Long Melford Walk

Today is the first Thursday of the month so time for the  U3A Bury St Edmunds Longer Walks Group monthly walk. Today we walked from Long Melford.

 This month it was Chris's turn to lead us. This was his invite:

"Hi All, Our next walk will be 11.5 miles from Long Melford on Thursday 4th May starting at 9.30. Meet at car park on right signposted EV charging and parking just after passing Long Melford Hall on the left if coming from Bury St Edmunds direction next to the Community Association Old School. Please let me know if you able to join us."

This was our route, a figure-of-eight walk heading anticlockwise to the North to start with and then anticlockwise again after our lunch stop.

There were just five of us today as a lot of the group are away at the moment. The rest of them missed a great walk in the spring sunshine!

Here are a few of my photos.

We met at the car park opposite Melford Hall next to the old school, which is a polling station today.

Ros had an explore of the Grade II listed Conduit (aka as the Pump House) on the green. It was built by Sir William Cordell who owned Melford Hall to supply water to the hall from the spring underneath in 1559. It was severely damaged by a car in 1989 and rebuilt to the original design in 1990.

We walked along the drive of  Kentwell Hall, famous for its Tudor re-enactments. They are well worth a visit, especially if you have children. Read about this year's planned events here. We got a good view of the church which we would be visiting later.

We passed to the west of the hall. There were some longhorn cattle in the field here.

After Pond Plantation there was a junction of paths and we turned left, continuing along the Stour Valley Path towards Glemsford.  The plantation has some bluebells, but they weren't as impressive as the ones we saw on this walk last week.

We crossed the road here by the nicely converted Mill Barn. It is a bit of a steep path down to the road.

We crossed the River Glem to walk along the other side.

The bridge is quite bouncy.

We walked along the valley getting good views of Glemsford Church...

...as we approached  the impressive timber-framed Grade II* listed Monks Hall. It is mainly of the C16 and C17 but probably incorporates the frame of an earlier C15 building. It is said that a tunnel once connected Monks Hall to the nearby church, which the monks formerly used to access the church instead of mixing with the ordinary villagers. Only a small part of this tunnel remains.

We had our drinks stop at the top of the graveyard by the church. 

The wind was a bit cold, but we had lovely views across the Glem Valley. Poking up through the trees here is the church of St. James, Stanstead, visited on this walk in July last year.

We visited  St. Mary, Glemsford Church, which dates back to the early 14th century, with the earliest recorded rector being Hugh de Poynton in 1302, for the toilets and to see inside. I liked the organ pipe decorations. Built by the respected firm of Forster and Andrews of Hull and installed in 1877 it is one of only 4 working organs of its type in Suffolk and has attained Grade 2* status. Read about its restoration here.

This ark-type iron-banded chest was made in the 14th century.

Leaving the church we now turned south and east on paths back towards Long Melford.

We crossed the River Glem again at Sluice Cottage.

It was only with maximum zoom of my camera that I could see these geese in the field ahead has some cute little goslings.

We passed Cranfield Retreat and its "Be glamping" cabins....

...before going past the sewage works and turning northwards back toward Long Melford Church. Holy Trinity Church is very impressive. According to this article, "The nave, at 152.6 feet (46.5 m), is believed to be the longest of any parish church in England. There are nine bays, of which the first five at the western end are believed to date from an earlier structure." .

But Chris wanted to show us something in the churchyard. The old churchyard area to the rear of the Church is conserved to provide a quiet, respectful setting in a natural environment that promotes wildlife. Here can be found many wrought iron crosses which were made by workers at the local Ward & Silver foundry, who were allowed to create them in their own time to mark the graves of their deceased loved ones. There are more iron markers in the Long Melford rear old churchyard than anywhere else in Europe.

We had our lunch stop in the sun at the east end of the church.

Our afternoon loop was a little shorter. We admired the flowers in the bed by the wall of Trinity Hospital.

On the green we fund a Mr Whippy van. Ros treated everyone who wanted one to an ice-cream.

Now we had a walk through Long Melford. We found plenty of displays ready to celebrate the coronation on Saturday,

We paused to look at the site of the old foundry, "...started by David Ward and his brother in law John Silver in 1843, which provided employment for many local men. By 1876 the firm was recorded in White's Trade Directory as 'agricultural engineers, iron founders, ironmongers, iron coal and coke merchants, gas works proprietors and farmers'. Examples of their work such as the boot scrapers on the houses in Chestnut Terrace, iron fenders on the corners of Liston Lane and Cock and Bell Lane and the cast iron crosses in the churchyard ", as described in the history of Long Melford on this site.

There is a plaque on the wall at the end of the old building which has now been converted in 7 residences.

 

We left the village to the west passing this crinkle-crankle wall and the cricket ground.

Now we were on a short stretch of the St Edmund Way, some of which I had walked from Lavenham to Bury St. Edmunds just yesterday (see here).

We walked along the River Stour...

...to Liston Mill. As the webpage The Watermills of the River Stour says, "There was a watermill here in 1086 DB. A lease dated 1813 of ‘a watermill called Liston Mill’ with house and lands (13 acres), contains a detailed list of fixtures in the mill. The mill was demolished in 1887 after falling into disuse. The mill house remains."

We followed the river back towards Long Melford...

...and looped back round the east side of the village on the Melford Walk, which runs along the route of the old bury St. Edmunds to Sudbury railway line.

Soon we were back at our starting point, with its reminder that I still had to go and vote when I got back home.

But before we dispersed, though, we took a little trip to the south of the village to get to Nethergate Brewery.

Here the rest of us enjoyed a selection of the beers, but Ros had a bit of a wait for her green tea.

A lovely walk through some verdant countryside with some great views and many points of interest - not least Nethergate Brewery afterwards! Thank-you Chris for leading us round and to the others too for the company.

You can see more of my photos here on Flickr and more details of our route here in MapMyWalk (and a GPX file here).