The Walk to Beccles – the Full Story
Introduction: How many would think of this?
The red post van drove past me and stopped a few yards ahead. It was the third time in the last hour it had done exactly that. The young postie got out of the van and crossed the road just in front of me, clutching a bundle of letters. “Are you chasing me?” she asked cheerfully. I laughed and explained where I was headed that day, deep in rural Suffolk. In the next few seconds we had dealt with the weather (of course) and she had discovered that I was walking from London to my mother-in-law’s house. Not too many men would think of doing that, we agreed, then we went our separate ways.
I suppose that is very true. This was a pedestrian journey born out of a challenge set by one of my sons, and much delayed by a whole series of events both national and personal. After completing my two-week walk to the Welsh Coast in 2019 the follow-up question was obvious – where next? My son jokingly suggested that I could always “walk to Grandma’s”. That is Beccles, a small town at the far north-east of Suffolk, pushing hard against the Norfolk border: as a family it has been a regular destination for decades, and our route by road is imprinted on all our brains. In a car it is 125 miles door-to-door, two-thirds on motorways or multi-lane highways, and the rest on annoyingly slow and bendy A-roads. It has very little to recommend it scenically. When I laid a line across the map, however, it was possible as a week’s trek. The line ran through north Essex and south Suffolk, with various options for the last leg. It would never be able to compete with the rolling hills, green valleys and moorlands of the 2019 walk, but – well, it had potential!
I began to plan the details before 2019 was ended, thinking that maybe I could do it in the spring of 2020 and follow it with another week-long trek somewhere else in the late summer. Perhaps there could be another longer journey in the summer of 2021… We all know what happened to plans like that. Trekking anywhere in 2020 quickly became impossible because of the Covid-19 pandemic, lockdowns, restrictions, risks and more. Although bizarrely I managed to walk more miles in the year than in 2019 it was pretty much all done going round and round the same local routes. We hoped 2021 would be better, but the first half of it at least was worse still. In the process my Suffolk jaunt moved from spring 2020 to autumn, to spring 2021 and then to late summer. In the terrors of 2020 I had also missed a surgical procedure on one ear, which suddenly popped up as a possibility in August 2021: the long recovery time (no heavy lifting, no strenuous exercise) postponed the trip once again, until the beginning of October.
This was, by any measure, the last chance to do it in the year: after this point the weather would begin to go sour. The first couple of weeks of October had been good for weather for the last ten years, but there is nothing reliable about the climate of Britain, not even in its driest regions. I booked and rebooked my various overnight stopping points, thanking them for their patience, and crossed my fingers in the two or three weeks before departure as the rain did not seem to go away.
My final planned route ran to 145 miles, around 21 miles per day, over a mixture of roads, lanes, tracks and paths. My overnights were all to be in pubs and small hotels – my days of rough camping are long gone – but I would still need to carry around 10-12kg in my pack. I was to head out of London first to the north, then eastward, over Epping Forest to my first stop. The next two and a half days would take me across Essex via Great Dunmow, Finchingfield and Castle Hedingham, before I entered Suffolk at Sudbury. The old Tudor town of Lavenham would be a stop, then the last three days would cross tracts of Suffolk which are mostly off the tourist map to lead me to my destination. From there I would hope for a lift back with my wife, and no need to retrace all my steps.
Day One – from Finchley to Abridge
Finally the day arrived. Thursday 7th October dawned grey and sombre, but at least it was dry. I felt rather grey too, perhaps it was the long wait for this to happen, perhaps some anticipation of a very long first day ahead, whatever it was I was not leaping with enthusiasm. I even struggled (just a little…) with the fine breakfast my wife had cooked to set me up for the day. Never mind, at just after 9.30am, right on schedule, I was off, pack loaded, feet moving. There was no fanfare, no little group of neighbours to see me go this time, but the journey had begun.
It started along exactly the same line as the trip to Wales, through the middle of Finchley and down the well-worn path known as Lovers’ Walk, to join the Dollis Valley Greenwalk path which would lead me north to Barnet. The details and history of that path are all in the story of the 2019 Welsh trip, so I will not repeat them all here. The only change this time was the new bridge, where Lover’s Walk crosses Dollis Brook.
This bridge proved to be something of a controversy. The previous crossing was on a little timber bridge with a delightful, curved arch shape: it made a very good “Pooh Sticks” bridge for local children of all ages. In the middle of the Covid pandemic, in June 2020, the signs went up to indicate that it would be replaced. A little research showed that the local authority claimed it was uneconomical to maintain it any longer, and that it was dangerous in icy weather. However, having squandered vast amounts of money five years earlier to create a “shared path” for cyclists alongside the brook, the bridge was the only part of this cycle highway which was narrower than the required specification, so clearly it had to go… It fought back. The supposedly unrepairable timbers were so healthy they took twice as long to cut and remove as the workmen had planned. The new bridge was built with the metal base too high to allow the final tarmac layer to be added, so it was left as it was. It flooded as soon as the first rains fell. The workmen came back and bodged it, cutting drainage slots in the edge and bending the metal to create a run-off. The whole exercise took three times as long as estimated, the job still looks unfinished, and in winter the metal base ices over very easily. The old bridge has had the last laugh.
On then along the brookside, this path oh so familiar from all those lockdown round-and-round strolls, until I reached the four mile point, and a first new diversion. Just ahead of the site of Barnet’s old football ground, a spot known as the Underhill, the path divides. Left continues the Greenwalk and heads west towards Elstree, right joins the route known as the London Loop and slips northward into Barnet. The Loop was opened in 2009: it is a 150-mile circuit round the outer rim of London, using a collection of paths, tracks and roads, some easier to follow than others, but mostly well-marked. My route would be ducking on and off it for much of the day. In fact just after crossing the main road into Barnet, the old route of the Great North Road, I ducked off it almost at once. The Loop is useful, but there are several points where it is obsessive about following paths rather than roads, even if that means a long diversion. I am not so choosy – I cut through parts of Barnet I had never seen before on a series of residential streets. At one point I passed under the railway – the main East Coast line from London to Scotland – by a short tunnel, but then found myself on a sort of elevated path crossing above an industrial wasteland. It was graffiti-covered, made into a tunnel of steel mesh, quite intimidating and very unpleasant.
Luckily this was eased by a short trot along the Pymmes Brook Trail, far greener and happier, to rejoin the London Loop near the end of Monken Hadley Common. This is the last remnant of the old Royal Forest of Enfield Chase, enclosed in 1777, and the commoners used it for grazing until the 1950s. Today it is conserved, preserved and protected, and the short mile I spent on it was very calming.
I emerged on the busy Cockfosters Road close to the entrance to Trent Park, marked by a large brick gateway. Under the watching eyes of a couple of policemen in a patrol car I followed the London Loop into the park. Trent Park runs to over 300 acres of semi-rural woods, meadows and fields and is a very popular local destination – even, it seemed, on a dull grey term-time Thursday. The park has its origins once again in Enfield Chase, Henry IV’s hunting ground, and was, like Monken Hadley Common, enclosed in 1777, when George III leased it to his favourite doctor, Richard Jebb. Jebb gave it the name Trent, after Trento in Italy. The park, and the different versions of the manor within it, passed through many hands over the years, but it gained particular fame after 1912, when it was inherited by Philip Sassoon (cousin of the poet Siegfried). Sassoon transformed the house and turned it into a society magnet – Churchill, G B Shaw, Whistler among the better-known guests. After Sassoon’s death, during the Second World War, the house was used as a camp for captured German senior officers, and much intelligence was gleaned from listening in to their conversations. After the war the building became a training college for teachers, later part of Middlesex Polytechnic, subsequently Middlesex University. When they moved out in 2012, permission was given, perhaps inevitably, to turn most of the house into flats.
