Reinterred: C is for Cavenham Heath Walk

Today we had a lovely frosty linear walk from Icklingham to Mildenhall via Cavenham Heath.

This was the invite from Joyce.

"Cavenham Heath Friday10th. I really fancy a linear walk from Icklingham to Mildenhall and using buses. The 16 bus leaves Bury Bus station at 9am and arrives at The Red Lion, Icklingham at 9.21am. Of course, you can park down West Street, Icklingham as we are walking that way around 9.25am. Then it’s 3 miles over to Tuddenham to use the Purple Pantry deli for a coffee/toilet stop. Pressing on to Herringswell, Red Lodge, Worlington and finally Mildenhall. The route is 12.5 miles and uses a lot of the Icknield way so some very straight portions. Cavenham Heath is a SSSI area and very sandy. We need to get the 14.52pm bus back to Icklingham or Bury St Edmunds for your onward travel."

This was our route.

Here are some of my photos.

Dawn and I parked in West Road and walked back to the bus stop.

Here we found Joyce and Nick waiting for people taking the bus, but when it did eventually come, nobody got off - (nearly) everyone was in West Road.

Off we went towards Cavenham Heath.

This is a favourite tree I always photograph when I visit Cavenham Heath. Joyce thinks it's a black poplar. I think she could be right, but maybe it's just another of the pine trees that are scattered around the Breckland landscape here.

We crossed the River Lark at Temple Bridge.

Onto the heath.

The heather in the shade was all frosted.

We walked along the southern boundary of the heath and then through the woods back to the main path. There are some lovely silver birch trees here.

This is the sign at the south-western corner of the nature reserve.

We stopped at the Purple Pantry as planned, but alas their coffee machine was broken and they were only serving instant. We did find Dan and Rachel, here, though. They had got stymied by a closed road and didn't make it to the start, so met us here.

We had some proper coffee from our flask outside and Dawn left her mark on the table.

We passed through Tuddenham St. Mary, admiring the houses by the green. This is the Grade II listed timber framed Nether Hall, believed to have been built in the 16th century with later 17th-century additions.

It is always interesting to see what catches artist Rachel's eye on a walk. Here are some curious shapes of ice in a frozen puddle.

We arrived at St Ethelbert, Herringswell Church, which we stopped at briefly to visit.

The village sign interprets the village name literally, but the name actually means "'Spring/stream at the corner of land' or 'by the horn-shaped hill'.

As Simon Knott says in his Suffolk Churches article linked to above, the church has one of the best collections of Arts and Crafts glass in East Anglia. Here are a couple of them. You can read more about the windows here. The most recent window is Cambridge Stained Glass's 1992 depiction of nature springing to life around Herringswell church, politely tucked away around the corner in the transept.

We continued to Red Lodge. This is the eponymous pub.

After passing along the edge of the village, we went under the A11 where it crossed the River Kennett.

Our lunch stop was in a sunny field by a south-facing hedge. Here we enjoyed some apricity as we lunched.

We had some fighter jets fly past.

The frost in the sun was melted now, but there were still some patches lingering in the shade. Some hoar frost here must have built up over the frosty nights we've had for the last few days.