Quy Fen Walk

Today Dawn was on strike again and Joyce had a walk from Anglesey Abbey that would be entirely new to her, so I took her along.

This was the invite from Joyce.

"Thank you for all showing an interest in Tuesdays walk. I have mapped out a 12 mile circular walk starting at Anglesey Abbey National Trust Car park. It is free to park here and there are toilets and coffee available too. The walk will start at 10am …see you there. " 

In all there were 7 of us on the walk today. This was our route.

Here are some of my photos.

Joyce explaining the route.

We didn't go into the grounds of Anglesey Abbey, but we did get glimpses into them as we walked along the edge at the start. Here are the new silver birch trees.

We passed Lode Mill and walked along the other side of the lode from the Anglesey Abbey path.

Further on, this bridge crosses into the grounds, but is not open to the public.

Here we were on part of the Harcamlow Way, a 141 mile long figure-of-eight walk from Harlow to Cambridge and back again.

"This long distance walk takes you to some of the most beautiful countryside, interesting historical sites and delightful country parks in the counties of Cambridgeshire, Essex and Hertfordshire. The route is a figure-of-eight, starting in Harlow and first heading to Saffron Walden where you will pass the splendid Jacobean mansion and gardens at Audley End. You continue through the Bartlow Hills, Horseheath, the Fleam Dyke and Milton Country Park to Cambridge. You return passing along the Wimpole Way where you pass the splendid Wimpole Hall and park. This 17th century country house has 3,000 acres (12 km²) of parkland and farmland and is owned by the National Trust. You continue through Melbourn and Chrishall to Newport, and then on to Debden, Thaxted and Takeley. You then pass through Hatfield Forest with over 1000 acres of footpaths and resident deer before returning to Harlow at the end of the route."

 As you will have seen from the map, we were doing our own rather shorter figure-of-eight walk today.

We continued along Quy Water for a while.

We turned North-West past Quy Hall lodge.

I wonder why it has a giant halfpenny piece on the wall?

We turned North-East now along the Drove Way track towards Quy fen. We passed some of these flowers. Are they Star-of-Bethlehem flowers?

We entered Quy fen.

We had a short stop here...

...beside this pond.

Joyce had been telling me about meeting The Naked Rambler near here. Gavin pointed out the sign by the gate as we left the fen...

...says "Nudism is prohibited as it causes offence to some people". No cooncidence, perhaps?

We walked through a field of rape seed plants. Only midriff high and not gone to seed yet so not scratchy.

We reached the River Cam just outside Waterbeach and crossed it via Clayhithe bridge.

It was only a couple of minutes past 12pm and The Bridge pub was just opening. We decided not to stop for our lunch here but to carry on to the Garden Centre. "It's not far", said Joyce. In retrospect, it would appear that meant it was less than 3 miles further.

We saw a few cormorants along the Cam.

I remembered this path along the river from this walk in 2020.

There were a few boats moored at Horningsea. We were heading for the Garden Centre there, but we had to go further before we could cross the river.

We did this at Baits Bite Lock. 

This is the furthest point downstream from Cambridge for rowing without portage past the lock. We saw a couple of rowers above the lock.

We got a view of the misnamed Biggin Abbey - it was never inhabited by monks. The farmhouse is a surviving part of the residence of The Bishops of Ely and was visited by Henry III, Edward I and

Edward II, it was once moated. A small attic room known as the 'Monks Prison' may have been used as a chapel.

We returned downstream to Horningsea and our lunch stop at Scotsdales Garden Centre, previously visited on this walk on January 2019.

Suitably refreshed, we continued through Horningsea village. We admired the wisteria that was coming out.

The telephone box, like many in Suffolk too, is now a community library and book exchange. Gavin found a book to take home.

Crossing Quy fen for a second time we passed this monument stone. Tania looked it up for us - see here. William Ison was killed by lightning on this spot in 1873.

We returned by Quy Mill and through the village of Lode.

We passed St. James' church but didn't visit - it is kept locked.

There was a group at The Shed with musicians playing. We decided, from the sombre dress, it was probably a wake.

Then it was back through back of the village to our cars.

Thank-you Joyce for an excellent walk and to the others for the company.

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