Exning Beating the Bounds Walk

Today we joined the annual Exning Beating the Bounds Walk some of us did 2 years ago as part of the Suffolk Walking Festival (see here).

This was the invite from Joyce.

"Saturday May 17th Beating The Bounds at Exning . A 13.4 or 10.2 mile circular walk around the parish perimeter of Exning. The walk starts from St Martin’s Parish Church, Church Lane, Exning, Newmarket CB8 7HF at 10am prompt. Please get in touch if you are interested as you have to register with them. A few of us are doing this. "

This is how the organiser Mark described what the walk is about...

"Many years ago, when maps were rare, local people would gather to walk the parish boundaries on Ascension Day or during Rogation week. The parish priest, churchwardens and parochial officials would lead a group of local boys (as witnesses) to beat the parish boundary markers with wooden sticks, usually birch or willow. Without maps it was important that living knowledge of the parish boundaries is handed down so that matters of payment of liabilities e.g.chancel (church) repairs, or the right to be buried within the churchyard were not disputed. Accompanying clergy would ask (Latin rogare) for divine blessing upon the parish lands for the ensuing harvest, and often Psalms 103 and 104 were recited, and the priest would say such sentences as "Cursed is he who transgresseth the bounds or doles of his neighbour". It all reaffirms the importance and theology of ‘place’ in our lives, and a sense of belongingness to the land, and to acknowledge the blessings of all human occupation and enterprise."

This was our route, which was in the opposite direction to the 2023 walk and had a few changes of route.

Here are a few of my photos.

We met at St Martin's Church, Exning, with tea and coffee laid on before we started.

We had a group photo before we started, but I can't find it online - the only photos I can find are my own from the 2023 version of the walk.

So off we went.

We went in the opposite direction to 2023, i.e anti-clockwise and were soon passing under the A14.

I spotted a village sign by the side of the road.

Passing the entrance to the racecourse and these aliums, sadly past their best this time, we came to the lovely statue of Queen Elizabeth.

There were 6 of us from Joyce's Weekly Walks walking today. Here are the other five.

We walked along Newmarket High Street, but then our route took us on a detour past the Real Tennis courts to St. Mary's Church, which we hadn't visited before. As Simon Knott tells us... 

"Historically, Newmarket had two town centre churches; but All Saints was in Cambridgeshire, so St Mary came to be regarded as the parish church. I say came to be so, because originally it was merely a chapel of ease to the mother church at Exning. Exning is now the bit of Newmarket where most of the people live, but historically it was an ancient parish. At some point in the 12th or 13th century, the people realised that they would do rather better in business if they sold their goods up on the main Cambridge to Bury road rather than waiting for people to come out to them. So, they headed a couple of miles south, and set up their new market. And Newmarket it became, swallowing the smaller parent parish. With that splendid irony that history so often throws up, the Newmarket bypass now carries the thunderous A14 traffic right by the ancient Exning parish church." Thank-you Simon for explaining the origin of the name.

We had a coffee as we looked around the church accompanied by organ music.

But what was this? We came across a huge collection of jigsaws some still in the bin-bags used to collect and transport them. It is for the 14th annual Jigsaw Festival which will take place from 20th to 24th June in the church, with the British Jigsaw Championships on Sundy 22nd June moving to a new venue - Exhibition Hall One of the Millennium Grandstand at Newmarket Racecourse. Read more about it here.

But not time to do any jigsaws - we have some bounds to beat. Off we go again.

We passed the iconic Queen Victoria Jubilee clock tower.

A little further on we had to stop to let a string of racehorses in training cross the road in front of us.

Our next stop was the lovely St. Agnes Church.

Simon tells us that  it is generally recognised as having the richest, most opulent 19th century interior in Suffolk, and I can't disagree. It was built just over a hundred years ago by Caroline Agnes, Duchess of Montrose, a member of the Episcopal Church of Scotland, in memory of her second husband, W. S. Stirling Crawfurd, Esquire.  No expense was spared in its building. The description of it in the Supplement to Cautley's Suffolk Churches speaks of 'the lavish interior embellished with a great deal of Salviati mosaic and a majolica-tiled dado', and draws attention to 'an oil painting of the Last Supper in a fine late seventeenth century frame and an elaborate marble reredos by Boehm in Renaissance-manner' depicting the Assumption of St Agnes over the Coliseum at Rome. All the windows are of stained glass and it is said to be 'the only example of the high Victorian use of such elaborate tile and mosaic work in Suffolk'. The organ, incidentally, was designed by Sir Arthur Sullivan. You can read more about the church here.

We didn't tarry long and soon crossed the railway line....

...and turned away from the road to the gallops.

There are some great views.

Through the woods and across the track of the gallops...

...before crossing the A14 again.

Now we had a long straight stretch. Jane, Judith and Vicky were in front of me and it took me quite a while to catch them up.

Looking at the split times from my MapMyWalk record, I can see why....

3 miles in 50:01 is an average of 3.6 mph. Sue and Joyce were not far behind.

Our lunch stop was, again, Snailwell. St. Peter's church which has one of the peculiarly East Anglian features of a round tower.

The sausage rolls and sandwiches were yummy!

Time to get going again.

No drinks at the George and Dragon for us.

We came to the Landwade estate....

...and our next church - the 15th century St. Nicholas church, which is not a parish church but a private chapel of ease.

We had a quick look inside before walking on.

We passed Landwade Hall following the public footpath.

Oops. We had gone the wrong way here. We should have walked past the Hall instead of the 3 other sides of the rectangle on this map.

That explains why walked over 14 miles instead of teh 13.3 miles advertised.We were back on track when we got here to where the two routes divided.

We got great views as we traversed the highest part of our route.

It was a bit hazy, but we could just make out Ely cathedral in the distance.

Lovely fluffy clouds in the blue sky.

And this is Burwell church. We must have been walking the boundary between it's parish and Exning's here.

Vicky and Judith are not really walking through the crops, although it looks like - the path is quite wide.

We also got a view of Burwell windmill.

Not far to go now. Exning church is in sight.

And here we are back at the start for a welcome cup of tea at lust after 3pm.

Thank-you Joyce for suggesting we go along, to the other walkers for the company, and the team that organised it all, waymarked, marshalled and hosted us in the churches along the route.

You can find more details of our 14.5 mile route 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

Newmarket 2-part Walk  (Sep 2018)   

Exning, Burwell and Landswade Walk (Feb 2022) 

Exning Beating the Bounds Walk (May 2023)