The London Loop scorns the vehicle entry to the park and dives into woodland, going downhill to cross a stream and pass a couple of silty-brown lakes before climbing again. I rested my feet for a few minutes, now about 7½ miles into the route, and took in the view past old tall trees and over the rolling meadows of the park. Approaching Hadley Road, which joins the top end of Enfield with the top end of Barnet, the marked route veers off to take another of those got-to-stick-to-paths diversions. I went up to the road and put up with the traffic for ten minutes or so to avoid adding distance for nothing. Hadley Road, which gains a pavement eventually, seems for all the world like a country road until it suddenly bumps into Enfield, almost opposite the huge – and growing – complex of Chase Farm Hospital.
The hospital began as a Poor Law Orphanage in 1886 – the clock Tower building is the only surviving part of the original structure – then became a care home in the 1930s before evolving into a hospital. Today the sprawling complex is still spreading its buildings across the site. I passed by the main entrance and was glad to turn off the busy road into quieter Lavender Hill. This more residential street crosses the Enfield-Hertford railway at Gordon Hill, where I turned off northward, passing the splendid Victorian Gothic gateway and chapels of Lavender Hill Cemetery – overlooked by two huge and totally incongruous tower blocks. An overgrown and almost hidden path entrance, despite being part of the London Loop, led me into Hilly Fields Park (it’s all in the name), which was quiet and peaceful, and another good place to take a short break.
At the end of the park the Loop crosses Clay Hill and scurries past the car park of the old Rose and Crown pub into a maze of paths wriggling alongside the old course of the New River. That does not sound as though it makes sense, so an explanation is needed. The New River is an artificial waterway constructed to supply fresh water to London from various sources in Hertfordshire. The original course was constructed between 1602 and 1613 and uses gravity, curving around contours, to bring water down towards the original end near Clerkenwell. Over the centuries the course has been changed, some parts have been run underground, the end was moved to reservoirs in Stoke Newington, but the New River is still an important part of London’s water supply structure. The fragment by Clay Hill is a redundant loop of the original course. Luckily the signage for the London Loop path here is clear, and it soon swings away to join Turkey Brook – this time a natural waterway – for the next mile or so. The brook, which rises further west near Potters Bar and flows eventually into the River Lee, is named after Turkey Street, of which more later.
The path is very pleasant as it curves around the edge of the Forty Hall estate, passing a couple of small lakes on the way, and giving a rural illusion to a route buried in the urban spread of Enfield. At this point the hall which gives the estate its name, a large brick house built between 1629 and 1632, is hidden from view. The house has been in the care of the borough of Enfield since the 1950s – and I do know that the café is very good!
Once across the road at Forty Hill the path becomes a stony track through scrubby bushes until the traffic noise of the A10, the road from London to Cambridge, comes to dominate. The dual carriageway is crossed on a concrete footbridge, with a very steep staircase on either side, not ideal for a vertigo sufferer. From here things take a temporary slide. A short path alongside a crematorium and a few yards of road lead to Turkey Street, which has nothing to recommend it, and the soul is not lifted at all by the dreary half mile into Enfield Wash. Here Hertford Road is a gaudy noisy mess of kebab shops and convenience stores – one of which supplied me with some chocolate bars at inflated prices – and ever-so-slightly threatening to an odd character walking with a large backpack. A short stretch of road led me back on to footpaths, this time a path proudly signed by Enfield Council as a “Greenway”. An adequate description of the moss on the walls and the weeds in the stinky water of this stretch of Turkey Brook, but it does not cover the rusty cars, broken fences and general air of dereliction here. Later, crossing more open grassy patches, work is under way to create new bendy bits in what was once a straight path, perhaps to make it more interesting. Good luck with that…
My route dropped into Enfield Island Village, which sounds like an estate agent’s creation. It is. Rather uninspired modern housing spread across a few greens, with a very large space given over to bus stops. I said goodbye here to the London Loop, crossing first the narrow River Lea (or Lee) and soon after the much wider River Lea Navigation. An easy stretch of track brought me to Sewardstone, approaching sixteen miles into the route, only four and a half hours after I set out, and now feeling good about the rest of the journey.
Here, as we had arranged, I met with my son James and his dog, Loki, next to the Plough Inn. The little black jackapoo arrived during the 2020 lockdown and has grown from puppyhood into a generally good strong walking companion. As we walked into Epping Forest along Mott Street Loki was far too excited to walk calmly, but eventually he settled down. The lane climbs steadily up to High Beach, where the real forest begins with some impressively large trees. We passed the Victorian Gothic church with its tall spire, dedicated to the Holy innocents and completed in 1873: it is something of a forest landmark. It also marked, if only by a small margin, the highest point of my route so far – 390 feet.
We walked on through the trees to the large roundabout where the roads traversing the forest cross the Woodford-Epping road, once the main road from London to Cambridge and all points east, and took a short diversion to cross safely through the busy traffic. Here the Robin Hood pub, a big Victorian hostelry popular with cyclists a century and more ago, is proud to advertise its Thai restaurant. The food is probably excellent but somehow it seemed incongruous. We took to Earls Path, in reality a wide and busy road, to descend gently into Loughton
Loughton began life as a Saxon village, gained an entry in the Domesday Book, and waited for its fortunes to improve. Coaching inns provided an economic fillip from the 17th century, boosted enormously after the Great Eastern Railway arrived in 1856. The branch line from Woodford which spurred on the growth of the town later transferred to London Transport, and is still a key part of the Central Line of London Underground. Much of the housing stock dates from the Victorian and Edwardian eras, and as we walked through the town centre and along broad residential streets the place seemed to have a well-to-do air about it. Apparently it once attracted artists, thinkers and writers, while today it is home to football players and soap opera stars.
At a crossroads I bade farewell to James and Loki – the little dog stood up on his hind legs and watched in some dismay as I headed off in a different direction. I bought food at a petrol station and started the trek through the Debden Industrial Estate. It was as drab as it sounds, but near the end of it there is a curious attraction. Suddenly there are deterrent signs – No Parking, No Stopping, CCTV in operation – and on the left a very high steel fence topped with rolls of razor wire. The huge brick building behind it, anonymous as it is, is the print works for all of the Bank of England’s banknotes. It is a very dour place. And I would hazard a guess that it does not have a staff shop!
I had other concerns, because I was doing something my walk to Wales had suggested I should never do: I was relying on one footpath to get me through to my destination. If it failed, the diversion was very long and mostly on main roads. I had even watched an online video of this path which was not very comforting. I found the start of it almost opposite the print works, the first few yards were good. Then came a footbridge which should have had two concrete planks but had only one, the other had sunk into the stream, followed by a narrow and sticky section around a field edge. The path entered a little wood, which was what the map said it should do, but then divided into two indistinct options. Guided by the noise of the M11 motorway just a few yards to my right I made a choice and it worked. Now I could see the footbridge over the motorway, the key to this part of the route. I just had to paddle through a short, flooded section and – I made it. From the top of the bridge it looked as if the fields beyond were all flooded, but in fact my track was along their edge, still needing some careful navigation but usable. At PIggotts Farm, mostly an uninspiring collection of rusty barns, I joined the road and walked into Abridge.
