Suffolk Walking Festival - Wool Towns Challenge Walk Day 3

Today was the third 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 Lavenham at the end point of our walk and were bussed to Hadleigh where our walk today started.

This is the description of today's walk...

 ...and this was our route. Much of it was going to be familiar to me and I knew there would be plenty to see.

Here are some of my photos.

We set out through the town after our walk leader Barbara had set us the task of finding 3 things on the first part of our walk - A Suffolk Ram, a headless statue of St. Anne and a silver elephant.

We visited some of the sights I had longer to look at when I did the Suffolk Threads Hadleigh walk in January last year. (see here). It didn't take us long to get to the Suffolk ram statue, a sculpture by Benjamin Bramma commissioned for Hadleigh town for the year of the sheep.  A plaque recalls Hadleigh’s proud history and association with sheep and the wool and cloth trades that paid for the grand architecture here.

This is the Grade 1 listed  Deanery Tower, dating from 1495. "It was built by the Rector, William Pykenham, in the late 15th century as a gatehouse to the mediaeval rectory."

It stands next to St. Mary's Church. "One of the largest parish churches in Suffolk, the first stone

church was built in around 1250, the tower being the last obvious part. The flint and stone church was enlarged in the 14th and 15th centuries. During the Commonwealth period the church was stripped of its ornamentation, and in the 19th century the exterior and interior of the church were restored. The church clock, with its exterior bell, has been in position since at least 1584."

Across from the church is  the Town Hall and Guildhall.. "The building fronting the churchyard is the Market House, probably built in the 1430s and either incorporating or replacing the original Market House. In the 1450s, part of the market lands were purchased for the building of the Guilds Halls. Following the reformation, these Halls were purchased for the town and

joined to the Market House."

We crossed the River Brett via Toppesfield Bridge, "built in the 14th century and widened in 1812, said to be the oldest working bridge in the county". 

Now it was uphill past Park Farm, taking a slightly different path to the one we came down yesterday.

At the lane at the top we found them making the access road for the parking for the Hadleigh show this weekend ready for traffic.

After crossing the busy A1071 at Coram Street Farm, we soon had sight of Kersey village and Church.

But first we had to go down to and back up from Kersey Vale, passing this impressive house at the bottom. I had been this way many times on circular walks from Hadleigh such as this one in the Suffolk Walking Festival last year.

We had a stop at  St. Mary's Church. You can read all about the church's history here.

Kersey was used for filming some of the excellent series based on Anthony Horovitz's book Magpie Murders which has been on BBC recently.

There are 7 magpies perched around the church and I eventually managed to spot them all (as you can see in my Flickr album of today's walk). This is one of them.

And here is the headless statue of St. Anne made of gilded alabaster.

Now we had a little wander through the village.

A lady here was drawing the splendid view.

The wisteria is looking lovely.

The sign here reminded us we were not far from Boxford, which we visited yesterday.

We passed 'The Splash' via the footbridge.

No time to visit The Bell for a drink.

Leaving the village we passed some bluebells.

Heading towards Lindsey we got a distant view of the church here.

Shortly afterwards, we spotted a large herd of deer on the other side of the field.

Walking into Linsey we found the silver-coloured elephant at the entrance to one of the houses.

And here is St. Peter's church.

As Simon Knott tells us, "Lindsey, along with its neighbours Kersey, Boxford and Groton, was a hotbed of puritan dissent in the early part of the 17th century, and from here hundreds of families fled across the Atlantic to the New World. In comparison with the familiar glories of nearby Kersey, Monks Eleigh and Lavenham, this is a small, rustic church. There is no tower, and little chancel to speak of. The unsafe tower was removed in the early 19th century."

But it was the village hall next door where we stopped for our drinks break, with teas, coffees and cold drinks laid on.

I visited the church and enjoyed the view from the churchyard back towards the wood we had walked bside earlier when we first saw the church.

A change of walk leader and another briefing before we carried on.

We didn't pass the Lindsey Rose pub, but I did spy the pub sign down a road to the right of our path.

At the community farm we found some kids.

Lovely weather now as we walked along some quiet country roads.

We got a first view of Monks Eleigh Church, where we would stop for our lunch from quite a distance

The houses along back lane towards Swingleton Green are rather pretty.

We crossed the main road through the village and Millennium Green....

...to get to St. Peter's church.  This was one of the great wool-producing villages of the Brett Valley in late medieval days, the busiest and richest part of England in the 15th century when the tower was built.

The Tithe map from 1724 was interesting.

Onward now towards Lavenham, our final destination for today.

We passed the sister village of Brent Eleigh with a view of its church.

Now we were on Clay Lane which would take us all the way to Lavenham. It would have been easy to fall off this log, but, fortunately, nobody did.

We passed a field that was a sea of red. What was it?

A close up look revealed it was Crimson Clover.

We were able to avoid walking through the puddles, but the zig-zagging maybe added a little to our distance today.

 

This was a familiar route to me again. Descending Clay Hill we passed the interesting zero-carbon Ava House. The case study says "The intention of this application is to create a new house which is zero carbon, truly ground breaking and one which enhances its landscape setting and makes a positive contribution to the local community. It will be an exemplary building of local and regional significance, meeting the highest standards of design and sustainability". All very worthy, but the end result was, I think, rather less aesthetically pleasing than the older buildings we passed on our walk.

We entered Lavenham by Water Lane

De Vere House is the fictional birthplace of  Harry Potter, featuring in featured in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One, as the house where the young wizard's parents were killed by Lord Voldemort. 

The Swan hotel is a famous landmark. I have a picture of it one one of a set of table mats at home.

From here it was just a short walk up the hill...

...to the car park by the Cock Inn where we had been collected this monring.

What a lovely route with such a lot to see!

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 4 tomorrow!

You can see more details of our 12.8 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:

• Suffolk Threads Hadleigh Walk
• Suffolk Threads Lavenham Walk
• Suffolk Walking Festival Kersey
• Lavenham Walks