Things to Do Near Claydon and Ipswich
Hall Farm Cottage sits in Barham, a village on the edge of the Gipping valley about six miles north of Ipswich. It is a quiet spot with open farmland behind the cottage, but it is not remote — Ipswich is a fifteen-minute drive and the Suffolk coast is under an hour away.
Walks from the door
The cottage opens directly onto a public footpath, which is the single best thing about staying here for anyone who likes walking. You do not need to get in the car first. Turn left or right and you are immediately into two quite different walks.
Turn left: open countryside, Hemingstone and Retreat East
Left takes you out into open farmland on a direct path through the fields, leading to Hemingstone, a scattered parish of farms and lanes in the undulating country between the Gipping valley and Coddenham.
It is an old place. Hemingstone is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 with sixty-five households, and the line of a Roman road forms part of the parish’s south-eastern boundary. The Grade I listed church of St Gregory is built on ancient earthworks and is mainly fourteenth-century; Hemingstone Hall is a red-brick Jacobean manor house of about 1625.
The same path also brings you to Retreat East — a converted farm on Sandy Lane, now a four-star retreat with lodges, a spa and a restaurant in the Great Barn. You do not have to be staying there to eat there, and walking to lunch across the fields and back is a good way to spend a day. Book ahead, particularly at weekends.
Turn right: the River Gipping
Right takes you down towards the River Gipping, which flows south from Stowmarket through Claydon and on into Ipswich.
The river was canalised in 1793, when two hundred men built fifteen locks between Stowmarket and Ipswich to let barges carry goods down to the port. The footpath alongside it is the old towing path, used by the barge horses, and it is now the Gipping Valley River Path — seventeen miles from Stowmarket station to Ipswich station, passing Needham Market station on the way. That railway link is what makes it practical: you can walk one direction and catch a train back.
The River Gipping Trust is the organisation to know about. Their volunteers maintain and restore the towpath and publish walk leaflets covering the route. They have reopened around a kilometre of towpath at Claydon and Great Blakenham that had been impassable for years, and built a new footbridge at Baylham restoring a path lost for a century.
Practical notes
- Boots rather than trainers — the field edges are properly muddy after rain.
- In high summer parts of the riverside path get overgrown, so long trousers are wise in July and August.
- An OS Explorer map is worth having if you want to link the field paths into a circular route.
- Dogs are fine on both routes, but there is livestock in some fields, so leads where appropriate.
The village pub
The Sorrel Horse is about a third of a mile up the road, and the reason several of our guests have said they barely moved the car. It is Barham’s only pub and the building dates from the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century, with exposed beams and a fireplace in the middle of a single open-plan bar. There is a large garden with a play area.
A small piece of local history: the 1837 Ordnance Survey map lists it as the “New Sorrel Horse”, because the original stood on the other side of the road until it was demolished to make way for the gatehouse at Shrubland Hall.
The Crown at Claydon, about a mile south, is a larger pub-restaurant with a wider menu and a reliable Sunday lunch — useful if you want somewhere that will comfortably seat a bigger group.
A short drive
Needham Lake, roughly six miles north-west, is a circular walk around a lake with free parking, a café, a play area and a lot of waterfowl. Flat, pushchair-friendly and dog-friendly — the obvious choice on a grey morning.
Ipswich is fifteen minutes away. Most visitors head for the Waterfront, but the better-kept secret is Christchurch Mansion: a Tudor house in Christchurch Park with free entry, forty-odd rooms, and Gainsborough and Constable paintings. Both were Suffolk men, and seeing their work in the county it depicts is a different experience from seeing it in London. Check opening days before you go.
Half-day trips
Sutton Hoo is around forty minutes east — the Anglo-Saxon ship burial, with an exhibition hall, Edith Pretty’s house and a viewing tower over the burial mounds. Join a guided tour if you want to walk among the mounds themselves. Allow longer than you think.
Framlingham Castle, about forty-five minutes north-east, is a twelfth-century curtain-wall castle where you can walk the complete circuit of the walls. The outer grounds and moat are free to walk, and the site is dog-friendly.
The coast
Aldeburgh is about an hour — shingle beach, fishing boats pulled up on the shore, and fresh fish sold from the huts by the people who caught it. Southwold is a little further, with beach huts, a pier and a lighthouse in the middle of town. Orford is quieter than both, with a castle keep, a smokehouse and boat trips to Orford Ness.
Getting around
You will want a car. There is parking for three vehicles at the cottage. The nearest railway station is four miles away, and Ipswich station has direct trains to London Liverpool Street in around seventy minutes.
Planning a longer stay? See our guide to spending a weekend in Suffolk.