Suffolk Coast & Cambridge - Walking Tour

Suffolk remains one of England’s most rural and unspoiled counties with an extraordinary heritage of beautiful medieval buildings and magnificent churches built at a time when the wool made this one of the wealthiest areas of England. Our Walk combines three distinct areas: a coastal area of outstanding natural beauty with heath land, reed beds, and river estuaries; a very rural area that includes the Stour valley, the inspiration for Ronald Blythe’s Akenfield and for so many of the landscapes of Gainsborough and Constable; and we end in one of Europe’s most beautiful cities - Cambridge! Many emigrants departed from Suffolk for the New World, including Bartholomew Gosnold, who reputedly named Cape Cod and founded the Virginia Company at Jamestown.

We stay in Aldeburgh, the home of the renowned Music Festival founded by Benjamin Britten who lived for many years in the town. At the top of the Town Steps, leading off the High Street and up the cliff, there is a wonderful view over the roof tops and out to sea. Our hotel overlooks the shingle beach, where fishermen still sell their daily catch from huts, and is a short walk from the River Alde, which inspired Britten’s opera Curlew River.

We begin our walk at Dunwich, formerly East Anglia’s busiest town with nine churches and an important boat building industry and harbour, home to an impressive fleet of royal ships. It has now nearly all eroded into the sea and little remains apart from the eerie tolling of church bells from beneath the sea – or so local lore has it. We walk through a National Nature Reserve where we may be lucky enough to hear a Bittern booming or see a Marsh Harrier. Following lunch in the former artists’ colony of Walberswick, we follow the River Blyth through whispering reed beds to Blythburgh in whose impressive church Oliver Cromwell once kept his horses!

We set off for the Maltings at Snape, where the Festival’s Concert Hall overlooks the salt marshes and mudflats of the Upper River Alde. We may see a Thames Barge venturing up the winding river at the top of the tide as they have done for generations; once used for transporting barley from the fields of East Suffolk to the breweries of London, they are now a rare, if stunning, sight. We cross ancient heath land where woodlarks and rare heath butterflies abide and reach Orford, one of the prettiest villages on the Suffolk Heritage Coast and a true historical gem; the river Ore still flows past the quay and is home to fishermen, boats and birds. We visit the unique polygonal tower keep of Orford Castle, built by Henry II in the 12th century to counterbalance the power of turbulent East Anglian barons and to guard the coast against foreign mercenaries.

We leave the coast and walk to the village that inspired Ronald Blythe’s novel ‘Akenfield’, describing traditional farming life in this part of Suffolk. In the afternoon we visit Otley Hall, a privately owned 16th century moated Hall set in 10 acres of gardens. Bartholomew Gosnold (1571-1607), whose family lived at Otley for 300 years, voyaged to the New World where, in 1602, he discovered Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard, which he named after his infant daughter. We continue to Lavenham, arguably the most beautiful village in England, to admire the stunning half-timbered, colour-washed houses and more than 300 buildings of the highest architectural interest. Our lodging, dating back to the 15th century, is one of England's most iconic hotels.

After breakfast, we set off for yet another fascinating village – Long Melford, with a High Street two miles long! The church is recognised as the finest in Suffolk and has a treasury of English medieval art with outstanding stained glass. After lunch we walk along the Upper River Stour, known, loved and painted by both Gainsborough and Constable, to reach Clare, a gem of medieval architecture overlooked by its Norman castle. We continue our journey to Cambridge, that great city of learning.

We stroll the lanes of this most romantic of cities and visit the world famous King’s College, whose magnificent architecture has inspired so many who have studied here over the last 800 years. After a gentle cruise on a river-punt on the winding River Cam, with a unique view of the colleges, we walk beside the river to Grantchester, one-time home to the First World War poet, Rupert Brooke, whose much-loved poem ‘The Old Vicarage, Grantchester’ ends with the immortal lines ‘Yet stands the Church clock at ten to three, and is there honey still for tea?’. We shall see!
We return to our hotel to prepare for our Farewell Dinner in one of the famous colleges.

After breakfast, depart at your leisure; it’s a taxi ride to Cambridge Station.