Reinterred: Shelland Walk

Saturday 28 September 2024

Shelland Walk

It was a lovely Autumn afternoon this afternoon so we went for a walk. It is a while since we had walked around there so I devised a short walk starting from Shelland.

This was our route, going anti-clockwise from our start at Shelland Green.

Here are a few of my photos.

We visited King Charles the Martyr Church Shelland, one of only 5 in the country in his name, but somehow my photos got lost due to an error on the memory card in my phone. e headed south.

Our path crossed this field.

We passed the moated New Farm.

We got views of the distinctive tower of Great Finborough church.

We had lovely paths to walk.

I don't think I've been this way before. This is One House Hall.

We stopped at St. John the Baptist, Onehouse church, but it wasn't open. As described by Simon Knott in his Suffolk Churches write-up, "[The tower] used to be taller, but by the 1990s, it had become unsafe, and somewhat barbarically it was reduced by two thirds in height, and then partly built up again with modern battlements."

The mistletoe in Church Walk is as impressive as ever.

I think this bench at the junction with the main road has had a new coat of paint.

There is a good few from the bench. Here we could make out Buxhall church in the distance.

Dawn thought this might be church too. Was it the spire of Woolpit church?

No it was just a tree.

We saw plenty of berries today,

We came to lovely St. Augustine's Church, Harleston- remarkable for its thatched roof.

As we had seen in Tattingstone and then other places subsequently (see here), we saw chalk marks on the church door, "20 + C + M + B + 24".. As described here, it is done at Epiphany... "The marking of the door, of course, evokes the blood on the doorposts in the Passover story (see Exodus 12) — a sign that a dwelling place belongs to the covenant people of God. The “C M B” stands both for “Christus Mansionem Benedicat” — “Christ this house bless” — but also the names tradition gives to the wise men, Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar. And just as the wise men brought gifts to the feet of Jesus, we offer up our homes and all who dwell there to the service and praise of God." The 20 at the start and 24 at the end complete the message with the year 2024.

We visited the sad collection of graves of the 5 Armstrong family children, killed in 1891 by diphtheria.

We walked pas the splendid Grade II listed Harleston Hall.

It was on sale in 2020 for £2.5m (see here).

We carried on along a quiet lane before turning north onto a footpath toward Haughley Bushed.

Here we came across dozens, if not hundreds of young pheasants. I wondered if they had been released by Clopton Hall, which is not far away and does breed them.