Angles Way - Part 4

Today we did the fourth stage of our mission to walk the entirety of the 93 mile Angles Way. 

This was the invite from Joyce...

"Our next stage starts at Harleston. Please park sensibly in the residential roads or a car park of choice, so that you are ready to walk at 9.00amfrom last week’s finish point (opposite number 21 Mendham Lane IP20 9DE). 

10 miles into the walk, we are going to have a coffee stop at Grumpy's café at Earsham Mill. This is probably our lunch stop too as the Church is nearby. This will re-fuel us for the last 4.5 miles. We catch the 581 Border Bus back again from Chaucer Street, Bungay at 15.56pm arriving back at Harleston just 14 minutes later."

I had a full complement of 4 passengers in the car and we arrived and parked at the Co-op car park in good time to visit the toilets before walking the just over 1/4 mile to the start to meet Joyce and the others.

This was our route today:

Here are some of my photos:

At the start and ready to go.

We were soon in the countryside and were being subjected to some gentle drizzle. We crossed the A143 just up the road from the Broken Egg café and continued uphill.

There were a few gaps in the clouds, though, and we saw rainbows every now and then.

Over the brow of the hill we could see just the top of the tower of St. Mary's Church in Redenhall.

As we started to descend to Mendham we got a hazy view of the village through the drizzle.

We were joined today by Paul, a friend of Wendy's who lives local to our walk today. He was full of information about things on our route. He pointed out this house, Mendham Mill, where the painter Sir Alfred Munnings was born.  He was known as one of England's finest painters of horses. "Alfred Munnings was born on 8 October 1878 at Mendham Mill, Mendham, Suffolk, across the River Waveney from Harleston in Norfolk to Christian parents. His father was the miller and Alfred grew up surrounded by the activity of a busy working mill with horses and horse-drawn carts arriving daily. After leaving Framlingham College at the age of fourteen he was apprenticed to a Norwich printer, designing and drawing advertising posters for the next six years, attending the Norwich School of Art in his spare time. When his apprenticeship ended, he became a full-time painter." 

We crossed the River Waveney to Mendham... and into Suffolk.

We passed but didn't visit All Saints Church.

Paul told us this is the oldest house in the village.

We liked the village sign.

Our path took us parallel to the river through pleasant meadows for a while. It was still a bit drizzly, though.

We got a view looking back of Mendham Mill. Read about its history here.

We could also see our drink stop destination, St. Mary's Homersfield Church ahead of us.

As we climbed up towards the church we got a view of Flixton Pits. 

The pits were created initially by horses and carts extracting sand and gravel before large scale excavation during the 1960s and 1970s enlarged the pits. During the sand extraction, a mammoth tusk was found.  Flixton Pits are rich in wildlife and particularly noted as an outstanding site for beetles associated with sand and mud habitats.

The church is up the hill from the river, but the trees were too thick to get a decent view of it. The church dates from the 12th-century with a 14th-century tower. The interior of the church was heavily restored in 1866.

Suitably refreshed, we carried on through Homersfield village. Here we found the Grade II listed  pretty pink thatched Barnfield cottages.

We didn't see the historic bridge.  Built in 1869 over the Waveney straddling the boundaries between Norfolk and Suffolk, the wrought iron framework of the arch is encased in concrete and is of  considerable historic interest as a forerunner of modern reinforced concrete structures. 

We did find this interesting sign, though. It is known locally as the "totem pole".

Apparently, this fellow, his boat, and the fish beneath him are all carved from the trunk of a cedar from Blickling Hall, in North Norfolk. The sculptor is Mark Goldsworthy, from nearby Bungay. As well as bearing the name of Homersfield, the lower trunk also carries the inscription "I dreamed of a beautiful woman who carried me away."

There is still plenty of sand and gravel extraction going on here.

This interesting building on the Flixton Hall estate is an old sawmill. It is now converted into a number of dwellings.

We now had a long stretch along the edges of fields, sometimes beside ditches.

We got a glimpse in the distance of St Peter's Church at South Elmham St. Peter, one of the group of villages known as The Saints, and the site of St. Peter's Brewery.

We came to the path that led to it, but I got no support for making a detour to visit the brewery shop. Now we were on a part of the route that was familiar to me from this walk in the 2018 Suffolk Walking Festival.

We walked around the old Flixton airfield and here were on one of the concrete roads of the perimeter. The airfield was a bomber base for the American Eighth Air Force from 1942. The airfield closed

in 1955 and the control tower, hangers and other wartime buildings have long since been

demolished, along with most of the runway and perimeter tracks. 

We came to Constitution hill and excellent views towards Bungay... 

...and Earsham, our lunch stop.

We crossed Broad Water on Stow Fen and then the Waveney back into Norfolk.

Our stop was close to the mill and All Saints, Earsham Church....

..at Grumpy's cafe, where we were served with no grumpiness in sight.

A quick visit to the church...

...and then we were on our way again. Here we are starting our route near the river as it looped round past Outney common.

More gravel extraction is on view here.

We saw plenty of snowdrops again today. I wonder if this will be our last week of them, though.

We began climbing up towards the higher ground of a clay plateau, a wonderful woodland walk which took us through the intriguingly named Bath Hills. In the 1700s marvellous cures were claimed for the cod bathing business set up at Bath House using water from a spring. The sheltered south-facing slope was once a vineyard for local lords and has a totally different feel to the lush pastures and wet marshes found elsewhere along Angles Way.  We got some lovely views. Our path was shared with the Bigod Way circular walk from Bungay. 

Now it was down to the end of today's section of the Angles Way

We got a view back along the river to Ditchingham Lodge, home of the writer Rider Haggard, author of, inter alia,  King Solomon's Mines.

But now we headed through the woods past some snowdrops...

...across the River Waveney again into Suffolk...

...and across Outney Common... 

...to the Golf Course Car Park, where we will start next week.

Crossing the A143 again we passed these almshouses, St. Edmunds Homes, built in 1895.

We had enough time to spare before our bus for a visit to the The Castle Inn...

...and half a pint of Little Green Men pale ale with Robert.

The bus stop was just outside.

And here was our bus!

What a great day's walking, despite the bit of drizzle at times in the morning. Lots of variety making it the most interesting stage so far.

Thank-you Joyce for organising everything and leading us, and to the rest of the group for the convivial company. Well over 1/2 way now and just three more stages to go! Who will make all 7?

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

You can read more about today's stage here:

Angles Way L4

Angles Way L3

You can read more about the Angles way using these resources:

Discover Suffolk Ramblers Guide

Norfolk County Council Angles Way site.

Norfolk County Council Angles Way Points of Interest