Bacton Walk

Today we had our last group walk before Christmas - circular walk from Bacton.

This was the invite from Joyce.

"Tuesday December 23rd. Please join me for a 'coffee' at EmZo Gift/coffee shop on Station Road, Bacton IP14 4NH. (what3words ///host.depths.token) at 10am and we will start walking at 10.30am. We can park opposite the cafe, in the timber yard, for the duration of our walk. Look out for the huge white water-tower (Bacton/Finningham) and the cafe is in that location. After coffee, we will have a circular walk. I have increased the distance to about 8.5-9 miles but it can be made shorter if we decide tomorrow.   Bring a packed lunch with you.  Lifts available from Bury and Mildenhall. Expect muddy conditions but then your boots/trainers can dry out for a few days over Christmas."

We met for coffee as planned. William was home for Christmas now, so he came too. This was our route and it turned out not to be too muddy. My tracker didn't start properly, so I reconstructed the rest of the route from the map Joyce had sent me. We went clockwise.

Here are a few photos.

We parked in the timber yard as directed. This used to be the Mid-Suffolk Distillery. Had it gone bust?

Insdie the EmZo Gift/coffee shop.... an aladdin's cave of Christmas decorations.

We had our coffees just in time for the start of teh walk.

Ready to go.

We admired these garden tree decorations.

The water tower is quite a landmark.

Approaching Finningham village.

This is St. Batholemew's Church, but we didn't go in.

Onwards to Gislingham. We passed the Silver band hut.

No playtime here today.

St. Mary's Church was our lunch stop.

We admired the box pews. The seats were quite low and we wondered how children could see out.

We admired the figures on some of the bench ends.

The pulpit is exreaordinarily high.

The toilets has been built over some ancient gravestones. Spooky!

As we atarted along this path, a car stopped and a farmer leaped out, telling us there was no footpath. But that doesn't match with the definitive map, so he reluctantly let us go on our way.

We saw this burned out house when we passed last time, in January 2024 and it hasn't been repaired yet.

We had to cross this field but it wasn't too muddy. The farmer hadn't reinstated the path.

At the end. though, we came to a sign and map that showed it was a real path. But now we had a short diversion.

We crossed the railway by coing under this bridge.

We were soon back on our planned route.

The beet is ready for turining into sugar.

WSe were soon back where we started.

Returning to the car, I spotted the ditillery hadn't gone bust - just moved around the corner. Finbow's Tap wasn't open today, so no celebratory beer to finish the day out.

Thank-you Joyce for leading us round and to everyone else for the additional company. You can find more details of our route here on OS Maps.

Other related walks you can find on my blog include:

• Bacton Walk (Jan 2024)