Today we had a walk from Stanton via the Stanton Grundle, Walsham-le-Willows, Wattisfield and Hepworth.
This was the invite from Joyce.
"Friday June 6th Please join me for a circular walk of about 11 miles from Stanton. Please note that this walk hasn’t been recced! There is a large car park at The Recreation Ground, Old Bury Road, Stanton, Suffolk, IP31 2BX. Let’s meet here at 10am. Our walk takes us to Walsham le Willows (possible coffee opportunity) and then Wattisfield and Hepworth."
There were 12 of us today. This was our route, going anti-clockwise.
Here are a few of my photos.
Joyce attempting to herd the cats at the start.
The start of the
Stanton Grundle.
"
...a deep and mysterious half-mile long trackway, linked in
language to the Anglo-Saxon lairs of monsters, demons and man-eating
beasts". Read more about it
here.
It is in fact a stream bed that was formed by glacial melt-water. No
meltwater today and it was completely dry so we were able to stick to
the low path along the bottom.
We came out of the grundle blinking in the sudden increase in light levels even though it was cloudy.
Plenty of wildflowers along our path here, including some sainfoin, french for 'holy hay'.
There was also plenty of lucerne alfalfa, another green manure crop.
We came to Walsham-le-Willows. The Domesday survey of 1086 records the village as having 'half a
church with 10 acres' and 'a wood for 68 pigs'. Much of the village is
in a designated conservation area, which you can read about
here.
We passed the
Priory Room, intended when built to be used as a Sunday school - hence the inscription.
This is
St. Mary's church. As Simon Knott describes, "
The chequerwork porch is dated by internal
inscriptions on the wood panelling at a fascinating moment in the fever
of the Reformation. One one side, the inscription reads Gods wyll be
done in Hevyn also Erthe, while on the other is eius ne fueris curiosus
MCCCCCXLI ('in his works be not curious, 1541')."
Our drinks stop was at the
Blue Boar pub and tearoom, which opened early especially for us and were made very welcome.
Passing Squirels Hall, Roland pointed out the weathervane.
This deer quickly disappeared through the hedge.
This house is inscribed with "With thy blessing let the house of thy servant be blessed forever"
We saw lots of cheerful ox-eye daisies today.
We came to the village of Wattisfield.
I rather liked these 'messages in a bottle'.
While Pam and I used the seats in the church porch, others sat under the village sign for their lunch.
Onward along some pleasant field edges. We spotted another deer.
We got some dappled sunshine here along this ancient path.
Another deer among the crops.
We came to Hepworth, where we had our group photo of the day (see top of the blog).
Heading back to Stanton, we got a view of Hepworth church...
We came to a missing footpath. Joyce went in search of it in vain, so we had to cross this field of beet.
Stopping to take photos left me a bit behind the others....
...and I also stopped to photograph the pretty poppies...
...so I finished a little after everyone else. Thank-you Joyce for leading us round and to everyone else for the additional company.
You can find more details of our 12 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
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