Stoke by Nayland Walk

Today we did a circular walk from Stoke by Nayland via Polstead.

But not, as we were expecting with Joyce. This was her original invite.

"Wednesday October 3rd Stoke by Nayland  this is a 10/10 walk! Nick and I walked here yesterday so I was reminded of how lovely the area is.  Pls park at the Recreation Ground Car Park (School Street, Stoke by Nayland CO6 4QY) at 10am and we will start with a drink at The Crown pub. If you don't want tea/coffee, then join us at 10.30am at The Crown instead. I suspect we will walk around 10 miles but it can be made shorter if you want to skip a loop.  It is very undulating for Suffolk. Please bring a packed lunch. Village Community shop is open at Polstead as we pass." 

No. I didn't notice the problem. October 3rd is a Thursday not a Wednesday. And I didn't notice when that was corrected in this week's email. So we set out only to find no familiar cars in the car park and a couple of missed phone calls from Joyce and a text saying we had the wrong day - the walk will be tomorrow. But never mind. We couldn't make tomorrow anyway. Joyce kindly sent the map of the route and we decide to a slightly shorter version of it, totalling about 6 1/2 miles rather than 10.

This was our route.

Here are some of my photos.

We parked at the recreation ground and started by visiting St. Mary's Church..

Smon Knott's description of the church (linked to above) says these doors are the finest in Suffolk.

Th restoration work is now complete.

We headed towards The Crown for a cup of coffee as the rain started to fall.

We joined the Stour Valley Path just missing Scotland Street. Here we got a glimpse of Polstead Church, which we would visit later.

At Valley Farm the donkeys came to say hello,

We crossed the River Box. It was rather full - not surprising after all the rain we had yesterday.

We came to Bobwright's Farm with its thatched barn.

Ironically, 5 minutes after we had passed the roof under which we could have sheltered, we got another sharp shower.

Soon we were in Polstead. 

Our route today took us to  St. Mary's Church  which I'd only ever walked past before. 

We could see Stoke-by-Nayland church from the cjurchuard.

The church is well worth a visit. Here are the ropes for the set of bells.

We recognised that the arches were Norman from our tour of St Albans Cathedral earlier this year (see here) and admired the fragments of frescoes that remain.

The church has a prominent position with great views.

We walked down to Polstead bridge and then turned along Mill Lane, passing Polstead Mill.

Going up the hill towards Steps Farm we got a view of Stoke Priory. The gardens are open once a year to visitors.

At the road at the top we decided to miss out Joyce's final loop and just headed back into Stok-by-Nayland and head for home.

It was a good decision. As we left the village its started raining again.

A lovely walk. Thank-you Joyce for the route and I hope you all enjoy the full walk tomorrow.

You can see more details of our 6 1/2 mile route here on MapMyWalk (or download a GPX file here) and see more of my photos here on Flickr.

Other related walks you can find on my blog include:

• Stoke-by-Nayland Walk (Sept 2020)
• Stoke-by-Nayland Walk (Sept 2022)
• Polstead Walk (Apr 2023)
• St Edmund Way Part 7 - Nayland to Manningtree (Jun 2024)