Walk - Bradfield & Mistley
Approximate Distance – 4 miles
Explorer Series No.184 - Ordnance Survey Ref: TM136.297.

This attractive walk crosses open fields with views over the River Stour and includes part of the Essex Way. Start at Bradfield post Office & Stores, Heath Road, Bradfield. Within a yard or two you are at a crossroad. Turn right down Windmill Road and after a few yards look for a track on the left side of the road. Follow this track round (it runs along the back of houses) until you come to a signpost pointing left; follow the direction indicated and this will bring you out to Straight Road. Turn left to a T junction and turn right. Carry on this road (Steam Mill Road) until you come to a track on the right. This track will take you across a field until you come to a farmyard (Dove House Farm). Bear right through the farmyard to a minor road where you turn left. Take care on the bends as there is no pavement. Continue along the road passing the Blacksmith’s Arms pub on the right until you come to a FP sign on the right (the Essex Way). This path will take you across a meadow to a pond (once part of a railway cutting) cross this into a field and follow the cross field path until you come to a hedge. Go through an opening in the hedge and cross the next field towards the corner of a wood and a lane (Mill Lane) Turn right on the lane and continue until you come to a footpath on the left just passed a house and yard: there is a plank across the ditch. Enter the field and walk straight across until you come to a hedge: turn right and walk along the line of the hedge until you come to a stile. Cross the stile into a meadow and walk along the edge of the meadow until you come to a kissing gate. Go through the gate and you will come to Heath Road. Turn right and after a couple of hundred yards you will arrive back at the village Post Office.& Shop where you started. Most of the route will be signed.

Refreshments: available at the Stranger’s Home & the Village Maid public houses, Bradfield.

Walk - Flatford
Approximate Distance – 4 miles
To view a map of the route click here.

Leaving the car park at the Cattawade picnic site walk along the B1070 towards East Bergholt, past Brantham Mill, and take the signposted footpath on the left at the end of the houses.  Follow this waymarked path across several fields until it bears sharply right and then curves around to the left onto a well-defined path to the right.  Turn left where this joins a track and walk past Willy Lott’s House on the left (made famous in John Constable’s “Haywain”), Flatford Mill and Granary, at the National Trust tea rooms, turn left past Bridge Cottage and cross Flatford Bridge.  Turning left, follow the towpath past Flatford Lock and the mill pond and continue until the path crosses the old course of the River Stour and runs alongside a series of flood gates.  At the end of the gates, take the path to the left at the T-junction and follow this along the south bank of the Stour until you emerge on to the main A137 near Marsh Barn.  Turn left, cross the White Bridge and return to the picnic site car park.