The bridge which should have crossed the wandering little River Roding traversed an enormous lake of floodwater, but ahead of me was my hotel for the night. The welcome was warm, the room seemed comfortable, it did not bother me much that the TV did not work, nor did the plug-in extra heater: I had done it. Day one, just over 22 miles, a little tired but otherwise chuffed to be there and chuffed to be on the way. I dined on truly superb fish and chips, washed down with a couple of pints of good beer, and slept very well indeed.
Day Two – from Abridge to Great Dunmow
Despite having a very good and spacious restaurant, the hotel did not provide breakfast: instead I had a voucher for a café a couple of doors further along the street. The breakfast was good and the service attentive, but whatever had made me feel a little delicate on the first day still lingered, so my appetite could have been better.
Knowing that food choices for the day ahead might be limited, I walked a few minutes to the village’s only supermarket, which hides within a petrol station, and bought some sandwiches to take with me. With the Covid-19 pandemic still rolling, and various rules and guidance still in place, I was disappointed to find that I was the only one in the shop, staff included, wearing a face mask. Welcome to Essex…
I left Abridge at about 9.30 and headed back over the bridge into a grey, damp-looking day. It had rained overnight and the roads were dappled with puddles. I also hit the end of the morning school run, so there were several occasions I had to be careful not to be forced into any of those puddles. The school run seems to invoke a kind of driving madness, a determination to rush from A to B without regard for anyone or anything else. On the road just north-east of Abridge that morning it meant a fast-moving convoy of oversized SUVs with no intention of giving any room to pedestrians. I was grateful to reach the farm complex at Hobb’s Cross, where I could turn off to a more peaceful bridleway. This spot is not that peaceful – it is right next to the junction of the two motorways M11 and M25, so the background rumble is permanent – but the traffic is contained within its crash barriers and is mostly out of sight.
The track from Hobb’s Cross, which begins as a concrete track, runs under the M25 motorway through a short tunnel, and then becomes a delightful leafy path, is boldly marked in the map as a Roman Road. It is part of the line of the road from London to the Roman settlement at Great Dunmow: it was quite a shame that most of it is long gone, as it might have saved me some miles on the way to my destination this day. The path joined a lane which climbed up through the hamlet of Mount End, a collection of attractive houses clustered around a hill which was actually the second-highest point of the entire route, topped only by High Beach in Epping Forest. The road curled through an eerily misty wood before opening out into fields and running very straight – that Roman road again – to Colliers Hatch, and on to Toot Hill. It remained very grey, but I was sure that just a little sunshine could have made this stretch look very attractive.
Toot Hill is a straggling village of mixed farms and houses, a few of them attractive but otherwise quite ordinary. It boasts a pub and a community hall, and appeared to me to be quite an active little place. It dips and bends until it has had enough and allows the road to escape to the fields, crossed at this point by the route of the Essex Way footpath. That starts in Epping, a couple of miles to the west, and treks for over eighty miles to the coast at Harwich. Maybe another time. A look at the village history online reveals that electricity arrived only in 1951: that is quite hard to imagine.
The road runs straight for a short distance to Greensted Green, where the greenest thing seemed to be the algae on the little pond, then goes northward, arriving after a short distance at a railway bridge. Here was the Epping-Ongar Railway, first opened as a branch line by the Great Eastern Railway in 1865, in 1949 becoming an outlier of the London Underground Central Line, which it remained until closure in 1994. Since 1998 the railway has been owned by various private organisations, with intermittent periods of service. It is now operated by the Epping Ongar Railway, which runs heritage railway services seasonally between Ongar and North Weald, and onward to a turn-around near Epping. They have hopes of reconnecting with the Central Line at Epping in the future. Just below the bridge on which I was standing is Blake Hall station, looking for all the world as if it had been preserved in aspic for half a century. Blake Hall closed in 1981, and the buildings are now a private residence.
The road rolled northward across the fields, hardly a house here, before crossing the busy Harlow-Chelmsford main road and reaching the edge of Bobbingworth, another scattered community. Shortly afterwards, near the curiously-named Hobban’s Farm, I took – with hope – to a footpath which ought to have been a shortcut. After a few hundred yards of brambles and thistles I changed my mind, and turned on to a track which is very clearly shown on the map as a public byway – that it, it is a right of way for those on foot, on cycles, on horseback, and more.
This is probably the moment to record the impressions I had gained on the walk from Abridge. There were many large houses along the way, some visible, some concealed by high fences or hedges. The number of aggressive signs I saw was quite depressing. Keep out. Private land. 24-hour CCTV. No right of way. This is, of course, an area popular with footballers and soap stars, many of whom may need some privacy, but there was overkill. If I slipped among the bushes to answer a call of nature, someone could well be watching me on a screen. It was wearily not surprising then that this public byway was blocked by an electronic security gate, watched over, naturally, by a CCTV camera. I could luckily scramble through gaps in the fence, and much later, when back home, I reported what was without doubt an illegal obstruction. I very much doubt that the county council in Essex took much notice.
Still slightly irked by this nonsense I reached the village of Moreton, roughly ten miles into my route and, at last, a genuine village with a centre, a main street, and two pubs almost opposite each other. Two thousand years ago that Roman road to Dunmow also passed this way. It was briefly attractive, with some old white buildings, but soon gave way to 60s-style development. I sat on a bench in the grounds of the old square-towered church and rested my feet. A couple of the toes on my right foot were grumbling a little, so I hoped a good rest would see them happy. It drizzled, although not really enough to be uncomfortable.
From Moreton I followed lanes northward across fields and past scattered farms for a couple of miles to the hamlet of Blackcat, marked by some charming thatched cottages, one of them crowned with a thatch sculpture of a cat. A sweet image. Another couple of miles brought me to Abbess Roding, a quiet place which likes to hide itself behind hedges, but which has a pretty church with a squat spire on its square tower. The village has a detailed entry in the Domesday Book, so it has been quite a place for a while. I sat on a bench encircling the ornate village sign, ate the sandwiches I had bought in Abridge, and tended to that right foot, where at least one toe was sore enough to need some covering. More than ten miles to go, so there could be no excuses, although if anyone was watching my feet on CCTV I do hope they enjoyed the spectacle…
A mile or so after Abbess Roding, at a place called Nether Street, my plans took me on to a footpath. While my adventures in Wales and the dire state of paths so far on this trip had taught me caution, this field path and its continuation along a track offered a good shortcut. The first section of the path crossed a field full of sheep, and was unmarked. I stepped over a low cord sheep-fence and, with rather more consternation, climbed over a locked steel gate, careful to stay on the route of the path according to the GPS on my electronic maps. There was evidence of a real path, and some waymarks, as I crossed a broad concrete footbridge, but then everything went pear-shaped. The start of the track ahead was under more water than I wanted to risk, and the flood went on for about 20 yards. I turned back, climbed over the gate and stepped over the cord fence again, a little annoyed at having wasted more than twenty minutes, and more annoyed at the diversion it meant I would have to take. I walked a short distance along a secondary road before having to take my life in my hands for a few minutes on the main road between Bishop’s Stortford and Chelmsford, until there was a pavement at the entrance to Leaden Roding. It was, by now, once again school-run time, so the traffic was nasty and the drivers’ attitudes even worse, but such is life.
