Day 1078 - Manningtree to ….Manningtree walk
The next in my mini-series of railway station to railway station walks is a slight departure from the theme as it starts and finishes at the same station, Manningtree in Essex, close to the Suffolk border.
The walk would take in Constable Country around Flatford. My Ordnance Survey app informed me that about half the walk was through gentle rolling countryside and the other half along the River Stour with an average height not much above sea level. Having grown up around flatlands, I have a total love of rather featureless landscapes with big skies. I, therefore, decided on the clockwise version of the route starting with the rolling countryside and saving the flat, and expected best, for last. How wrong I turned out to be!
Manningtree was a little over an hour by fast train from Liverpool Street. Unusually the station is actually outside of the town itself so, once you have made your way through the vast (and in Covid times completely empty) car park you are immediately in the countryside and on the footpath.
The combination of the morning dew, the fresh smells, the clean air, the sun trying to break through the cloud and the gentle nature of the landscape made the first part of the walk to Dedham an absolute pleasure. It seems to almost encapsulate the traditional English countryside in a few short miles as it takes in small woods, farmland, rolling hills, streams, country estates, cottages, meadows, horses in fields and rural churches.
Dedham itself is almost a pleasure too. The delightful walk into the village is pure England at its best: cottages, a cricket pitch and a church. There is also a craft centre where we spent too much time and too much money!
However, walk out of Dedham on the other side and, wham, the crowds hit you presumably attracted by a huge car park, ice creams vans and a pub with a queue of people snaking outside the gate.
Here we pick up the path alongside the River Stour. Unbelievably, almost as far as the eye can see, the bank of the Stour is taken up by picnickers, sunbathers and general partiers. After a longer walk along the Stour than planned, we eventually find a quieter spot for our own picnic. It is here I took photo of the day, being a pair of resting walking boots.
On the plus side, the entertainment on the river was first class. The combination of people in hired rowing boats, paddle boarders and some more serious canoists produced a kind of dodgems on the water. There were crashes a plenty, temper tantrums and lots of falling in. All in all an excellent spectator sport which I could have happily watched all afternoon!
The next part of the walk is meant to follow the meadows alongside the Stour to Flatford, made famous by the artist John Constable and now run by the National Trust. Unfortunately the path is effectively blocked as the footbridge across the Stour is closed due to it being deemed unsafe, I guess, after suffering too many collisions with rowing boats, paddle boards and canoes.
This means a detour so that Flatford is approached down a road and through a car park rather than along the river which rather spoils the ambience.
The remainder of the walk back to Manningtree is the bit I’d been looking forward to the most, flatlands! Sadly the path is somewhat surrounded by head high reeds and other forms of natural growth so I don’t really get my big skies. Still the first part of this walk more than made up for the disappointment. I cannot wait for the next railway station walk if it is anywhere near as good as this one. As usual, some photographs from the walk are below.
