Melton Walk

Today we had a walk from Melton Riverside carpark.

This was the invite from Joyce.

"Monday June 15th do you remember this walk from last year – we stumbled upon ripe cherries at lunchtime? Let’s repeat it again and hope for cherries again.

We will park/meet at Melton Riverside car park opposite the Wilford Bridge pub.  WhatThreeWords: adopts.ironic.tools IP12 2PA at 10am. We will walk into Woodbridge for coffee and of course a visit The Long Shed briefly to look at the progress of the Sutton Hoo Saxon ship. We then continue towards Foxburrow and the beautiful village of Ufford. Hopefully the weather will be pleasant enough for an afternoon stop at The White Lion. Sadly, the bridge we usually walk over is temporarily closed at Ufford so it will be quiet road walking and it lengthens the walk slightly. The walk is about 10.5 miles. "

This was our route today, going clockwise.

Here are some of my photos.

At the car park ready to go by 9:55.

I love walking along the River Deben to Woodbridge from here. The tide was mostly out but coming in.

This swan had 5 cygnets.

The houseboats have some lovely gardens.

Swirly Cottage...

...has some great pebble pictures by the wall.

We were soon at our coffee stop at Coffeelink.

The iconic Tide Mill. It has recently undergone repairs to its Hurst frame - a wooden frame which supports the machinery that harnesses the River Deben's tides to mill the grain.

The Longshed has a full-size reconstruction of the 7th century Sutton Hoo ship under way. It has some new massive tree trunks outside.

They are making great progress.

We went upstairs to see the King's River Tapestry, which is now complete.

The exhibition includes this wonderful piece - Sutton Hoo Impression by Robert Mallamphy.

Here is the boat under construction.

The are also creating a model of it.

Off we go again.

We passed the Hands sculpture by Rick Kirby at Woodbridge Quay church and, of course, had a group phot again, which you can see at the top of the post.

Continuing into Melton we passed this large monkey puzzle tree with its unusual looking fruits. 

We came this way on another walk in 2020  (see here). The owner was in his drive as we passed then and told us the tree was about 40 years old. He said they exploded with a bang and scattered their seeds, but they weren't self-fertile as you need a male tree as well for pollination.

Now on to Foxburrow Farm Nature reserve where we found some rare breed sheep.

We got sight of the tower of the former St. Audry's Asylum, which closed in 1993 and the chapel.

As before we stopped at St Audry's Club for our lunch. This is the cherry tree we found last year.

But, alas, the cherries had all been harvested.

We used the picnic tables. We had a bit of drizzle while we ate but it soon cleared up.

On through Melton Park Woodlands.

We found the stump of a redwood with some lovely wood carvings... and another group photo opportunity.

Through the fields towards Ufford.

There was a neatly mown path through the meadow here.

We visited the church of the Assumption.

This is the great 15th century font cover. As Simon Knott tells us, "It rises, six metres high, magnificent and stately, into the clerestory, enormous in its scale and presence. In all England, only the font cover at Southwold is taller. The cover is telescopic, and crocketting and arcading dances around it like waterfalls and forests. There are tiny niches, filled today with early 20th Century statuettes. At the top is a gilt pelican, plucking its breast." 

It was our drink stop.

We decided to forgo the delights of  The White Lion in favour of a drink at teh end.

This row of cottages is opposite the pub.

This is Ufford bridge where the path is closed.

But we decided to worm our way past the fencing to use the path anyway.

Times to cross the railway line. We waved at the passing train.

I spotted this in someone's grounds.

Not far to go now.

We had some boardwalk...

...and some roses.

We crossed Wilford Bridge to get back across the Deben.

Time for a beer a the Wilford Bridge Inn.

As Julian had said earlier, it was beer garden weather now.

Time to go. It was only about 1/4 mile back to our cars from here.

Thank-you Joyce for leading us round and to everyone else for the additional company.

You can find more details of our 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

• Woodbridge Walk (May 2026)
• Melton Walk (Jun 2025)
• Martlesham Meander (May 2023).
• Martlesham Creek, Woodbridge and Melton Walk (Apr 2023).
• Martlesham Creek and Woodbridge Walk (Mar 2023).
• Melton Walk (Jan 2023).
• Melton Meander (Oct 2020).