Leaden Roding, one of a cluster of settlements named after the river Roding, seemed to me to be a nothing sort of place, although my opinion might have been coloured by the diversion I was forced to make and the incessant traffic. I left it on a quieter road by Chalks Green and through some small woods, perhaps gratified to find that the other end of the track I had hoped to follow was muddy and unpleasant. A couple of miles of wandering lanes brought me to High Easter, and at last some scenic joy. The name, along with that of neighbouring Good Easter, derives from the Old English for a sheepfold, and has nothing to do with Christian festivals. Both villages date back to before the Norman conquest. Even at the entry to the village it was an attractive place, with some neat little cottages and a pretty church. With just over five miles still to go it raised my spirits. I left it on a road which was adorned with “Road Closed” signs, but which turned out to be open all the way, heading north past scattered houses and farms. Finally the grey skies began to break, and patches of blue appeared, another reason to be more cheerful.
I passed a (closed) pub at Bishops Green and some smart houses at Wellstye before navigating some risky bends to reach Barnston. Left-hand bends are fine, as I walk on the right-hand side of the road to face oncoming traffic, so I can see and be seen. My dread is a tight right-hand bend with a tall hedge and nowhere to dive: there is always the chance of some idiot digging into the corner with both wheels, oblivious to what, or who else might be in the road. Barnston had a couple of those bends. I reached the road into Great Dunmow and walked the last leg on autopilot, crossing the multi-roundabout interchange with the town’s bypass road and almost staggering down the approach to my resting-place for the night, a budget hotel.
In all, including the diversion, I had covered 26 miles in the day, rather more than planned, and my feet were feeling it. I lazed in a warm bath before going for dinner, which was rather tastier than the menu suggested. I found the reason for the discomfort on my left foot, a small blister under one toenail, but I travel prepared to deal with such things. It was quite uncomfortable during the night, but that did not last, and all ten toes, including the one on the right which had complained earlier, were fit to go by the time I rose in the morning.
Day Three – from Great Dunmow to Great Yeldham
I woke to sunshine and glorious blue skies, a total contrast to the gloom of the last two days, and a big incentive to get on with the journey. From Dunmow I had planned to go first east, then north on tracks and paths by the village of Stebbing, on much the same terrain to Great Bardfield and on the Finchingfield. Tracks and paths… From my experiences of what that might mean here in Essex I changed plans and decided simply to follow the road, for the most part at least.
After a good, if basic breakfast I headed into the town. Great Dunmow is an understated sort of place, with some very attractive old buildings – apparently more than 160 of them are listed - and pleasant streets, but it doesn’t shout about itself as a big tourist destination. In Roman times it grew as a settlement at the junction of several roads, and by the Middle Ages it was a thriving market centre, while today it lives rather in the shadow of the nearby London Stansted Airport. It is also known for the quaint four-yearly ritual of the Flitch trials, where couples must convince a “jury” of unmarried men and women that they have not once, in a year and a day, regretted their nuptials. The winners are granted a “flitch” of bacon. The trials find a mention in Chaucer’s tales – and the next are due during 2022.
Rather than bacon, I bought provisions in a town supermarket and headed northward to Church End, site of the second of the two Roman settlements here, and naturally the location of the mediaeval town church. From here the road to Finchingfield goes up a long gentle rise with views of rolling countryside. Today I could actually see it, no more grey murk, and it smiled back happily.
After a couple of miles or so I reached the imposing tall brick block of Bran End Mill, a mid-19th century watermill, now perhaps inevitably converted into flats. They must be quite smart, as apparently they sell for more than £700,000 each when they reach the market. The old building watches over a kink in the road before that climbs to Bran End itself.
Back on the walk to Wales in 2019, leaving a rural hostelry on a fine Sunday morning, I was warned that the bikers would soon be on the road. True then, and true now, again this was a fine Sunday. I could hardly blame them here: the road was blessed with some long straights and the surface was very smooth and free of bumps and potholes. Most of them acknowledged me with a friendly raised hand, and none tried to mince me through the hedges as some car drivers do.
At the next “end” – Duck End, curiously a few hundred yards beyond Drakeswell, I left the larger road and took to a little lane. It was not a shortcut, just an alternative, but it was free of traffic. Roughly halfway to Finchingfield I sat on a field edge in the sunshine and rested my feet, which today were giving no trouble at all. My lane looped round to rejoin the road to Finchingfield, and wandered on to the hamlet of Oxen End. Part of me hoped they found the right end of the oxen…
Twenty minutes or so further I arrived at Great Bardfield. The story goes, it seems, that Henry VIII gave the village to Ann of Cleves as part of the divorce settlement. Much later, Great Bardfield is involved, along with Charles Darwin, in the identification of a rare plant known as the oxlip, found in the UK only in the corner where Essex, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire meet. Even more recently it was home to several prominent artists of the mid-20th century. It is a large, quite straggly place, but it has some very attractive old buildings on the long street leading down to a central green with a cross.
If Great Bardfield was the hors d’oeuvres, the entrée was another twenty minutes or so along the road. The entrance to Finchingfield promises little, with its garish petrol station and plain modern houses, but soon the main event is reached. As Finchingfield’s greens open to view, it soon becomes obvious why this village is regarded as Essex’s jewel in the crown. The greens run down to a duckpond, formed by a widening in the Finchingfield Brook, on one side, beyond which the pretty houses cluster on a rise topped by the church. On the other side is an arc of old houses ending at some shops and the Fox Inn, which dates from the 16th century.
The Fox was clearly the meeting point for all the bikers I had seen on the road, and all the available benches on the greens were occupied. A busy day. Indeed if Finchingfield has one major problem it is that lines of parked cars seriously detract from its visual appeal. I crossed the little brick bridge at the end of the duck pond and climbed the short slope to the church, but again the one bench in the churchyard was taken. A few yards along the road I found a private spot in the gardens at the front of the church, and enjoyed a peaceful lunch sitting in glorious sunshine.
I left the village on a road which goes east, then heads south towards Braintree, but turned off to try a bridleway which seemed to offer a good shortcut across the fields. Ever hopeful. After five minutes or so the pleasant green path disappeared under a mass of brambles, so I turned back. Oh dear Essex, your footpath network needs some attention! I had lost only a few minutes, met some very agreeable sheep, and did not mind the diversion. I walked instead a few more yards along the Braintree Road, then turned off to join a lane marked for Gainsford End. It wandered over the gently undulating fields in the sunshine: the walk was a huge contrast to the tribulations of the previous day. I passed the buildings of Boyton Hall Farm, the listed old white farmhouse hiding shyly behind them. Here, just a few hundred yards to the east, although there was no visible sign of it, is the huge site of Wethersfield airfield.
Wethersfield is one of very many airfield sites from World War II scattered across East Anglia. It closed in 1946, but re-opened in 1951 for the US Air Force, who stayed until 1970. It is currently a training base, and a small museum, for the Ministry of Defence Police, although there is talk of them going too within a couple more years. Apparently the two mile long main runway, capable of accepting some very large aircraft, is still in excellent condition, although today it is mostly only used for gliding.
