Today we did a Plan 'B' walk instead of continuing our St Edmund Way journey so as to allow the rest of the route to dry out before we tackled it. Instead we walked from Ixworth.
It was a walk I'd led for Joyce's group while she was away last August (see here), but in the opposite direction. Dawn and I had done a little recce on Sunday to check the potentially soggy bits were OK - and they were, so the walk went ahead This was the invite from Joyce.
"Friday March 22nd we will park/meet at Ixworth car park which is in front of the Village Hall/library – opposite the Church. Post Code is High Street IP31 2HH for 10am.We will then have refreshments at The Courtyard Café at The Pykkerell and start walking about 10.30am. The circular walk is 12 miles and lunch will be either Stowlangtoft or Norton Church. Do hope you can join me. Joyce "
This was our route today.
Here are a few of my photos.
We met at the car park as planned and went to the Courtyard Café for coffee
There were 18 of us and we took the place over.
Eventually we were all assembled outside and ready to go.
We stopped by the village sign and Tessa, who has lived in Ixworth for about 30 years, told us about the history of the village. She talked, in particular about the Home Guard and the defences of the village in World War Two. The Ixworth history group has published various articles on the
village website - including
this article about the Home Guard in Ixworth and
this article about the World War Two defences. Fascinating. Thank-you Tessa.
Onwards towards Pakenham.
We got an early view of the windmill, but we wouldn't be walking past it until late in our walk.
We saw some muntjac, but Joyce says they don't count as proper deer.
We came to the Baileypool Bridge over the Black Bourne
We crossed the busy A1088. I hadn't noticed this in the site of the old quarry before. Tessa told us there used to be a tunnel under the road behind us here.
We passed the house with the "Dead Slow Children" sign ...
...and skirted the Eight Acre Plantation. Here we got a good view of Stowlangtoft church.
We went along the path diversion from the one that went through someone's grounds to the road and walked down towards Stowlangtoft. We admired the machinery in the huge field we passed. They were planting potatoes.
Stowlangtoft Hall is now a care home.
Going past the remains of a lovely old tree...
...Rachel decided to take a selfie. Did it come out well, Rachel?
Here we found an interesting memorial to a man who had died in a car crash in 1990 and his stillborn daughter.
A sad story.
It was our drinks stop. Some found a useful perching place.
These crosses are all of members of the Wilson family.
Time to get going again.
We could see Norton Church, but we didn't visit it.
Crossing the A1088 again, we passed this sign. "No poo bags please". Seconded. There is no such thing as the poo bag fairy to collect them.
This path towards Pakenham is well maintained.
We turned north past Pakenham Wood towards Bull Bridge. We stopped here for our lunch rather than at the picnic table a little further on that was surrounded by boggy ground.
But we were able to circumnavigate the boggy bit when we got to it all right.
We reached Baileypool Bridge again, but went a different way to head for the windmill,
We passed this home-produce-for-sale cabinet and were bemused to see a marmite jar there.
There is a boat building business here. A most unlikely setting, well away from the sea or a navigable river.
The windmill is an impressive 5 story structure originally built in
1817. Pakenham has the distinction of being the
only village in England to have both a working windmill and a working
watermill.
I was sad to see the miniature model of the windmill next to it that we've seen before is no longer there.
In the roadside verge nearby we saw our first ramsons (aka wild garlic) of the season almost ready to flower. I'll have to go picking some soon.
It was interesting walking the route in reverse. I'd never looked back to see this lovely view before.
...and the fox and hare on the thatched roof of the nearby cottage.
We climbed up along Heath Lane past Gameclose Covert and then turned right and right again to head back towards Ixworth. I had said we usually see some deer around here and, sure enough, we saw some today too.
We saw plenty of hares as well and I managed to catch this one on camera.
We had a splendid view of the windmill as we descended.
We crossed the Black Bourne for a final time via the 16th century
Hempyard Bridge. We stopped while Tessa explained the history of the bridge and the old
drovers route. Stock (cattle, sheep, pigs, geese and even, later, turkeys) was transported via this route from Diss to London. The journey took a week. The bridge, which currently has a wooden structure over it is due to be restored and some of the overhanging trees have already been cut down in preparation for the work.
We passed the Grade I listed
Ixworth Abbey house, which incorporates ruins of the 12th century Augustinian
Ixworth Priory and has its own cricket pitch.
Soon we were at Ixworth church...
...and just had to cross the High Street to get back to the car park.
Well that was rather pleasant. Very little mud and the threatened rain showers never came. Thank-you Joyce for leading us round and thank-you to everyone else for the additional company. Thanks also to Tessa for the interesting information about the history and links to the history articles.
You can find more details of our 12.3 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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