Today we did a variant on an old favourite circular walk from Kersey Mill.
This was the invite from Joyce.
" Monday June 22nd I really love this walk and I am interested in what wild flowers are about at this time of year. Let’s meet at Kersey Mill, Stone Street IP7 6DP for coffee at 9.30am at The Miller’s Kitchen and start walking by 10am as it is going to be a very warm day. The Circular route takes us to the villages of Whatfield and Semer. The church at Semer is going to be open for us to view inside which is brilliant. We will eat packed lunch here too. I have extended the walk to 10 miles to include a longer portion on The Wool Towns Walk. Toilets at Kersey Church in the afternoon."
This was our route today, going anti-clockwise.
Here are some of my photos.
Karen, Gill and Valerie joined us and off we went.
This house by Cosford Bridge over the River Brett has a fantastic garden running along the river bank.
We walked a number of field edges today with a number of different crops.
The oil seed rape has fully gone to seed now.
Our first pyramidal orchid of the day - we would see plenty more.
We walked through the village of Whatfield to the church.
St Margaret's Church was open so we were able to go in and enjoy the interior. As Simon Knott says "
The
west end of the nave huddles under a fine 18th century west gallery,
and the roof above is entirely rustic, the uneven ceiling rising above
the roughly-hewn tie-beams."
Onward again. Some fields were given over to wild flowers, like here.
This path through the oil seed rape was rather narrow.
We saw an abundance of field scabious.
Along some of the paths were some little flowers of scarlet pimpernel.
The impressive pink farmhouse at Hill Farm.
I remembered this cottage with its "No begging" sign.
Field bindweed is common at the moment...
...and poppies are abundant too.
We descended to this farm with a pond...
...where we recrossed the River Brett.
It was a bit of a jungle the other side of this stile, but we managed to get through.
The Semer village sign is by the road we drove along to get to Kersey Mill.
Some Dark Mullein in the grounds.
Like we saw at Snape Church on
this walk, this church too has problems with the wooden slats in the windows of the tower.
We liked the kneelers. This one would appear to be the organist's.
On the North wall of the nave a small section of pre-Reformation wall painting has been exposed. Much of the interior must originally have been decorated in this way, but at the Reformation ornament of this kind was condemned as superstitious distraction and covered with whitewash or plaster.
While some had their lunch in the church, others sat in the porch.
Here there is a newly carved head in the arch. Joyce contacted the churchwarden and was told it represented a former churchwarden who served the church for many years.
I spotted some more pyramid orchids in the churchyard just before we left.
Semer is a small village and the houses have lovely gardens and flowers.
We continued to the little village of Lindsey Tye. I discovered recently that the word "Tye" means an area of common land or pasture
Through a gap in a hedge we could see a field of purple tansy.
Another flower we saw plenty of today was the common mallow.
Heading towards Kersey now...
...we caught up with another group of walkers.
They were doing their Duke of Edinburgh award. Joyce stopped for a chat and then later went back to help them and set them on the right path as they seemed to have lost their way.
This path was pleasantly cooler than walking in the sun.
We stopped here to wait for Joyce. At the bottom of the valley is where they used to grow watercress - indeed the name of the village is actually derived from the Old English for "cress island," as the Kersey Brook once flooded the valley and produced commercial quantities of cress that were harvested and sledded into the village.
Now the lovely walk though the village.
The view back down the hill to the centre of the village from the churchyard.
We were glad to top up our water bottles in the church before carrying on.
While Joyce led the others on an extra loop...
...I walked straight down Mill Road back to Kersey Mill. They would be coming along this path in about 20 minutes, I reckoned...
...and then going along this path looking for bee orchids where we found the once before.
I just carried on down the hill and through the grounds back to the car park.
Thank-you Joyce for leading us round and to everyone else for the additional company. Yes we saw lots of flowers today, but, alas, the others didn't find any bee orchids.
You can find more details of my 10.7 mile route
here on MapMyWalk or
here on OS Maps (or download a GPX file
here) and more of my photos
here on Flickr.
Other related walks you can find on my blog include
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