My lane wandered on, eventually curving into the cheerful hamlet of Gainsford End, part of the parish of Toppesfield, the village just to the north, which was Essex Village of the Year in 2016. The little hamlet was cheerful enough, but soon behind me. A little way further, the lane looked down into a pleasant little valley. Pleasant, that is, except for two lines of huge electricity pylons striding across the entire scene. These connect a hub near the coast with a switching centre far away west in Bedfordshire. The technology is impressive, but the scenic value is zero.
Many years ago, in the mid-1960s, I recall a major protest against running massive power lines across the South Downs in Sussex, in order to connect a power station at Shoreham Harbour, near Brighton, with the rest of the country. The protesters argued that the Downs deserved better than the parade of the pylons, and suggested that the power lines should be buried underground. They lost, of course, on grounds of cost, and while the South Downs have now become a National Park they are still disfigured by the steel monsters. Just how much it has since cost to maintain and repair those same power lines in bad winters and high winds was never in the minds of those who put them there. I would not argue that Gainsford End has the same scenic value as Edburton Hill or Beeding Hill, but it was still a shame to see.
At Cust Hall, a mostly 16th century house which does a fine job of hiding itself from view, the lane crossed a little bridge and climbed the short hill to a junction at the southern end of Toppesfield. I had looked at using paths and tracks in this area but thought better of it, I was not sorry; most of the field paths leading off the lane, boldly marked with “Public Footpath” signs, were invisible, long since ploughed up and planted over with growing crops. This is very common, especially it seems in Essex, but nevertheless against the law. My revenge on the lax landowners was later to report three of the paths as obstructed.
The road wandered on for another mile or so before making its entry to Great Yeldham. In the original plan I had hoped to spend a night in Castle Hedingham, a short way further south, but accommodation there proved limited, and mostly bed and breakfast, leaving me to find my dinner in the village. With Covid restrictions still playing havoc with many opening hours I decided not to risk it, hence Great Yeldham as a stop. It is a sprawling village without the instant charm of Finchingfield, although apparently there is a very ancient oak tree. There was also a handsome example of the local exterior stucco work on the building next to my inn: it had a very religious theme, rather odd on the side of what is now a ladies’ hair salon.
My room at the inn was in a building at the back, and although it was very clean and well equipped it was quite cold. As I later discovered, the heating ran only for a short time in the evening and again in the morning. In between I was glad that I had brought a sweater. I enjoyed a quiet pint in a near-empty bar, but when I went back for dinner the place was heaving. There was a football match on the bar TV, and the audience appeared to be almost exclusively elderly white males. I should have felt at home with them, as that is my description also, but I did not, especially since there was not a face mask in sight. At the time they were still strongly recommended for busy indoor spaces. The match ended when I was half way through my meal, and the place emptied out rapidly. I bade the friendly bar staff good night and buried myself in the bed back in my room.
Note: As a footnote to Finchingfield: in a later visit, this time in a car and in the rain, my wife and I discovered the antique shop next to the inn. It carries a vast stock of really fascinating stuff, most of it very reasonably priced.
Day Four – from Great Yeldham to Lavenham
The next day, Sunday, started grey, but it was dry and comfortably warm. My breakfast in the Great Yeldham pub was copious and tasty, and set me up well for the journey ahead. As it was very quiet I stayed with the main road, the road from Haverhill to Halstead, part of a route between Cambridge and Colchester, rather than wandering off on to footpaths as I had originally planned.
A couple of miles into the journey I passed the Colne Valley railway, one of many so-called “heritage railways” to be found in England. This one preserves just one mile of track, plus a reconstructed station, and an assortment of engines and rolling stock. The original Colne Valley and Halstead Railway linked with other lines to join Cambridge and Sudbury, and to interconnect with the main line out of London. It remained independent until being swallowed up by the London and North Eastern Railway in 1923, and the whole stretch was closed completely in the early 1960s. Although the track was taken up, a section reconstructed in the 1970s, and the old station at Sible Hedingham, 1½ miles away, was moved and rebuilt brick by brick on the site. The heritage railway has been open to the pubic ever since.
I turned on to a smaller road and walked into Castle Hedingham. This little place is renowned for its pretty main street and charming cottages, which looked good even in the drizzle which by then was starting to dampen me, and for its well-preserved Norman castle keep, dating from around 1140. I was treated to teasing glimpses of the top of the keep towers as I entered the village, but it hides itself very well. It cannot be seen from the village, and there is nothing to see through the main entrance except for tall trees. Perhaps the invisibility is an encouragement to visitors to pay a fairly stiff fee to go near it on the relatively rare times in the year that it is open to them. After wandering the streets for a while I headed east towards Sudbury, hoping that I might be granted a glimpse of the castle as the road climbed a short hill. It was not to be, the ancient building was still hidden behind some very tall trees, so it will have to be a trip for another time.
The drizzle continued as I took to a fairly featureless road, punctuated by isolated farms and cottages. It was one of those moments where there is nothing much to see, no sunshine to enjoy, so the only response is to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Just over 3½ miles from Castle Hedingham, by which time the drizzle had stopped, I left the road by the unflatteringly named Hole Farm and took to a track, intending to cut off an otherwise long loop. Behind the farm were several old-style conical brick kilns, and signs of a business in “artisan bricks”. The colours were certainly more attractive than anything in my usual DIY store. The quiet track climbed a gentle hill to reach – perhaps no surprise – Hilltop Farm, where I was greeted by three friendly happy dogs. From there a narrow lane descended again to the village of Bulmer, the last village in Essex before I crossed into Suffolk.
As if to mark the transition the weather changed completely, and the sun came out, giving the little village a happier look. A cheery greeting from an elderly gentleman added a smile, and just half a mile later I reached the border with Suffolk. To be fair, it runs along the middle of the road for another half mile, through Kitchen Hill, which offers a view of Sudbury beyond the trees. At the bottom of the hill I turned on to a path, having planned to avoid the main road into town by going across some river meadows. The path was good and very clear, and it led me to a gate opening on to King’s Marsh, a broad stretch of grass bounded by the embankment of a disused railway. The path was still clear, but now very wet, and as it ran under a bridge below the old railway it dissolved into a flood. I turned back and retraced my steps all the way to the main road, tolerating the thundering traffic across the Stour at Ballingdon Bridge and on into Sudbury. On the way I passed the Mill Hotel, a large and impressive white building in an old, converted watermill. It looked strangely out of place here. Apparently the reviews do not quite match the impression it gives.
Sudbury is a market town – even today – and its roots go back to the 8th century. Like so many other Suffolk towns it made its money in mediaeval times from wool, but prosperity faded in later centuries. It was, however, a centre for art in the 18th century: Thomas Gainsborough was born here in 1727. It has some unremarkable shopping streets, but some impressive buildings around the Market Square. Sadly the church of St Peter in that square is no longer a church, but is used occasionally as a cultural venue: the exterior looked rather neglected. I walked south for a little to find a supermarket I knew would be open on Sundays, bought some lunch, and ate it in a little park before heading out. Exit from the town was by some uncharacteristically steep hills through back streets to reach the main Lavenham road. This climbed slowly and relentlessly – the kind of climb which taxes the legs seriously – to a large roundabout, where a complete lack of any pedestrian provision forced a diversion through a new housing estate to reach Acton Lane.
