Reinterred: Lavenham Walk

Today I joined a walk from Lavenham to Long Melford.

This was the invite from Joyce.

"Tuesday November 18th Lavenham to Long Melford. This is a ‘surprise’ walk for Roland’s 60th birthday. We will meet at Lavenham Car park next to The Cock Inn CO10 9SA at 10am. Due to the recent rain, pls expect some ‘very’ soggy parts. I have some cheap plastic boot covers that you can use in the Garden Centre if you wish? I have revised the walk and it’s more likely to be 8-8.5 miles. We can then spend a bit longer over refreshments and still finish in good time. It is 4 miles over to Cherry Lane Garden Centre, Long Melford for refreshments. I expect we will arrive there approx 11.45am. Feel free to have a light snack (scones, cakes, soup, toastie, coffees) here as I have booked a table for us and this will be our only stop."

I haven't walked more than a couple of miles for some time, so decided to do only the first half up to the lunch stop. So we took two cars and left mine at Cherry Lane garden centre and went in Dawn's from there to Lavenham. Squints also wanted to do just the first half of the walk, so we gave her a lift too.

This was our route - all of it familiar from previous walks. We were pleased to find it much less muddy than expected.

Here are a few photos.

We assembled by The Cock Horse in Lavenham. A good turnout of 18 for the walk today and two others joined us for lunch later.

Off we go.

Through the church yard of Lavenham church at first.

And then we were soon in the country.

The paths were fine and not at all muddy except in a couple of places. It was quite cold (there had been a frost early on) and I was wishing I'd brought my gloves as we walked into the wind for a bit, but my hands soon warmed up.

We stopped after about 1 1/2 miles here.

There are great views.

It is actually Roland's birthday tomorrow not today, but Karen brought along a lemon and lavander cake for him and we all had a slice. Nice one Karen!

From here we could just see the top of the tower of Long Melford church.

A red kite came overhead to have a look.

Onwards along a stretch of the disused railway line between Lavenham and Long Melford. I just missed it with my camera as a deer ran across the path about 50m in front of us here.

We came across a Wool Towns Walk marker. I remembered the route we were following from doing that in May 2023 and also on the St Edmund Way in March 2024.

Just past the bridge I thought that the group in front of me had turned the wrong way. Joyce confirmed that when she and the rest of the group caught up and they had to come back.

We were soon all together again and were nearing Long Melford now.

Cherry Lane garden centre is just along this road...

...but Joyce took us on a little detour through the Kentwell Hall estate.

Look at all the mistletoe!

The sun being quite low now we are just 5 weeks from the shortest day, it shone right through the windows of Long Melford Church.

The chimneys of the Trinity Hospital. But we weren't going any closer today as we walked along the drive of Kenwell Hall towards he garden centre across the road from the entrance.