grow... "They are harvested when they are dried, the pods blacken naturally and begin to shrivel - yes they do look burnt, but they're not. The pods turn black as they dry", a farmer's daughter says here. We passed through or beside several more fields like it today. You can see how dry the ground is, with big cracks.

To the west we had louring skies, but we never got rained on

We passed under the Stowmarket to Norwich railway line. Even though there was a train strike today we still saw a few trains.

This garden had sheep among the fruit trees. We resisted scrumping the apples.

This flower border brightened our path.

Now we turned west again towards Haughley passing Dagworth Hall and this cottage.... and more beans.

We walked through Haughley...

...admiring the houses and gardens along the way...

..to the renowned Palmers bakery, which has been serving the village since 1869.

I managed to resist the yummy cakes, but I did have a nibble of Dawn's Eccles cake.

We had our drink stop at St Mary's Church, As the walk leaflet says, "[the church] dates from the 12th century and is unusual in that its tower and nave are separated by a south aisle. The war memorial in

the church grounds was erected in 1920 only to be blown down in a gale and replaced by a plain

cross in 1947. In 1995, the original cross was restored, names re-inscribed and the names of the fallen from WWII added."

The tower outside was festooned with colourful decorations and there were still some flower displays in the church from last weekend's flower festival.

Now we headed north past the motte and bailey castle (not that you can see much of it) towards Haughley Green. The walk leaflet tells us... "The castle, previously known as Hageneth or Hagenorth Castle, was built around 1100 and consisted of a man-made mound, the ‘motte’, which had a fort on top, and an enclosed surrounding area, the ‘bailie’, where the community lived. The castle was destroyed in 1173 by the army of Lord Leicester and today its only inhabitants are ducks in the moat!"

We met a lady walking her dog and a beautiful tiny American Miniature horse called Lady.

At Haughley Green we visited the air raid shelter, built by a local resident.

I liked the exhortation to "Keep a pig".

Continuing East, just before we crossed a raised section of the former Mid-Suffolk Railway, we encountered some harvesting in progress.

My original walk explored further, but we now headed back to Old Newton and reached the village hall...

...at 4:57pm, having done 8.6 miles as planned. We agreed at the end it was very "Mid-Suffolk" and it was nice to do some different paths. Thank-you Joyce for co-leading and to everyone else for coming along.

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