Gislingham Walk

Today we had a circular walk from Gislingham.

This was the invite from Joyce.

"Friday September 4th. We have permission to park at Gislingham Village Hall, Cross Pond Corner, Mill Street, Gislingham, Eye IP23 8JX. Let's meet for 10am. We enjoy a trip to Thornham Walks all year round but particularly because there is usually a cheese scone involved. My route will be about 9-10 miles."

This was our route today.

Here are some of my photos.

Waterproofs and umbrellas at the ready at the start.

It was a bit drizzly to start with, but the rain soon cleared up.

Crossing the railway.

The path took us through a campsite.

We arrived at the Thornham Estate walled garden.

Dawn would have loved these but she wasn't on the walk today.

Our drinks stop was The Forge café.

Everyone but me had a cheese scone.

The Thornham Magna village sign.

They have Georgian post box.

We passed The Four Horseshoes pub but didn't stop.

We came to the ford at Water Houses.

We weren't going to wade through that - there is a footbridge.

We had some pleasant paths today.

After passing Wicham Hall (see photo at the top of the post) we came to St Andrew's Church at Wickham Skeith. This was our lunch stop.

There is a bier behind the pews. I wonder if it is still used?

I climbed up to the balcony to get the view along the church.

Onward now past a thicket of wild plums. They were nice and sweet.

We wondered what sort of tree this was - the internet told us it's a red horse-chestnut

There is a large pond at the centre of the village. Simon Knott tells us of the village name...

"'Skeith', is rather unusual, for the University of Nottingham's exhaustive Key to English Placenames tells us that it is from skeið, the Old Norse word for a racecourse. Before we get too excited, the Key goes on to suggest that it might be used to simply denote a boundary. In any case, it appears not to have been in use before the 14th Century, by which time the Vikings were long gone, so it perhaps it refers to a previously named field or other area of land."

Then it was back across the fields and back across the railway line to where we started.

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

You can find more details of our 9.5 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

• Mellis Walk (Feb 2026)
• Bacton Walk (Dec 2025)
• Bacton Walk (Jan 2024)
• Thornham Walks (Mar 2020)