K is for Kettleburgh Walk

Today we reached K in our alphabet of walks with K for Kettleburgh.

It was a circular walk from the Easton via Parham, Kettleburgh and Letheringham. This was the invite from Joyce.

"Thursday April 10th K is for Kettleburgh. This is a truly wonderful walk. We will meet in the village of Easton (very small free car park or street parking) on The Street IP13 0ED at 10am. We then make our way over to Parham and then to Kettleburgh. Highlights are the panoramic views, great view of Framlingham Castle, wide paths, Spring flowers, crinkle crankle wall, bridges and the company. There is some quiet lane walking at times. The walk is 11 miles. The White Horse pub, Easton will be open when we finish the walk. Please bring drink/lunch. Sorry but it’s alfresco toilets. "

This was our route - entirely new to me, which is becoming increasingly unusual.

We met in the small car park in Easton as planned and set out just after 10am. Here are few of my photos.

This dunnock was singing away in a top spot.

We admired the bowling green as we passed. The playing surface looks perfect.

These alpacas are cute.

We saw plenty of primroses and cowslips today, but this is a clump of rare oxlips.

 

We got some great views here in all directions.

We soon came to Parham village.

Here we crossed the fledgling River Ore which we were beside at the start and end of our J is for Jolly Sailor walk earlier this week

Our drinks stop was at St. Mary's Church, Parham. Simon Knott tells us "Parham has no pub, but it does have an interesting and in some ways an unusual church. The heart of the village, pronounced Parrum, the first syllable the same as the first syllable of the word parrot, is not far from the busy road which connects Framlingham to the A12, and the church is set in a little dip with ancient houses in attendance. The fields that rise to Parham Hall to the east were the setting for many of the outdoor scenes in the first series of the award-winning BBC television programme The Detectorists, and this church is one of several in Suffolk to make an appearance in that programme." Read more about the church via the link to Simon's description of it above.

It was open so we were able to go inside. As Simon says, it is light and airy.

 

The organ is in a loft...

...and I spotted this sign on the staircase up to it.

Ho ho! It was a pleasant place to sit in the sun to have our drinks.

The rape is now mostly out. Not my favourite crop - I find the colour of the flowers garish and the scent cloying, but others like it.

Passing a field of it we descended to a fishing lake here.

I liked this line of trees on the horizon.

On Holgate Hill we got great views to the north of Framlingham church...

...school...

...and castle.

But this was about as far north as we would get today. After Ashing Grove we turned to the south-west  to head for out titular village for the day of Kettleburgh. On the banks of the River Deben in rolling, largely arable and wooded countryside, Kettleburgh is a village of just over one hundred dwellings. 

We came first to St. Andrews Church.

It too was open and we were able to see inside.

As Simon says, "You step into a space which is typical of a number of quiet, tidy churches in this area. Not terribly exciting, perhaps, but with a sense of continuity, and of being at the heart of a faith community. All in all a good example of a rural Suffolk medieval parish church, with a sense of its past, a seemliness about its present, and a feeling that it is suitable, for now at least, for the liturgies of the Church of England. It is the Elizabethan Settlement made solid and brought up to date by successive generations, for whom it now acts a touchstone."

We followed the path south-east from the church past some lovely shows of daffodils...

...to the green with its picnic tables and play area. This was our lunch stop.

Carrying on south-eastwards, we again got expansive views. In the distance we could see the spire of Wickham Market church.

I liked the silhouette of these trees against the blue sky.

The view westwards got Joyce thinking about a potential sunset walk.

Another church, this time the squat St. Mary's, Letheringham, part of the priory church of an Augustinian Priory, but we didn't get much closer.

 

We crossed the River Deben at Sanctuary bridge.

We were not far from Easton here, but walking away from it at this point in a loop that took us through the sprawling settlement of Letheringham.

We could see Easton church through the trees.

At the village pump, Dan had a go at getting it to gush.

We liked these pretty cottages...

..and polite reminder to dog walkers.

This is the rather grand looking moated Letheringham Hall.  We thought it funny how the sheep blended into to the grass becoming quite camouflaged.

The water meadows here are liable to flooding. Here is Pam showing how she would still have a head above water if the floods got to 4 feet.

We came to Easton crossing the river once more and passing some quaint buildings including the kennels of the Hamilton Bloodhounds.

There is a wonderful crinkle-crankle wall here near Pound corner. This is just a small bit of it.

The centre of the village.

And so to a celebratory drink at the White Horse pub.

A lovely spring walk again with some great views, spring flowers and picturesque villages. Thank-you Joyce for organising and leading us round and to the others for the additional company.

You can find more details of our 10.8 mile route here on MapMyWalk (or download a GPX file here) and see more of my photos here on Flickr.