Pond Hall and the Railway Line


This is a good walk for winter since most of it is on lanes or grassy headlands and none is across ploughed fields.

Start from the Hadleigh Milestone beside Partridges in the High Street. ( 64 miles to London, XX to Bury ). Go up George Street to Tower Mill Lane which you follow, en route pass a sign to Pond Hall and Wolves Wood, then go past a FP sign to the left and continue up the lane to Durrant's Farm. Just before it, at a Waymark, the path goes left through the edge of the garden, keeping as close as possible to the hedge on your left. You come out to a headland path which is also a bridleway. Horses can use this until they come to a sign ending the bridleway- the planners did not do well here!

The footpath continues though riders cannot and follows the field edge. Go through a hedge (FP sign ) and continue in the same direction with a hedge on your left, then a ditch. Turn right at a Waymark and then left, always with a ditch on your left and cross two little sleeper bridges to reach a footpath (and bridleway ) junction. Left goes toward Wolves Wood, our path is right to Valley Farm (well Waymarked ) and onto a metalled road to the factory buildings of Cookson and Zinn. Here we turn left and must suffer the traffic towards Ipswich.

In about 400 yards, after a nasty S bend and opposite Pond Hall, a footpath sign to the right takes us to a green lane then under a pylon to a gate and stile. In the meadow keep right past another pylon to another gate and stile into a meadow. Cross this meadow on the same line and reach a stile under an oak tree.The last bit of the field can be soggy - deviate to your right rather than left to reach the stile and little plank bridge into a wooded area where the path is clearly visible winding about and taking you out to a meadow on the right. The path parallels the railway line but on the field edge and brings you out onto the line. At this point you could return to town down the line to Station Road and back down Magdalene Road. Or you could cross the line and follow the footpath sign to Benton End. Remember that there is quite a chunk of crossfield on this path.

At Benton End you could finish the walk in various ways, across the little footbridge to the lower Layham road or across the Brett at the sewage works to the Layham road. Either way its back to Toppesfield Bridge and then to the starting point.

The Railway line version is about 4.5 miles.
Ramblers