Thursday, 4 December 2025

U3A Bridge Street Walk

Today was the first Thursday of the month and time for  U3A Bury St Edmunds  Longer Walks group monthly walk.

This was the invite from Dave.

"It's that time of year again.  Mulled wine and mince pies at mine after a walk of approximately 10 miles.  Meet at Bridge Street on the semi circular road off the A134 at 9.45 for a 10am departure.  I have run out of ideas for new walks that end up at my house so we will be heading off to Lavenham and Long Melford unless I can think of anything more exciting."  

After successfully managing last week's 9.3 mile Y is for York Road walk, I decided I would be able to manage the 10 miles today. It was the first time I had walked with the group since the St. Ives walk in June.

This was our route today, most of it familiar. Indeed I had done almost the same route back from Lavenham to Long Melford just a couple of weeks ago (see here).

Here are a few of my photos.

We started by the bus stop on the A134.



Off we go. This was the first time I'd met new member John in the colourful jacket. As soon as we got walking it strated to rain and the rain persisted for most of our walk. I was glad I had brought my umbrella.


We got a glimpse of Dave's house, where our walk would finish.


Here across the field of what I think is Winter Cress, we could see the top of the tower of Alpheton Church.





We reached Alpheton Village Hall, familiar from other walks.


We admired Clapstile farmhouse as we passed.


The path was good here.


Our first view of Lavenham Church.


The path led across this field here.


Dave led the way...


...but the rest of walked around the field edge to avoid the mud.


We met Dave again here.


His boots were muddier than ours.


 But we couldn't avoid this path across a field.


At the next field, though, some of us took the edge route again.


Nearly at Lavenham now for our combined coffee and lunch stops...


...in the church.




Time to get going again and it was still raining. Now we were on the path I had done just 2 weeks earlier.



Our first view of Long Melford Church.


I got ahead of most of teh group here on the route of the old railway line.



We passed Cherry Lane garden centre...


...and walked up the drive of Kentwell Hall.





Walking past the side of the hall we took a slight detour to avoid the cows with a calf.



The have a Christmas light show in the grounds and we got a glimpse.


The long path North to Kiln farm was quite puddly, but it was easy to avoid getting our feet wet.


Just before Ashen Grove we passed a new set of double fences. We wondered what they were for.


One last muddly field to cross.


In the murk we could just make out Alpheton Church again.


And then we were at Dave's house...


...and enjoyed our mince pies and mulled wine. Cheers everybody!

Thank-you Dave for leading us round and for the excellent mince pies and mulled wine afterwards, to the others for the additonal company, and Ros for the lift back to my car at the end.

You can find more details of our 11.8 mile route here on MapMyWalk (or download a GPX file here).

Other related walks you can find on my blog include:

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