U3A Hawkedon Walk

Today was the first Thursday of the month and so time for the U3A Bury St. Edmunds Longer Walks group monthly walk. This time it was Jane's turn to lead and she chose to do what has become one of my favourite walks, a circular walk from Hawkedon via Denston and Stansfield.

I last did this walk as a helper on the walk as part of the Suffolk Walking Festival in May this year. You can read about that version here.

Our route today was very similar:

Here are a few of my photos.

Sheila, a new member of the group, amazed us by arriving by bike. She had cycled all the way from Bury St. Edmunds!

Jane briefing us on the walk. There were 8 of us today.

Our route passed at a short distance the impressive Hawkedon House, the former rectory.

The pond at Crosslands Farm.

Our only nasty bit of mud was crossing this field. It's the sort that sticks to your boots, but it scraped off OK. Here, almost at the most northerly point of our walk, we could see Rede's Great Wood hill, at 128m above sea-level the highest point in Suffolk.

We passed the group of lakes. A memorial stone says they were built by Jo Slater between 1968 and 1972 "for the enjoyment of his family and friends".... and walkers like us!

There are still some leaves on the trees so we got some good late autumn colour.

We passed the splendid Cordell Hall.

The trees in the adjoining parkland are magnificent.

This is Purton Green Farmhouse, which is Grade I listed and  possibly dates from 1250. We posed for our group photo here (see the top of the post). 

"A mediaeval timber-framed aisled hall house which could be dated as early as the late C13. The 2 storey bay at the north end, with service area on the ground storey and solar above, is a replacement of the C15. The 2 storey bay at the south end was added in the C16 and had a fireplace which was demolished when the building was restored by the Landmark Trust in 1971 Only the fine carved lintel remains. The exterior has exposed studding with plaster infill. At the north and south ends the upper storey is jettied on exposed joists. The heavy boarded and ledged doors are restored and the windows are partly original and partly restored, with diamond mullions. The hall has scissor-brace roof trusses, the original timbers are smoke blackened. At the north end the staircase is restored in its original form with solid steps of quartered oak. Roof thatched, hipped. This house is of outstanding importance as one of the earliest framed houses in Britain."

It is now available as a holiday let - "sleeps 4 from £278 for 4 nights". There is no road access, but a wheelbarrow is provided to help you with your luggage. Can you see it in the photograph?

In the distance, here, we could see Stansfield Church, which we would visit later.

Another fine view as we headed towards Denston, this time of Gifford's Hall.

Descending towards Denston village.

Our lunch stop was at  St. Nicholas, Denston Church. "Begun 1474" says the sign. Jane provided us all with mince pies. Yummy! Thank-you Jane.

Some lovely colours in the churchyard.

The gargoyles are a bit creepy, I think.

The houses on the green are pretty.

Denston Hall, seen across the lake in the grounds. The willow tree is impressive.

We stopped at Laurel Bank Farm but Louise's Pop-up Restaurant is not there at this time of year.

Approaching Stansfield we saw this lovely group of horses.

We didn't stop to visit  All Saints, Stansfield Church.

Not far to go now, as we passed he 5-story 1840 Stansfield tower mill, now bereft of its topknot.

As we  came through a gap in the trees we got an iconic view of Hawkedon.

Through the hazy winter sunshine we could see Somerton Church. Not on our route today. Maybe another time.

We passed  St. Mary Hawkedon, with sun getting low behind it...

...and came back to our starting point by the Queens Head pub.

A lovely walk on a lovely early winter's day. Thank-you to Jane for leading us round and to the others for the company.

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