Today we visited the Christmas Tree Festival in St Peter and St Mary's Church, Stowmarket before going for an 11 mile walk.
This was the invite from Joyce.
"Wednesday December 6th. Please join us in Stowmarket for the Tree Festival and a circular walk of about 11 miles . We will meet outside Wetherspoons Pub (the Willow Tree, Ipswich Street) at 10.15am. You can arrive by train or park nearby in roads. We will use pavement over to St Peters church where 300 trees are on display. We will have refreshments here before heading off on the cycle path towards Haughley. The mud will be at the end of the walk near Harleston and Great Finborough."
I got held up in the A14 roadworks and was too late for the Wetherspoons rendezvous, but met up with everyone at the church. There were 12 of us today including the newly-retired Caroline who some of us met on this year's Suffolk Walking Festival.
This was our route, starting at the church and finishing where I parked my car.
Joyce had chosen the route well as we only got a little mud around Onehouse.
Here are some of my photos.
St Peter and St Mary's Church where the Christmas Tree Festival was.
I met up with the others as I arrived. The café there was doing good business.
We enjoyed looking at all the trees. Last year we went to a similar event in Sudbury (see
here).
Then it was onto our walk, starting by walking through Stowmarket.
But we were soon in the country.
We admired this little goat in a field by the lane we walked up.
I enjoyed walking at the back with Rachel as she searched for phot opportunities....
...such as frosty leaves...
...and bright green colonies of mixed mosses.
At Haughley New Street we crossed the A14 with the roadworks that had held me up earlier below.
We had some lovely sunshine and blue skies. Even at its highest the sun was casting long shadows and glinting off the puddles.
The blue sky reflected in this tranquil pond. There was no wind today to disturb the surface.
We came across this stone by the road at a T-junction near Harleston.
Later Joyce sent me this, which may explain it.
As we passed the gates of the path leading to Harleston Church we came across another tranquil pond.
I pointed out these graves The old iron grave markers mark the bodies of five Armstrong children who
died of diphtheria within six weeks of each other in 1891. The youngest was five, the eldest
fourteen.
The south wall of the church has some benches - perfect for our lunch stop in the sun. Somehow the conversation turned to calendars. As there were 12 of us on the walk today I suggested we could make one with a picture of each of us, one a month, across the year. Hmm. Well maybe not. But maybe a walk of the month for each month?
This tree in the churchyard made a fine sight against the blue sky.
We carried on now towards Great Finborough. We had some good views through the haze - here to squat tower of Buxhall Church....
..and here is the contrasting and unmistakable pinnacle of Great Finborough church, which is visible for miles around.
I got a view of the walkers in front with the sun behind them....
...and a silhouette of trees on the skyline.
Our only really muddy path was the one past
OneHouse Hall and its lakes.
We crossed the Rattlesden River (aka the River Rat) to reach Stowmarket Golf Course.
Soon we were in Great Finborough (read about the history of the village
here) passing
St. Andrews Church, with its magnificent spire of nearly 300ft.
Rachel wondered if those windows near the top were to provide light to a staircase inside that you could climb. I didn't know, but found out later from
this article...
"Phipson’s greatest achievement at Great Finborough is to be seen in the tower, and it comes as a surprise to learn that the spire was something of an afterthought for it now seems absolutely integral to the church’s success. The tower rises first in three diagonally-buttressed square stages with a stair turret projecting at the eastern end of the N. wall and with supporting diagonal buttresses that subsequently reach across as squat flying buttresses to the diagonal faces of the octagonal bell-stage - which, by its reduced size, adds greatly to the apparent lightness of the structure - with bell-openings displaying a variant of reticulated tracery piercing the cardinal sides. The tall spire sits flush upon this (i.e. without recess) and rises to a needle point, lit by two tiers of lucernes and faced alternately by red-brown and buff stone in bands of harmonious but irregular widths. The whole composition forms a prominent landmark across the fields for a mile or more all round , yet its slender silhouette ensures that it fits comfortably into the landscape, notwithstanding its distinctly alien basic form."
But what is a lucerne? It's not in the usual English dictionaries except as another name of alfalfa or the city in Switzerland.
These chimneys are very impressive, but it must have been a lot of work to keep the fires lit.
On our way back to Stowmarket now we had a lovely straight path up the hill from Jack's Farmhouse, with great views when we got to the top...
...passing Boyton Hall on the way. The hall is famous for being the home of the farmer who sacked all his workforce and than had a competition for the jobs - a competition that lives on as the annual
Race of the Boggmen.
Across the fields we caught sight of some deer and a huske (or down) of hares.
We recrossed the Rattlesden River via the ford in Wash Lane...
...and continued along Finborough Road back towards the centre of Stowmarket passing this colony of mosses on the top of a fence post.
Just past the water-tower was where my car was parked, so I said goodbye to the others when we got there leaving them to complete the 11 miles of the walk going back into the town centre.
Thanks to Joyce for organising and leading us round, to Tania for providing us the excellent route, and to the others for the additional company. You can find more details of our 10.7 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:
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