Sudbury to Stoke-by-Nayland

Walked by Sally and Richard, 22nd July 2012

About 16 miles of walking, 15.5 miles progress on Stour Valley Way

Click here for all our photos from this walk.

The weather started cloudy, but the sun came out during the morning and stayed out for the rest of the day, and we had a super day of walking. After scrambled egg on toast for breakfast, we left The Olde Bull around 9.20. We crossed back over Ballingdon Bridge and rejoined the Stour Valley Path. We walked through a residential area of Ballingdon then climbed, with good views back to Sudbury. This section of path was quite hilly, but very attractive, and when the route of the path was occasionally less than clear, we just had to follow the instruction to 'walk towards the spire of Great Henny Church'. We reached Great Henny Church - an attractive place - and walked through the churchyard and then past other buildings that have clearly been associated with the Church.

We followed a minor road to Tymperly (c.f. Timperley, where I was born) and thought we might be diverted by a closed road, but our route was OK. There was a 'stop/go' traffic control in operation, with a rather bored looking man in a van in charge of it - there wasn't exactly a lot of traffic! We took a track rather grandly labelled 'works traffic only' (as well as the usual 'Hickbush only') and followed this to Great Hickbush. We then descended, passing underneath power lines on which work appeared to be taking place and speculated that the road closure was related to this. We climbed steeply, crossing a meadow with grazing horses.

After a brief walk along a road, we took a path that soon became a track, watching a farmer literately making hay while the sun shone. We descended to the delightful Lamarsh Church, though we couldn't go into it because a service was taking place. We took the road through Lamarsh then followed a path across the railway and back down to the river and so to Bures.

Bures is a large village, spanning the Essex/Suffolk border, so we were amused by the sign bearing the words 'Bures Hamlet'. We stopped for lunch at The Swan - it being a Sunday they were not serving their usual lunchtime menu, but we were happy with bacon baguettes from the 'brunch' menu. We sat in the beer garden - service was not exactly speedy, but we were happy to have a rest.

From Bures, we followed close to the river for a while, passing the attractive Bures Mill and then crossing meadows and crop fields. We climbed quite steeply towards a small plantation - I thought there were horses up by the plantation, but they were actually delightful bullocks. After crossing the bullock field we crossed a field of cows, very happily eating the long grass, and then we passed a field with two very young calves in it.

We walked through a small wood and suddenly found ourselves in the churchyard of Wormingford Church - once again delightful and with other medieval buildings closeby. We meandered our way across the relatively high land towards but not reaching Little Horkesley - with an assortment of churches in view, including Stoke-by-Nayland church on a hill in the distance. We took a path down through potato fields to a hedge boundary and turned right. We passed another couple of walkers (just about the first people we had met today) who were taking a break, then we stopped so they overtook us again. We descended through a field of oil seed rape, at the 'seed' stage now rather than the bright yellow we encountered so much earlier in the year. We reached a rather muddy plantation, with foot bridges across minor channels and then the Stour itself, then turned right towards Nayland.

In Nayland we crossed the A134 and walked beside the road for a while before descending to the south of the river (the OS map at this point has the path leaving the A134 to the north of the Stour and then magically crossing the river!). We followed the river bank - very colourful with scabious and other wildflowers and with attractive houses on the opposite bank. We passed the horseshoe weir and left the river at Nayland Bridge, with lots of activity in the river by the Anchor Inn. We walked up through the village, past the Church and other old buildings, and then up Gravel Hill.

Gravel Hill soon became a very attractive country lane and we could have followed it all the way to Poplars Farmhouse, where we were staying. There were good views to Stoke-by-Nayland Church and now we were closer we realised that this was the church, high on a hill, that had been in sight for several hours. The route of the Stour Valley Path takes a distinctly long way round on the approach to Poplars Farmhouse, following a path through woodland and across fields towards Stoke-by-Nayland golf course, then back along a sunken track. Towards the top, we met a woman coming the other way with her dog; she warned us that one of the fields had been recently ploughed so we would have to walk around. We did, though other walkers went across. This part of the 'long way round' wasn't great (and the dog-walker was distinctly cross with the land owner) but otherwise it was a lovely stretch - definitely worth the extra climb and extra distance.

Poplars Farmhouse is right on the route of the Stour Valley Path and it is a wonderful place to stay. David has owned it for three years and been doing B&B for two, after renovating much of the lovely old house to a very high standard. David was out when we arrived, but Paul showed us to our room, 'Gardenia', which is, as advertised, spacious and light, with lovely views over the garden. Our night at Poplars Farmhouse was a present from friends, who knew how much we would appreciate it, and in turn we would recommend it to anyone. In the evening we walked the half mile or so to the pretty village of Stoke-by-Nayland where we had a pleasant meal at The Angel (we chose to sit outside to eat - amazing, given how dreadful the weather has been).

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