Wimpole Estate Walk

Today we had a trip into Cambridgeshire to walk in the estate of Wimpole Hall.

This was the invite from Joyce.

"Monday Mar 16th Wimpole Hall. Please park in the delightful village of Orwell, Cambs for 10am. There is parking signed along the High Street near number 27 - SG8 5QN.  Go up the track to find the Clunch Pit car park. I have devised an 8.5 mile walk which goes into Wimpole Hall (using PROW, Open Access Land and their all-weather track). We will head for coffee and toilets at the earliest opportunity and have a quick pause on the way round. I don’t think there will be opportunity to go to Folly on this visit. Wimpole is quite undulating but the views are lovely and it usually has lots of birds of prey circulating.  Nick and I are then going to head to The Royal Oak Barrington which is 5 mins away for a late lunch. I estimate 1.30pm/2pm so do bring snacks. Then I am going to try and encourage Nick to drive to the village of Thriplow which is infamous for its daffodil displays. It is about 8 miles from Barrington so this might be something you would like to copy. "

This was my route.

I say "my route" as I took a little shortcut, as you will see. There were 9 of us today.  Here are a few photos.

We parked in the car park for the Orwell Clunch Pit and read about it on the display board here. We would come to it at the end of our walk.

As we were 1/2 hour early we did a bit of an explore along the High Street, where we bumped into Steve who had arrived before us. We came to an ancient Black Mulberry tree.

It also had a display board...

Now a question for regular walkers with the group and readers of the blog. Can you remember where we found a lot of these on a walk? Answer at the end of the blog.

Opposite the Orwell village sign...

...is St Andrew's Church. You can read about its history here. We went in to have a look.

I admired the organ, which had come from Baldock church in 1988/9.

It is bright inside the church with the whitewashed walls and we liked the colourful kneelers.

We were joined in the church by Joyce, Nick, Janice and Colin, who had spotted me going in as they arrived. We weren't expecting anyone else, so started our walk from the church without returning to the car park, and a few minutes early. Off we go past the daffodils in front of the church.

We were soon at the entrance to Wimpole estate and headed on through some of the woodland belts.

Coming to the stables, we passed this daffodil planting.

We had a drinks stop at the Old Rectory restaurant.

A nice avenue of blossom.

Walking through the estate, Joyce asked me if I would like to take a short cut... so I did. While the others carried on along the path...

...I walked on a green path more directly up the hill. I got a good view of the Hall along the way.

The path was good and I was soon at the top....

...where I went searching for a view of the others...

...and went to meet them.

There are signs explaining they are planting new woodland here, enhancing the wooded area by 1/3.

We didn't visit it, but we got views of The Folly. "The 18 th century Grade II* Gothic Folly at Wimpole Hall was designed by Sanderson Miller as a sham castle and ruin. It functioned as a Gothic eye-catcher within the landscape and a place for the family to entertain. It was later converted into the Game Keeper’s House and occupied until the late 1920s." A recent year-long conservation and repair project has restored lost elements of the tower and the folly is now open to visitors once more.

This was an opportunity for a group photo.

We had our lunch stop here, with lovely views.

There are some large chairs along the path. This one has a stepping stone to make it easier to get on, as demonstrated here by Pam.

The view before we started descending again towards Orwell.

Back through the woodlands past these strange constructions. What are they? 

An online search confirmed what we had thought - "The object in the image is a traditional charcoal kiln, commonly used in woodland areas to convert wood into charcoal".

Back at the entrance to the estate we turned the other way along the main road for a short stretch...

...to climb up to the Clunch Pit and Glebe Field.

It is quite a pit. It was a quarry for "clunch", a traditional, soft, white limestone or hardened chalk building material used extensively in medieval East Anglia for walls, chimneys, and small farm buildings. The Clunch Pit has not seen any active quarrying now since the nineteen-thirties and is designated an SSSI (Site of Special Interest) due to the rich chalk grassland flora and associated butterflies, moths and other insects.

We followed the path down,,.

...and were soon back at the Car Park.

Thank-you Joyce for organising this and leading us round and to the others for the additional company. We also enjoyed our lunch at The Royal Oak afterwards and our drive through the Thriplow daffodils on our way home.

You can find more details of the 8.7 mile route here on MapMyWalk (or download a GPX file here).

As for where we previously came across some of the 10,000 mulberry trees planted by King James I, it was in Thamesmead. See here.

One other related walk you can find on my blog is

• Wimpole Hall Day Out  (Mar 2020)