Polstead Walk

Today it was the first Thursday of the month and so time for the  U3A Bury St Edmunds Longer Walks Group monthly walk. Today we walked in South Suffolk from the delightful village of Polstead.

This month it was Sheila's turn to lead us. This was her invite:

"Next Thursday I have planned a walk from Polstead that will take us via Stoke-by-Nayland. Lunch stop at the Stoke-by-Nayland church. Bring a packed lunch for that. Also two Inns to choose from if we fancy a drink. The Angel Inn or The Crown Inn. It totals about 12 ½ miles. We will start walking at 10am parking in Polstead."

This was our route. It overlapped quite a bit with this walk from Stoke-by-Nayland in September 2022.

It was a neat figure-of-eight walk starting clockwise from Polstead. Here are a few of my photos.

We parked at Polstead green by The Cock.

It was a bit drizzly at the start and we had a few light showers, but it brightened up later.

We started by heading North out of Polstead and then turned left off the road onto a footpath that took us into the woods and towards Sprott's Farm. We were delighted to come across some bluebells out already.

We passed the swanky Rockalls Hall and Newhouse Farm, which had a lovely magnolia tree.

Umbrellas down now.

This is the early C18  Shelley Priory, sometime known as Burnt House. I can find nothing about the history of the place.

Just along the lane are some tied cottages dating from 1891.

Tim spotted a small group of deer here. I just managed to catch them dashing off into the woods.

Our drinks stop was at Withermarsh Green.

We had a view of thatched cottages and daffodils.

We joined the Stour Valley Path and St. Edmunds Way. We got some views across the valley to Essex on the other side.

Descending to Valley Farm, we met some donkeys.

Who says there are no hills in Suffolk?

We arrived at Stoke-by-Nayland and decided to have a drink at The Crown Inn.

It was my birthday today and Ros bought me a pint of Wherry ale. Thanks, Ros!

We sat in the garden, although we weren't able to find complete shelter from the cold wind.

Our lunch stop was at St. Mary's Church. It is currently having some significant restoration work done, costing £553,000. 

Inside there is  a reproduction of John Constable's full size sketch, Stoke by Nayland, painted some time between 1835 and 1837.

 

As we left the village, we started to get some blue sky.

Our afternoon loop took us south of stoke-by-Nayland. We approached Tendring Hall Farm along the edge  of the Tendring Hall estate. All that remains of John Soane's 1784 house is the main portico (listed grade II) which now stands alone in the park on the high ground to the north. It is constructed of red brick with four Ionic columns on the north-east front and semicircular arched window openings on the sides. Above is a stone plinth impost band with frieze and cornice.

We were never far from Stoke-by-Nayland and frequently had views of the church.

We saw some cute calves at the farm.

At Wick Farm we left the river and headed north.

We passed through the pretty hamlet of Thorington Street.

Then we turned north-west along the river Box.

Hadn't we seen these donkeys before? Yes. We were back at Valley Farm.

Time to head back towards Polstead now. This is he GradeII listed  Scotland Place,

We enjoyed seeing the banded Galloway cattle at the Grade II listed Scotland Hall.

We stopped here to admire the view over the lake.

Some spring lambs.

Not far to go now. This is the prominent  St. Mary's Church 

Down the hill now...

...and back up through Polstead village....

...to the green, and our starting point.

Many thanks to Sheila for a super walk and to the others too for the company.

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