The contrast between town and country was sudden. Acton Lane was very much a country road, narrower and much quieter than the roads I had now left behind. I would not call it scenic, but the sunshine redeemed the next mile or so to Newman’s Green, a tiny triangle of grass inside a road junction, and then the next mile to Acton, where a tiny lane of old white cottages contrasted with the utilitarian look of the rest of the village. For the next three miles I followed winding little lanes, sometimes pulling themselves up slight hills, sometimes wandering between the fields, to the edge of Lavenham. New estates and rows of very ordinary houses do not prepare the mind for what comes next. Around a bend, Lavenham church comes into view, and the whole picturesque adventure begins.
The church is enormous, rather out of proportion to the size of the village, and is an ostentatious symbol of the former wealth of the place, based on the wool trade. At the end of the 15th century Lavenham was one of the richest settlements in the country, and this mini-cathedral, completed in 1525, is its proud boast. I walked on, into the market square, where my hotel awaited. In keeping with the rest of the village my room was partly half-timbered and nothing in it was straight or level, but it was very well appointed and comfortable. I left my backpack and went to explore the village. I shall not repeat here what the tourist guide books all say, but it is a magical place, truly half-timbered English village on steroids. Although the wool business later fell on hard times and the community never recovered its prominence, somehow the architecture and the atmosphere survived intact. On that evening it was enhanced by sunshine and deep blue skies, a complete contrast with the start of the day. I went back to my hotel, dined superbly, drank a couple of pints of familiar Suffolk ale, and went to bed contented.
Day Five – from Lavenham to Barham
Monday started bright but cool, and after a breakfast which matched the quality of the previous night’s dinner I strolled a little way up Lavenham’s High Street to buy something for my lunch. By the time I left the sun was shining and, once again, the sky was blue. My route ran almost due east, leaving the half-timbered streets to join Clay Lane, which quickly went from metalled road to footpath. The map has it as a “track”, which is stretching the point, but it was clear and easy, running between lines of trees with fields beyond. A mile and a half or so along I switched to another track, this one named Nova Scotia Lane, which was more of a field path. At least they both worked and there was hardly any mud or puddles.
I followed a little lane downhill to cross the River Brett, here just a little stream. It rises north of Lavenham and wriggles its way south-eastward to join the Stour just upstream from Constable’s Dedham Vale. The lane rose from there for a few hundred yards to reach the tiny village of Kettlebaston. Apparently the name is correctly pronounced as “Kettlebarston”. Like most of the villages in this area its light shone brightly from the mediaeval wool trade, with a population of around 200, but as the opportunities declined so did the village. By the 1960s it seems the place was almost derelict and uninhabited, with no mains water, drains or electricity. Where the original population moved out, so incomers moved in, bringing the money needed to rebuild and restore the old cottages and to inject a new life into the place. The little church is classic grey stone with a square tower, although apparently it once had a small spire. Everything looked to be very well tended.
Just outside the village next to the road there is a small pillar topped with a plaque, marking a mid-air collision of two American “Flying Fortress” bombers in October 1944. It seems one climbed into the other, and both aircraft fell to the ground, with the loss of 17 crew. What the plaque does not say is that the navigator from one of the aircraft managed somehow to parachute to safety and lived to a ripe old age in the USA. The little memorial will not be noticed by anyone whizzing past in a car.
I followed the lane up the candidly-named Balls Hill to the village of Hitcham. It’s a relatively populous place for this area, spread out along one main street for about half a mile, but with little about it that locks it into memory. My original plan for a route here would have taken me across field after field on a series of footpaths. Experience by now had taught me better. Another half a mile beyond the village, at Luckey’s Farm, I turned on to a delightful little lane, which twisted and wriggled across green fields in the sunshine towards Battisford.
This is a village which serves itself up in several instalments. First on my journey came Battisford Tye, with what appears to be the only pub, and a cluster of houses. Next the road heads off eastward for about half a mile, running ruler straight – on the map it is indeed called the Battisford Straight – dotted only with scattered farms. It was on this section that I paused for a rest behind a hedge, and found myself staring at the most magnificent cluster of sloe berries. Back in London I have a few places where these berries flourish, the locations naturally kept secret, and around mid-September we harvest them in order to make superb sloe gin ready for Christmas. While 2020 had been an excellent year, this year, 2021, had produced hardly any fruit, certainly nothing worth picking. Yet here they were, dark and juicy, and about a month out of the normal southern season. My hopes rose further as the map showed “Sloe Farm” just a short way further. Perhaps they cultivated them, I thought, perhaps they had an online business. It turned out that Sloe Farm was nothing to do with berries or gin, instead it was festooned with religious banners. Apparently it is now Battisford’s “Free Church”. I walked on. At the end of the straight comes another cluster of houses where the road forks, Valley Road to the right, Church Road to the left. I took the left fork, and found that Church Road leaves the houses behind and wriggles again between hedges before reaching Battisford Church. The church of St Mary is unusual for Suffolk churches in that it lacks a square stone tower: apparently the tower here collapsed in the 17th century. In its stead there is an unusual stone buttress holding up the rest of the church, with a little bell gable on the top. Church Road wanders on, rejoining Valley Road a short way after the church.
Here there is another curiosity for Suffolk – the lane to the right, Hascot Hill, is actually steep enough to merit an arrow mark on the map. It goes uphill just 80 feet in about 150 yards, but such gradients are rare in these gently rolling landscapes. I took an even narrower little lane to the left, up to Gibbons Farm, where the lane gave way to a good field path. Good in that only one foot went into the mud at its start – but after that it climbed a gentle slope with fine vistas, especially northward into the valley of the River Gipping. At the top of the hill the path became a concrete track by some barns, and led from there straight down for over half a mile into Needham Market.
The town owes its roots to the mediaeval wool industry, like so many other Suffolk settlements, but is better known for the events of the plague years of 1663-65. At the onset of infection in the town, the one road through it was closed off with chains at each end. While this prevented the disease from spreading, it cost the lives of two-thirds of the townsfolk.
I walked the long straight road through the town, which has some interesting old buildings but is very understated, especially by comparison with Lavenham. One building which does declare itself boldly is the old railway station. The main building is an impressive brick pile in Jacobean style, completed in 1849. It is no longer in use as part of the station, which is now modern and minimal, and mostly served by trains running between Cambridge and Ipswich.
I walked down to the side of Needham Lake and rested for a while, preparing myself for the next challenge. Up to this point my route had been all to the south of the A14, a near-motorway dual carriageway which cuts across Anglia from the Midlands to the port of Felixstowe. To reach my halt for the night and to continue the journey north towards Beccles I had to get across it. I had researched this at home until my head hurt. My original plan was to follow a footpath alongside the river out of Needham Market until I reached another which – allegedly at least – passed through a tunnel under the heaving road and popped up not far from my destination in Barham. By now, of course, my trust in random footpaths was already shot to pieces, and the chances of a rarely used pedestrian tunnel not being flooded were close to zero. The alternative meant tackling some main roads. Big nasty ones. So be it.
