Hedingham Castle

Having had lunch at our favourite pub in Long Melford we went on to Hedingham Castle this afternoon. Lots of traffic congestion in Sudbury due to the road where the large fire took place on Sunday evening still being closed. We did see the devastation as we drove by and there was a fire engine there with a fireman on one of their cherry picker type ladders.

Hedingham Castle has the best preserved Norman keep in Europe (or so they claim!) and also the most decorative Norman arches outside of cathedrals. And also the biggest Norman arch in existence, which is shown in this photo taken from the minstrels' gallery of the banqueting hall. After our statutory cake and cup of tea in their tea room we had a look around the extensive grounds which have two lakes. We saw a cormorant by one of them - are they not normally a sea bird? Anyway, it was sitting with a lot of mallard ducks who took off quickly into the water as I approached. The cormorant moved slightly further away, but just watched me a bit warily. I got quite a good photo of it, but I don't suppose blip will let me put any extras in...it doesn't seem to like it at the moment and I'm way below my limit!

We came back along the road to Clare, where we had a walk around the Clare Castle country park. We climbed up a steep winding path to the one remaining wall of the castle. We also looked at an old deserted railway station and buildings which forms part of the park. Stuart and I had the feeling that a train might still pass through...there were noises in the distance which sounded like trains (probably traffic noise!). You can now walk along the old line of the track which we did for a short distance, but Paul and I were running out of energy and my feet were aching. We headed back to the car along the side of the river, which was nice.

It was sunny in the latter part of the afternoon, so we got to see the gardens and the country park in sunshine. The air was still cool, even though the sun was hot.