Today, as we had done last year (see here), we paid a visit to the Stowmarket Christmas Tree Festival in St Peter and St Mary's Church, Stowmarket and followed it with a walk.
This was the invite from Joyce.
"Tuesday November 26th. We will meet at St Peter and St Mary’s Church, Station Road West, Stowmarket from 10.15am where 300(?) Christmas trees are on display [My edit: I made it 75] . You can have refreshments here before we start walking at 11am prompt pls. Storm Bert may have given us mud at the end of the walk near Harleston and Great Finborough. Pls bring a packed lunch which will be outside at Harleston Church. The walk is 11 miles. You can easily arrive via train or bus. We will try and finish 4pm-4.15pm. "
Here are a few photos from the tree festival.
I parked just the other side of ASDA and walked to the church
There was a small sign outside.
Inside were 75 numbered trees. This year is the 20th year the festival has een going.
I quite liked the Chain of Hope here.
Although she wasn't coming on the walk we met our walking friend Karen there with her father.
Come 11 o'clock we assembled outside the church for the walk. There were 12 of us again this year, as there were last time - but not the same 12 people. This was our route, which was very similar to last year's. We were led by Tania, who lives locally and knows the paths well. It was a lovely sunny day for it again, but with no frost this time.
Here are a few of my photos from the walk.
We had lost Mike - he had thought we had already gone and started out on the walk to catch us up. So off we went to catch HIM up.
This house had the most extensive Christmas decorations.
Joyce spotted these tits in a tree by the path.
We found a cross by the old Haughley bends. It was a memorial to Natasha Smith, who died aged 16 in an accident here in 1999. It was one of the drivers that led to the A14 improvements in 2007 to remove the accident blackspot, as reported
here.
Crossing the A14 at Haughley Street.
Joyce was at the back with me and phoned Tania to suggest we had a break. I checked my tracker later - in about an hour and 10 minutes of walking we had already covered 3.8 miles at an average speed of 3.25 mph.
We spotted some birds of prey.
Carrying on, we went by some piles of sugar beet, ready to be taken to the sugar factory.
We got a better view of Harleston Hall from the churchyard.
As we did last year, we bathed in the sun on the south side of the church as we had our lunch.
Onward now towards OneHouse and Great Finborough.
In the distance we could see Buxhall church....
...but we didn't get much of a sighting of OneHouse church.
We would be passing Great Finborough church later.
After taking my photos I was at the back of the group again.
Our only really path past
OneHouse Hall and its lakes wasn't as muddy as I had expected.
...Tania took us into the graveyard to find the gravestone of
John Peel. I was amazed to see died over 20 years ago.
Onward now through Great Finborough and onto the back lanes to take us back to Stowmarket....
...passing the amusingly named Knackers Yard
We could still see Great Finborough church after our U-shaped route going South, The East and then North rather than walking across the fields.
We saw some deer in the fields, but they didn't let us get too close before racing away.
At Boyton Hall we started descending again towards Stowmarket. 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.
Tania was still leading us at a pace and I kept up with her and a couple of others at the front for a while. We stopped here to let the others catch up.
A last bit of path before we entered the outskirts of the town,
When we passed the water tower, I knew it wasn't far until we would pass my car.
Thank-you Joyce for arranging it, Tania for leading us and the others for the additional company.
You can see more details of our 11 mile route (although I only did 10.7 miles) 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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