Bridge Street Walk

It was the first Thursday of the month today and time for the monthly walk of the U3A Bury St. Edmunds Longer Walks group. Today we did a circular walk from Bridge Street.

This was the invite from Dave.

"Hi all. I am planning to do a walk of around 10 miles from Bridge Street just south of my home and off the A134 south of Alpheton and north of Long Melford on Thursday 7th. Meet at 10 for a 10.15 start . There is sufficient parking on the semi circular road that comes off the A134 at Bridge Street. This will no doubt cover some familiar ground but the walk is starting near mine so that you can come round for home made mince pies and mulled wine afterwards." 

This was our route.

We met at Bridge Street as planned and had a good turnout of 10 despite the grey and chilly weather, including Andrea and Andy and Wendie and Peter, who we hadn't seen for a while. Maybe it was the  promise of mince-pies and mulled wine at the end that lured some of us out?

Here are a few of my photos.

Bridge Street cottage, where we assembled. Somebody asked Dave, "Will we have to cross any muddy fields?", to which he replied, "Well there are a couple near the start". It turned out he was being a little economical with the truth...

Off we go.

Sure enough, we came to a muddy field we had to cross...

...and then a second.

Andy had brand new boots on. After 20 minutes walking they looked like this...

At least the label hadn't fallen off yet.

There was no sun so there was no clue as to which direction we were going, so I had a peek at where we were on OS Maps. I had wondered if Dave would take us towards Long Melford and I was right. We passed Kentwell Hall.

With the leaves gone, the mistletoe on the trees in the drive was resplendent.

We skirted Long Melford Church without visiting it.

The rolls of hay in the field looked a bot soggy.

It was a bit like a field of woolly mammoths.

Looking back at the church as we carried on.

At least we didn't have to walk across this.

We took a field edge here.

We got some lovely views, here towards Stanstead, which we would be visiting later.

But we still could see the tower of Long Melford church.

We crossed the Rover Glem at Sluice Cottage.

Oh no. Wendie looked to see if we had an alternative route, but there was nothing for it but to...

...cross yet another muddy field.

Time to scrape the mud off again...

...and have our drinks stop.

We headed along the picturesque Glem valley.

A view of Stanstead from the other side.

We saw Glemsford Church but didn't climb the hill to visit it.

Onward now to Stanstead.

We stopped at Stanstead Church for lunch, but the porch was only an 8-seater.

The village sign seems to have disappeared.

I checked on the bus timetable with its exhortation to Discover Suffolk and Get on Board.

I don't think you would be able to do much exploration when there is only one bus a week!

We had persuaded Dave to drop the loop of the walk towards Shimpling and head back to Bridge Street more directly.

And here we are at Dave's house for the most welcome home-made mince pies (delicious) and mulled wine made with a juicy and flavoursome Cote de Rhone Villages, Also delicious!

Thank-you Dave for leading us round and for the most welcome mince pies and warming mulled wine at the end, and to the others for the company.

You can find more details of our  9.2 mile route here on MapMyWalk (or download a GPX file here) and more of my photos here on Flickr.

Other related walks you can find on my blog include

·         Long Melford Walk (July 2019)

·         Long Melford Walk (July 2022)

·         Glemsford Walk (Sept (2023)

·         Long Melford Walk (May 2023)

·         Wool Towns Challenge Walk Day 4 ( May 2023)