Today was the first day of the 4-day Wool Towns Challenge Walk as part of the 2023 Suffolk Walking Festival.
This is the description of the walk from the Festival brochure.
We met in Sudbury at the end point of our walk and were bussed to Clare where our walk started.
This is the description of today's walk...
...and this was our route.
Here are some of my photos.
Heading for our buses in Sudbury
Our walk started in
Clare Castle Country Park and this is the Castle.
The had a big banner advertising the festival.
As we assembled, we were greeted by the Clare
Town Crier....
...who read us a little speech from his scroll.
David Falk from the Festival also gave us a talk. We would be seeing him several times over the day as he tracked us in the support vehicle.
We started by crossing the River Stour into Essex. We would be in Essex for most of the walk today.
As we had a short bit of road walking, we got a view back to Clare Castle.
Now we were on a section the
Magna Carta Heritage Walk. I remembered walking it in the Suffolk Walking Festival in 2019 (see
here). It wasn't this muddy then.
We turned east and headed for Belchamp St. Paul stopping for drinks at this playground .
We walked through the village, crossing the green and admiring the thatched cottages, village sign and
Half Moon pub.
As the
parish council site says "
Belchamp St Paul is situated in the north corner of Essex. The village is eight miles in circumference and is approximately 200 feet above sea level. In 1848 the village was referred to as 'a long straggling village' and so it remains today.
The name Belchamp is derived from the old English word ‘Bylcham’, which means a house with a beamed roof. St Paul comes from the fact that in 930 AD King Athelstan granted the manor to St Pauls Cathedral."
We continued roughly south-eastwards along pleasant footpaths...
The path up this little slope was very slippery, but the walk leaders gave everyone a hand.
A herd of deer crossed our path in front of us....
...and then stood and watched us pass.
This impressive house dates from 1717.
Belchamp Walter will be well known to fans of the late 20th Century television series Lovejoy, particularly Belchamp Hall which became 'Felsham Hall' in the series.
There are dragons on the gateposts....
...and this funny face on one of them.
We were given a tour of the art in the church, paintings, stained glass windows and murals.
As Simon Knott tells us, "
The church has one of the best ranges of wall paintings in Essex. The upper range is a Passion sequence, but the most interesting paintings are below, including several unique survivals in the county. The best of the Passion sequence includes a detailed Last Supper, Judas Iscariot shown holding the money bag and stealing a fish, St John with his eyes closed and resting on Jesus's chest. Elsewhere, Christ washes the feet of the Disciples and appears to them after the Resurrection. The lower subjects include a fine Martyrdom of St Edmund, the Blessed Virgin suckling the Christchild while a donor looks on, and part of the Three Living and the Three Dead story."
There is also a picture of Mary and the baby Jesus.
We left the church and passed along the abandoned "Venetian canal", part of the Belchamp Hall estate..
Then we had a stretch through some pleasant countryside along Belchamp Brook. Here we passed a field that had been sown with wild flowers.
Our path took us along the bottom of someone's garden.
Nearing Sudbury, we reached the Valley Trail
We reached the River Stour at Brundon Mill
Here we were met by Nick Shimwell, the ranger for the
Sudbury Common Lands Charity, who led us across the meadows. We found some kayakers by the weir.
There is a nice view here across the river.
Here is Nick explaining what we could see.
The willows on the left were planted only recently.
We reached the old railway line and followed that back into Sudbury. Here we are crossing the Stour again.
When we got to the entrance to the car park where we started it was time to disperse.
Thanks to Sudbury Ramblers and Clare Walkers for creating and hosting the walk, David and his team for the support and my fellow walkers for the company. Day 2 tomorrow!
You can see more details of our 13.3 mile route here on MapMyWalk (or download a GPX file here) and more of my photos here on Flickr.
You can find the following related walks on my blog:
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