The first of these roads was a bendy secondary road, a feeder from the town to the A14, and this was now school run time. By now I knew what that meant: drivers would be on manic autopilot and would not be watching out for pedestrians. The road merged with another, mercifully straight, so that I could hope to be seen from a distance even at seventy miles an hour, and with occasional bits of verge to walk. This road led to a very large roundabout, a junction in fact between the A14 which crossed above it and the main road from Norwich, another dual carriageway. To get to my destination I needed to cross it to the opposite slip road, and take a little turn-off towards Barham. Even Google maps said this was the way to walk. I trusted that, but it turned out to be tricky advice. There was a sort of pavement under the bridge to the first half of the Norwich road, which I crossed to the grass and barrier in the middle. Crossing the second half was not funny – the last thing anyone hurtling from the north and intending to whizz on towards Ipswich was expecting to see was a skinny man carrying a big backpack. I got across, but I had to climb the crash barrier and walk a few yards of hard shoulder to get to my turning. Oh well, there really was no alternative.
The next stretch was along a very straight road, parallel to and above the A14, through forest, just a couple of miles or so to my destination for the night. It was a long couple of miles – just endless trees, hardly any habitations – but it was quiet and safe after the rigours of reaching it. I looked out for what should have been the end of the path I had avoided, through the tunnel, but saw nothing much, so I felt vindicated.
My end point here was an old inn – let’s not ask why an inn named after a horse had to be painted pink – and my room, in a separate block at the rear, was old-fashioned but comfortable. I dined on a very filling and rather interesting sausage pie, washed down with a couple of pints of very good beer, and slept well.
Day Six – from Barham to Badingham
I ate my sixth consecutive large cooked breakfast, served to me by an elderly man who turned out to be a retired policeman, and who evidently held very strong opinions on the standard of school-run driving. The mist which had shrouded the start of the day was clearing by the time I left, heading north on a road called Sandy Lane. Much like the road I had tramped for the last forty minutes of the previous day, this strip of tarmac ran straight, through very large woods, and with hardly any signs of human life.
I turned off, taking a smaller road at a place the map calls Dunston’s Corner, and soon passed the impressive Hemingstone Hall on the left. This is a Jacobean mansion built in 1625. It is a private residence and not open to the public, but the manicured lawns and carefully tended trees suggested it is in good hands. A short way further on, Hemingstone church, dedicated to St Gregory, sits on a little knoll overlooking the road, another of those square-towered grey stone Suffolk churches, but it looked very good in the sunshine. My road wandered on through what little there is of Hemingstone to a crossing with a larger road, facing Stonewall Farm. Despite the name, this is a large and very attractive half-timbered house apparently dating from the late 16th century.
Three more quite empty miles led me to the next place of note, which could have been designed to be confused with the last. Helmingham announces itself with the gateway to Helmingham Hall. This very large redbrick pile, started around 1510 and modified almost every century since then, hides itself from the road. The house is not open to the public but the gardens can be explored during summer months – sadly not in early October. This is the home of the Tollemache family, a name renowned in Suffolk, if only for its past connection with Tolly Cobbold beers. The Ipswich brewery has long since ceased brewing and the old names have been lost, but the name continues within the peerage. Another square-towered church, rather larger and grander than the last, nestles in the corner just past the gates to the hall, no doubt serving the spiritual needs of family and village. It was here that the red post van mentioned at the start of this piece passed me and stopped for the first time, although here that post lady dropped mail at the cottages next to the church without paying any attention to me.
I walked just over a mile along a gentle shallow valley to reach the village of Framsden. This is still within the Helmingham estate, and several of the red brick cottages along the main street were built to house estate workers. Hidden on the overgrown verge opposite some of these dwellings I found an old village pump, encased in a wooden cover, but I resisted the temptation to test it. The red post van passed me again…
Framsden is the scene of something of a battle. The map still shows a pub, although the Doberman, a low, gabled red brick building, ceased trading in 2016 when the then landlady died. Ever since then her daughter has been trying to get permission to convert the old pub into a private dwelling so that she could sell it, but there has been a vigorous campaign to prevent that from happening, and even to reopen the place as a pub. The iron Doberman on the wall awaits his fate.
At the end of Framsden village, by the junction of two lanes, the red post van passed me for the third time, and the conversation I described earlier took place. I set off on an undulating and rather pleasant little road towards Cretingham, which does have an open pub, and according to my research, it would be selling food. I decided to see if it was quiet enough to enjoy before taking up the offer. Cretingham was the largest village I had passed through so far this day, and sure enough it had an open pub, although the car park was rammed and the customers spread outside, so I gave it a miss. I walked a short distance in what turned out to be the wrong direction, but at least it took me past the church, another square-towered building, but rendered cream walls gave it a lighter air than some I had seen. It dates from around 1300 and is one of twenty-one listed buildings in the village. I passed the pub a second time, trying to ignore the smell of cooked food, and headed out towards Brandeston and Framlingham.
My route was along pleasant quiet lanes following the valley of the River Deben, here not much more than a stream. It wriggles its way south-eastward to Wickham Market before turning south west to open into a broad estuary at Woodbridge, which runs down to the sea just north of Felixstowe. The phone buzzed in my pocket. I answered to a distraught lady’s voice, the owner of my next stop in Badingham. She was full of apologies, but owing to an electrical problem her kitchen was out of action. If she could not get it fixed by this evening there would be no food. I reassured here that I did not want to change plans, I could not do so anyway now, and cursed my avoidance of the pub in Cretingham. I decided to stock up on emergency rations just in case.
Brandeston is not much of a place, marked only by its hall, rebuilt in the 19th century and now a school. I walked the next mile to Kettleburgh, which apart from its delightful name also has little to make a mark. The sky had darkened, and over the next couple of miles or so into Framlingham it began to spit with rain. From just outside the town there was a magnificent rainbow across the sky, then the heavens opened and my waterproof gear came out.
The little market town of Framlingham is normally a delightful place to stroll. It is dominated by its mediaeval castle, whose well-preserved ruins I had luckily explored a couple of years earlier on a very hot sunny day, so this time the rain mattered less than it might have done. I dived into the town centre supermarket and stocked up with things I could eat in the evening if all food options were off, or carry with me to eat later. For the last three miles or so to my destination I took to a direct road, and for the first few minutes the rain stopped and a weak sun returned. Not for long. The raindrops started pattering on my jacket, intensified into a serious shower, then further into a downpour. With full waterproof gear it takes a lot to make me seek shelter, but I slipped under a large tree and watched the Suffolk monsoon flood the road for about fifteen minutes. Finally it gave up, and by the time I passed the Shawgate Vineyard – established in 1973 on 13 acres, and now offering a range of white, red, rosé and sparkling wines – the sunshine was back.
The final approach to my destination involved a scary quarter of a mile along a main road, but soon it was done. I knew that the pub was not due to open until 5pm, and I was half an hour early, so I settled my pack on a very damp bench and prepared to wait. I was joined by an elderly gentleman on a mobility thing, accompanied by a large but friendly dog, and had a peculiarly random conversation before he rode off again. Just after that the door opened and a lady beckoned me in, scolding me slightly for not having banged on the door earlier. She led me up steep stairs to my room, which was lavish. A large, beamed bedroom, fully equipped down to a coffee maker, was almost matched in size by the adjoining bathroom. Everything was spotlessly clean.
