Reinterred: Martlesham Meander

Today I supported Joyce who was leading this walk in the Suffolk Walking Festival.

This is a favourite walk I have done 3 times before in the last 6 months or so. This was the description in Festival brochure.

This was our route today, heading along the river first and back through Woodbridge.

We had 19 walkers in addition to Joyce, myself and Tania, Roland and Julian to ~~keep everyone in order~~ escort people around the walk. We had lovely weather for the walk.

Here are some of my photos.

Joyce giving us our briefing about the walk at the start.

We walked through the churchyard of Martlesham Church first. There has been a centre of Christian Worship here since at least 1086.

The tide was out and Martlesham Creek was revealed to be just a creek.

We crossed by the sluice and walked along the otherside. No mud for underfoot us today....

...but plenty in the creek with plenty of birds too.

We reached the River Deben at Kyson Point. The path here gets flooded at high tide, but it wasn't until after 4pm today, so we'd didn't have to worry - we would be back well before then.

Soon we got a view of Woodbridge.

We paused by the public toilets next to Everson's Woodbridge Boatyard, which has been in business since 1889

The seaweed-covered sisters were still there in their boat.

"Installed in November 2020, ‘The Sisters’ sculpture, commissioned by Woodbridge Boat Yard and made by Andrew Baldwin, celebrates Molly and Ethel Everson who, along with their brothers Cyril and Bert, managed the yard inherited from their father until 1969. Cyril and Bert built boats and handled the riverwork, so ‘living’ memorials to them can be seen in the many Everson boats that still sail these waters. The sisters managed the chandlery, sail store and office, where the rowing club now stands. This sculpture celebrates their contribution. These two tough, resilient women now watch over the Deben once again and their story is remembered."

We passed these boats just before arriving at our drinks stop.

Whisstocks Place has been redeveloped in recent years and is a fine place for a break. As well as the coffee shop and other eateries there is Woodbridge Museum and The Longshed to visit.

The Longshed has a full-size reconstruction of the 7th century Sutton Hoo ship under way.

Upstairs there is an exhibition of visit The King's River Tapestry

The tapestry will eventually be over 90 feet long and produced on 30 or more panels. The story it tells begins in about 400 AD with an acorn buried in the soil by a Jay. Over the next 200 years that acorn grows into a magnificent tree, standing among many others in the forest. King Raedwald sees the tree and wants it, and several of the other trees, for his new royal ship. That ship that is eventually used as a burial chamber for the King at Sutton Hoo. The story runs on through time and the tapestry depicts events that include the Kings’ baptism by Augustine at Canterbury, The Battle of the River Idle when Raedwald became High King, Elizabeth 1st and the grave robbers, and images from her time as queen. Then in 1939 Basil Brown excavating the burial mound that unearthed the ghost of the Great Ship.

No time to visit Woodbridge Museum properly today.

But I did spot, on a brief walkthrough, a display about Edward Fitzgerald, translator of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam...

...and I liked this old AA sign...

Time to gather everyone together and get going. We have a walk to complete!

The Tide Mill is an iconic landmark.

We Passed Swirly Cottage with its rude gnomes, sign forbidding 'stupid people' and pebble mosaics.

We continues along the river to Wilford bridge.

We turned inland past the Melton fishing lakes. and crossed the railway line.

We walked along a path parallel to Melton Park. This is the chapel of the former St. Audry's Asylum, which closed in 1993.

It gives its name to the wood we walked through to enter the Foxburrow Farm Nature reserve.

We stopped at the Visitor Centre for our lunch. The Barn Garden provided us with some picnic tables and lovely planting of flowers.

After lunch we headed back towards Melton and Woodbridge passing this field of (I think) pink common storksbill in a field managed by the wildlife trust.

This cottage on the outskirts of Melton has a lovely display of wisteria.

We continued past this large monkey puzzle tree with its unusual looking fruits.

We came this way on another walk in 2020 (see here). The owner was in his drive as we passed then and told us the tree was about 40 years old. He said they exploded with a bang and scattered their seeds, but they weren't self-fertile as you need a male tree as well for pollination..

We spotted a deer in a garden.

After following some hidden paths through Melton, we arrived back at the main road and entered the pedestrianised Thoroughfare.

Joyce gave us some time to explore and some of us ended up at The Crown. Thanks for the beer, Julian. My turn next time.

We reassembled and headed back to Martlesham Creek via Kingston Park...

...and paths that took us back to the way we came at Kyson Hill. Her we are approaching Kyson Point again, where the tide wasn't far enough in for us to get our feet wet.