Reinterred: I is for Eye

Yes, it's the next instalment in Joyce's Weekly Walks' alphabet of walks.

This was the invite from Joyce.

"Tuesday March 25th Eye for an I (see what I have done there!). I am going to have a coffee at Cafeye on Broad Street at 10am and then start walking from Eye Community Centre, 25 Magdalen Street, Eye IP23 7AJ at 10.30am approx. There is free car parking here. There are also public toilets at Cross Street. You can choose coffee or just meet for the walk. We will walk to Thornham Parva Church (delightful thatched church) and then into Thornham Walks for our lunch stop (cafe not open but probably a coffee truck there). They also have outdoor ‘green’ latrines. Then we press on to skirt Yaxley and back into Eye. We can visit Eye Castle too for a climb up to the top. The walk is 11 miles."

This was our route today.

Here are a few of my photos.

We decided to forego the coffee shop and parked at the Community Centre in good time. We were joined by Wendy and decided we would visit the toilets before we started... not realising it was a 15 minute round trip. Here we are returning to the Community Centre.

...where we found everyone else ready to go. We started across the Town Moor.

We walked across this field and I was glad it hadn't rained for a while - the path was perfectly dry. I liked the line of trees at the top of the hill, like an oncoming army ready for the charge downhill to attack us.

Flowers of the day were primroses, which we saw in profusion.

We crossed the busy A140 here...

...to get to Thornham Parva.

I found some lilac primroses here.

And, of course, there were plenty of daffodils cheerfully nodding in the breeze.

Our drink stop was at the lovely thatched church of St. Mary, Thornham Parva, which serves a tiny parish of about 50 adults. The following text is taken from the church's visitor guide. The chancel, nave and tower are thatched in Norfolk reed. The last full rethatch was in 1978. The walls are Norman period (1066 - 1200) with traces of earlier Saxon period (600 - 1066). The tower was rebuilt in the 1480s.

On the north and south walls are 14th century wall paintings. They contain the most complete story of St Edmund, the martyr King. Above the north door you see a medieval cart with a large wheel. Below it to the right is a coffin borne by four Benedictine monks. Beneath them there is a wolf and further right two more monks supporting a crowned head over a skeleton. St. Edmund was beheaded and this section represents the legend of the wolf finding his body.

Dawn wondered what the significance of the decorations in these windows, but the church guide doesn't mention them, except to say they are from the Decorated (1300 - 1350) or early Perpendicular periods (1350 - 1500). Google lens, though, tells me the Hebrew writing in the top left spells Jehovah.

The retable behind the altar is the church's greatest treasure, dating from approximately 1335.

As Simon Knott tells us... "The retable was only part of a much larger altarpiece that probably once stood in the Blackfriars Priory at Thetford over the border in Norfolk. Most of the frontal from the piece is now in the Musée de Cluny in Paris, although one panel is lost to us, but may still be adorning a church out there in Europe somewhere. The Thornham Parva part was removed from the Priory church after it was destroyed in the Anglican Reformation, along with so many of England’s treasures. Perhaps it was taken by recusant Catholics to use in their devotions, but more likely it was simply rescued because it was beautiful. It was purchased by Sir John Major of Thornham Hall in 1778 for his collection, from a house in nearby Stradbroke and later put into storage in the loft of one of the estate barns and forgotten until it was rediscovered.

The retable is painted with ten standing figures about the Crucifixion. The backgrounds are chequered and textured using gesso, a kind of Plaster of Paris which was applied and allowed to dry before being carved to shape and painted. From left to right, the figures are St Dominic (Thetford was a Dominican Priory); St Catherine; St John the Baptist; St Paul; a rood group of the Blessed Virgin, Christ and St John; St Peter; St Edmund; St Margaret; St Peter Martyr (another Dominican). The retable dates from the 1330s, the height of the Decorated period, in the decades before the Black Death. Ironically, it is almost exactly contemporary with the chancel in which it now sits. They are perhaps the liveliest and most alive medieval figures in Suffolk. St Catherine in particular appears to be stepping through an archway from dancing in a garden."

The bible was open at Jeremiah Chapter 50 - The Destruction of Babylon. I wonder why?

Among the guides on sale was a guide to the Retable by Paul Binski, a name I recognised as being a contemporary of mine at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, although I never knew him.

In front of the church is the village sign.

A red kite flew overhead.

Then it was onward to Thornham Estate and the Walled Garden, now the base for Beyond the Wall, a charity that supports adults with additional needs.

Some hellebores.

These are apple trees.

The garden also has quince and medlar trees.

We followed the path to the play area and picnic tables by the car park, passing these on the way.

The Green latrines, have been here since 2014.

The Forge café wasn't open, but the drinks horsebox was.

Picnic time.

Roland had a go on the wonky turntable.

Returning through the estate on our way back we came to a group of lovely camelias in bloom

Our group photo at the top of the post was taken beneath one of them.

We passed the "Enchanted Garden", full of wonderful wood carvings.

I surmised the dragon must have been tamed as it had some reins.

Not forgetting to photograph a swathe of daffodils. They are at their best about now.

Eagle-eyed Karen spotted a hare and this time I managed to catch it on camera as it hared away.

Then, of course, we were left behind by the main group, who hadn't noticed it.

We passed close to the Eye wind farm.

Coming back into Eye we had a stretch along a boardwalk where we found several specimens of this interesting fungus.

It is a Scarlet Elf Cup.

We came to the crinkle-crankle wall.

Although crinkle-crankle walls are a feature of Suffolk, as described here, we found one of these at the National Trust property Newark Park in Gloucestershire when visiting our niece Katrina when she was working there (see here).

We all took up Joyce's offer of a tour of the town to visit the castle.