Today we had a circular walk from Long Melford to, around and back from Glemsford.
This was the invite from Joyce.
"Monday May 11th Our circular walk will start from Cherry Lane Garden Centre, High Street, Long Melford, Suffolk, CO10 9DH at 10am. Drinks beforehand if you wish. The walk will be under 10 miles and we will head over to Kentwell Hall and then Glemsford Church (hopefully toilet open). We have been kindly invited to eat lunch/have a cuppa in Sue and Kieron’s beautiful garden in Glemsford so ‘best behaviour’ pls. Please bring packed lunch and drinks. We then make our way back to Long Melford using different paths."
This was our route today, going anti-clockwise.
Here are some of my photos. There were 8 of us on the walk today. We met at Cherry Lane Garden Centre as planned. Here is Joyce explaining the plan. It was mostly familiar paths from previous walks but there were some around Glemsford I hadn't done before.
We started by heading up the drive towards Kentwell Hall, not forgetting to look back at Long Melford church.
The masses of mistletoe in the trees is not as obvious with the trees in leaf.
The have a lot of sheep and lambs.
We passed round the side of Kentwell Hall.
Looking over the field of beans to our left we could make out what Joyce reckoned was Stanstead church, but I think it is Glemsford Church as we could see the building with the dark roof at Park Farm between us and it a bit later on our walk when we were due south of the church.
We turned left here following the Stour Valley path towards Glemsford.
Here we came across our first fields of crimson clover and purple tansy,
We crossed the road here...
...and passed this interesting model of an aeroplane in a garden....
...just before crossing the River Glem on the wobbly bridge.
Walking along the river, we came across this tent of
Small Eggar moths and their caterpillars.
I liked the scripture and prayer presentation here. I wondered what Simon Knott would say about it on his
Suffolk Churches site, but he wasn't enthusiastic about the church.
They are having an appeal to restore the Foster and Andrews Grade II listed organ, which dates from 1877 and has remained almost untouched since.
From the churchyard you can see Stanstead church.
Now it was just along the road to Sue and Kieron's house, with its wonderful garden and a warm welcome from Sue.
Cheese scones, so fresh from the oven that they were still warm. Delicious! I also had a lovely piece of shortbread - it's so much better when it's freshly baked.
Sue is Glemsford born and bred and there was interesting conversation among the others who grew up in Suffolk about its history and people. Of course, I'm an immigrant and have lived in Suffolk for less than 30 years so could only listen in on the conversation about the olden days.
Sadly, we had to move on as we had a walk to finish. I grabbed a picture across the churchyard towards Stanstead before we headed on round the outskirts of the village.
We stopped to read the information board about the former Silk Mill here.
This is a lovely old house.
Oh dear. I can't remember in what direction I was facing to photograph this church. Could it be Boxted, perhaps?
We stopped for our lunch at this play park. We were in a bit of a cold wind so didn't linger for long.
We had several paths like this between houses in Glemsford.
On our way back now, this was our first glimpse of Long Melford Church.
We crossed the River Glem again at Sluice Cottage.
We came to more purple tansy (aka Phacelia)....
This is an impressive house and gardens.
We passed through the grounds of the church....
... and past Trinity Hospital, and then it was just across the road to where we started.
A lovely walk once again, with an added bonus - thank-you to Sue for the lovely scones, cakes, shortbread and tea, Joyce for leading us round the walk and the others for the additional company.
You can find more details of our 10 mile route here on MapMyWalk or here on OS Maps (or download a GPX file here).
Other related walks you can find on my blog include.
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