A few minutes later I joined her in what would have been the dining room if there had been any food. She poured me a pint and refused to take payment for it, then we sat across the room at different dining tables and talked pubs, food, pandemics and staffing difficulties. The pub had kept alive during the pandemic with takeaway service, and had also offered some of the more troubled villagers food at no cost. As restrictions eased it had become more difficult to keep staff, but most were willing to work flexible hours. Apparently the man with the dog and the mobility scooter was a problem for the village, as the family could not afford the residential care he needed and his behaviour could be very erratic. On a more practical note she suggested a very good Indian takeaway in Framlingham which could sort me out for dinner, so I placed my order and waited. A short while later, as I worked my way through a delicious prawn dish – accompanied by yet another free pint – a middle-aged couple arrived. While they seemed happy with their room, the man was anything but happy with the lack of food, although he had been warned by phone, just as I had. He was very abrupt, and although he finally accepted that he would have to drive into Framlingham to eat, he left the landlady quite upset. By that stage, having been stumped all afternoon, and having had to cancel evening dinner bookings, I suspect the man’s rudeness pushed her close to the edge. I resumed the conversation we had been having before he arrived, and she gradually calmed. I left her going through accounts on her laptop to head upstairs for my little bit of Suffolk luxury, enjoyed a tea and ended the fairly traumatic day with a good sleep.
Note: At the time I walked past it the battle for the Doberman in Framsden was still raging. Since then, the county council has acknowledged that current conditions would not make a pub here viable, but nevertheless they have refused planning consent until all alternative business uses have been explored.
Note2: Since I stayed in Badingham, apparently the pub which had been my last stop on this route closed for business just a few weeks later, but after a six-month gap it has been bought by a company which runs a small chain of excellent foodie pubs in and around Lowestoft. Let us hope they make a big success of it.
Day Seven – from Badingham to Beccles
The kitchen electrics were fixed very early the next morning, so an excellent cooked breakfast was on hand by the time I returned to the dining room. If that breakfast was an indication of the usual quality of the dinners I know I had really missed something.
The sun was shining as I turned towards Badingham village to start the final day of the journey, a long stretch of around 23 miles, but the destination was now in reach. The village stretches out along several lanes, the last houses almost a mile away from my starting point. The land here was flat, very flat, although it is over 170 feet above sea level, and comprises large open fields with few buildings. The quiet absence of features recalled other empty places, such as the crossing of the Elenydd moors during the 2019 Wales trek. I reached a larger road leading to Ubbeston Green passing only two men working with a tractor. The hamlet of Ubbeston Green is noted only for a bus stop, a phone box, and a handful of barns converted into holiday homes, but rather hidden from the road. Beyond it though a little lane slipped northwards downhill among the trees, crossed the infant River Blyth and reached St Peter’s Church. Among all those square-towered Suffolk churches this is a fine example, with a solid red-brick tower crowning the light stone of the main building. Perhaps it is disappointing that now it is not a church at all, but a private dwelling, but it does seem to have been given the care it deserves.
My lane turned east to follow the Blyth for a short distance. The river rises just a couple of miles west of here, near Laxfield, and wanders cross-country through Halesworth to reach the coast at the tidal estuary of Blythburgh, once a major port until the silt and the tides had other ideas. By Heveningham, within touching distance of another of those churches, I turned north on to a broader road which would help me through the six miles or so to Rumburgh, but in doing so would carefully avoid passing through anywhere else. Farms and tiny hamlets were the order for almost the next two hours. I passed by Huntingfield, with just a distant glimpse of its hall in the trees, by Cookley Green, crossed a larger road near Linstead Parva, where even the chapel hid itself from view, on past Chediston, and finally joined a road to lead me into Rumburgh.
I expected a lot of Rumburgh. On the map it looked like a real settlement, a grown-up village. It apparently had a pub, although a little off my route, and it might, I thought, even have a shop, possibly saving me from lunching on my emergency rations. It was a complete disappointment. Its Wikipedia entry says: “The village is centred around a road junction, with development extending in a linear fashion”. That about sums it up. An assortment of houses and bungalows lined my approach on New Road, and continued along The Street for about a mile to the end of the village at Aldous Corner. The pub and the church, complete with the site of a Cistercian Abbey, lie a little north of all this, but are apparently of little note. A more sombre tone is struck by the off-white block of the old Wesleyan Methodist Church, which opened its doors in 1836 and closed them again sometime around 2014. It still had the air of activity about it, as if trying to deny that nobody would come to it any more. I rested and ate on the edge of its grounds, then walked on.
The Street gave way to another lane called Gavell Street, then to Grub Lane, the area busy with tractors towing huge trailers loaded with what I took to be silage, clearly in a great hurry to take it wherever it was going. Grub Lane led me to the crossing of the main road between Bungay and Halesworth, at the small village of Ilketshall St Lawrence. There are four such villages, the others dedicated to St Margaret, St Peter and St John. The name is charming enough to raise expectations, but at St Lawrence those were soon dashed. This was another street village of houses and bungalows, with a school and a pub but little to shout out. Even the church stands aloof from the village some way to the north. I turned off by the school on to Hogg Lane (the map has it with one “g” but I will go with the street sign) and headed east across some fairly unkempt fields to reach the lane to Beck’s Green.
The different Ilketshalls are home to several little pieces of former common land, now all designated as access land. Beck’s Green is perhaps the smallest, but it was charming, a pretty little oasis of grass, trees and attractive buildings in an area otherwise of little note. The green is also a wildlife site, complete with an explanatory noticeboard. I continued north from here for about a mile to Corner Farm, the clue is in the name, which seemed to be a focal point for the tractors with their trailers, then turned eastward again along a pleasant if busy lane leading me to Ringsfield Corner.
The buildings of the village are mostly concentrated around the crossroads here, but this is another village where the church, and the original site of the village, is some way to the north. Ringsfield Corner offers yet another cluster of mostly modern houses and bungalows, rather belying its greater significance in the Domesday Book, when it was apparently the home of a hundred households. The crossroads is marked with a little green, and a signpost to console me – Beccles, two miles. I walked the road for only part of that, passing a neat little pub, before turning on to a bridleway to avoid landing on a main road. The bridleway worked, it was not muddy or impossibly overgrown, and with horses stabled nearby it was very much an equine route. At its end I had to run the gauntlet of traffic on a very awkward corner before turning on to quieter roads to approach the centre of Beccles. Although I am of course no stranger to the town where my mother-in-law has lived for more than three decades I had never approached the town from this quarter before, so there were still discoveries to be made.
Beccles is a market town, mostly red brick, and sits on the River Waveney, which here is broad enough to attract many pleasure boats. In a past life, when I lived close by for a couple of years, I remember the awkwardness of driving through the town centre’s narrow streets, but today the Norwich-Lowestoft road is carried on a bypass to the north of the town. It has a notable church with a detached tower. In the mid-18th century a certain Reverend Edmund Nelson was curate here: he was the father of Horatio Nelson, although the famous son was born in Norfolk and is claimed by the county as its own.
From the centre of Beccles I had just a mile and a half to go to my final destination. I knew that my wife would be waiting, along with her mother, and Loki, our son’s dog. The dismay which the little dog had shown in Loughton when we went our separate ways was dissolved in an enthusiastic doggy welcome. The journey ended in fitting fashion with fish and chips from the local shop, and a good long sleep before returning the next day to London.
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