O is for Old Newton Walk

Today we reached O in our alphabet of walks for the year with an 8 1/2 mile walk from Old Newton.

This was the invite from Joyce.

"Friday July 11th O is for Old Newton. We have permission to park at Old Newton Village Hall, IP14 4ED. We will start at 10am. Our circular route takes us to Haughley, where the delicious Palmers Bakery is. We will have a morning stop here.  Our route is just under 9 miles. I imagine that we will finish before 2pm." 

It is a walk we had done once before in July 2022 (see here). This was our route today.

Here are some of my photos.

We met at Old Newton village hall.

There is a map on the wall of local footpaths. We would be following some of them today.

Joyce briefing us on the walk. For a lot of our walk today we would be following some of the purple (Tunnels and Halls) and red (Moats and Lanes) walks from this Discover Suffolk leaflet, entitled "Haughley Walks".

We passed through a new housing estate. I don't remember that being there the last time we did this walk 3 years ago (see here).

We were soon out into the fields surrounded by cereal crops ripening and bleaching in the sun. It was to be quite feature of our walk today.

We soon came to the railway line to Norwich.

The barley here is quite golden but still with the odd tinge of green awn.

The grasses in this meadow by the railway line are quite tall.

Flower of the day was the Field Bindweed.

We saw all sorts of variations from almost entirely white to almost entirely pink.

We went under the railway and came to the grounds and buildings around Dagworth Hall.

The plums and apples looked inviting.

This area had been set aside for wild flowers.

The buildings are quite interesting.

Across some more fields now to...

...Haughley.

While some bought drinks at the café here...

...I passed it and the renowned Palmers bakery, which has been serving the village since 1869... 

...and headed straight for St Mary's Church, As the walk leaflet says, "[the church] dates from the 12th century and is unusual in that its tower and nave are separated by a south aisle. The war memorial in

the church grounds was erected in 1920 only to be blown down in a gale and replaced by a plain

cross in 1947. In 1995, the original cross was restored, names re-inscribed and the names of the fallen from WWII added."

The loo is twinned with one in Pakistan.

This was our drink stop and we were joined here by Tania for the next couple of miles.

Her are Rachel and Mandy investigating the old safe.

Leaving the church, I noticed this plaque commemorating an impressive bellringing feat.

Time to head on.

We noticed that some of the fields had some oats at the edge, self-seeded from last year's crop, perhaps.

We crossed the Ipswich-Cambridge line just after this train.

Some pleasant paddocks...

...and impressive houses.

We came to this air-raid shelter, built by a local resident.

Inside were some posters on the wall...

...and a table and chairs.

We went through the community orchard...

...and had our lunch stop in the shade at the playground.

The slide was very hot in the sun.

Rachel and Mandy couldn't resist the see-saw.

Hooray, a bit of shade.

Now were were following the Middy Railway Footpath for a while. The harvest has begun.

We recrossed the Norwich railway line here at Wassick's Crossing.

We had no sooner crossed and the level crossing closed for this train. 

This was irresistible.

There wasn't much cloud cover.

We came to an embankment, a remnant of the former  Mid-Suffolk Railway, and climbed up and over. You could see on the top where the tracks had been.

"The Mid-Suffolk Light Railway (MSLR) was a standard gauge railway intended to open up an agricultural area of central Suffolk.It was launched with considerable enthusiasm by local interests, and was to build a 50-mile (80 km) network, but actual share subscription was weak, and the company over-reached its available financial resources. It opened 19 miles (31 km) of route from Haughley to Laxfield in 1904 to goods traffic only, and income was poor, further worsening the company's financial situation.

The Board continued to harbour ambitions to complete the planned network, but crippling interest on loans and capital repayments falling due forced the company into receivership in 1906. Passenger operation was started in 1908, but this too was disappointing. At the grouping of the railways in 1923, the MSLR was still in receivership, and there was a protracted dispute over the liquidation of the debt, but in 1924 the Company was absorbed into the London and North Eastern Railway.

The poor usage of the line led to its closure in 1952. A heritage group started a railway museum site at Brockford, and as a charity it trades as the Mid-Suffolk Light Railway. The original line and the heritage line are informally referred to as The Middy. "

It was getting rather hot now and I was wishing I had an extra bottle of water with me.

But it was only about 1/2 mile to go from here.

I remembered to look back towards Old Newton church as I climbed the hill back to the village.

And here we are back at the start.

Thank-you Joyce for the excellent walk and to the others for the additional company. You can find more details of our 8.5 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

• Old Newton Walk (Jan 2022)
• Wetheringsett Walks (Jan 2022)
• Old Newton Walk (Jul 2022)