Reinterred: St. Ives Walk

Today, being the first Thursday of the month, was the day for the U3A Bury St Edmunds Longer Walks Group monthly walk.

This month it was Jane's turn and I helped her out by planning an extension to a walk we had done before to get the walk up to 10 miles. This was the invite, which I sent out on her behalf.

"Thursday 5th June. The walk will be through the town of St. Ives then along the River Ouse and through meadowland to the delightful Hemingford villages. We will park at St. Ives Park&Ride (free parking and toilets here), on Meadow Lane, post code PE27 4LG, what3words ///masks.slyly.rekindle to start walking at 10:00. Please bring a packed lunch. We will stop at Houghton Mill (toilets here) for a drink and have our picnic by the river at Hemingford Grey Church before returning through the meadows to St. Ives. Please let me or Jane know if you are coming so we know who to wait for at the start."

Just five of us this month as several were away or injured. This was our route.

Here are a few of my photos. It was slightly wet underfoot almost throughout where showers had passed through and we had a few as we walked, although none were particularly heavy and we even got a bit of watery sunshine at times.

Our walk started at the Park&Ride.

We walked through St. Ives, stopping to see the statue of Oliver Cromwell who lived here for 5 years between 1631 and 1636.

A team were putting up some bunting made from recycled materials for the forthcoming Green Week.

Our walk took us along a pleasant path the River Ouse.

We spotted a muntjac in the meadow here.

We were soon at the lovely village of Houghton.

There is a statue of the local philanthropist Potto Brown (1797 - 1871) - an unusual first name, we thought.

Our drinks stop was at Houghton Mill.

There was no traffic through the lock when we crossed it.

Now were on new (and un-recced) paths for me along the Ouse Valley Way following the river towards Huntingdon.

For a while we got no view of the river as the riverside vegetation was tall and flourishing, but we did get a glimpse across the river to Hartford Marina and the Hartford Mill, which we visited with Kirsty and David once (see here).

We got caught by a shower as we crossed the common here.

We came to Godmanchester Nature Reserve.

Here we took a pleasant path between lakes and were treated to plenty of birdsong, including a couple of cuckoos calling to each other. In fact, on our walk today, we heard no less than 6 cuckoos!

Who needs umbrellas? The rain was only light.

We passed the remains of a bird hide which had burnt down. It looked quite recent. This news story tells us it was targeted by arsonists on the 1st of May.

We spotted a heron on a pond here.

Now we were on the path that became a road to Hemingford Abbots.

Such lovely houses!

We had seen the impressive spire of the church for a lot of our walk since Houghton Mill.

We passed the Axe and Compass pub without venturing in, tempting though it was. "Not before lunch", I said.

It is a lovely village.

Along the riverbank now to Hemingford Grey. They hold the Hemingfords regatta here, which we've been to a couple of times.

You can visit The Manor garden for £6, but we contented ourselves with a view over the garden wall.

It is a lovely little walk along the river to the church here.

Our lunch stop was at St James' church

But it started to rain...

...so most of us went inside.

But Sheila was happy to have her lunch in the rain enjoying the view of the river.

The church has a funny roof and a peacock weather vane. According to its Historic England listing, the tower of three-storeys and four stages has a moulded plinth band, embattled parapet and clasping buttresses at first stage changing to diagonal buttresses capped with C18 ball finials.