Icknield Way: Cheveley to Icklingham

We started out reasonably early, a little before 9 am after a breakfast of porridge and some coffee, the route was near the guest house so we were soon back on the trail. We headed though farmlands, often well maintained and dedicated to horse rearing or racing and were soon in the village the Ashton where we brought a coffee from the village store. The owner of the store informed us that we were now in Suffolk, having left Cambridgeshire sometime after leaving Cheveley. The route out of Ashton was along the Gazeley Road, a village that the route passed though, but after a couple of kilometres the path headed though some woodlands to the edge of Dalham village past an odd brick structure, which was an old malting kiln and then upwards toward the village church and Dalham Hall.

After the hall we continued on through woodland, thankfully less muddy than the previous day, stopping once for a break, and after a few more kilometres we were in the village of Gazeley, arriving about 11 am. We saw a coffee and cake morning advertised and looked out for it but to no avail so we, continued Northwards along some roads until we reached the hamlet of Needham Street, where we set off through some fields to reach the A14 near Kentford. We had hoped to find a cafe here but it seemed to have closed so we headed into the village to find somewhere to eat. The first pub we reached was closed so we went on to The Bell pub on the other side of the village, which was thankfully open, so we managed to get a decent lunch and a drink.

After lunch we headed back to the route which went under the A14 and past an extensive cycle park with all sorts of ramps and jumps, though no one was actually using it as we went past. We continued past a industrial estate of sorts before getting back into the countryside, away from the A14, the sounds of which had followed us for a while. We past Kentford Heath and a lot of free range pigs, the majority of whom were still piglets with their mothers, and after some woodlands we reacted the small hamlet or village of Herringswell. We sat down next to the road for a break and a drink, my friend taking the time to stretch his calves out a bit. There is not much to say about Herringswell but we seem to have disturbed one resident on the other side of the road who was frequently checking us out from her living room window, disappearing when we looked up and spotted her.

We arrived a little later at the larger village of Tuddenham, and went straight through it, pausing at some sort of farm shop on the outskirts for a hot drink. I made the mistake of getting a hot chocolate instead of a cup of tea, and was disappointed to find that it was very sweet and sugary, rather than tasting of chocolate. We headed on past Tuddenham Heath, and then onto Cavenham Heath Nature Reserve, which marked a change from the rest of the walk, being grasslands and heath instead of woodlands and farmland. It was a pleasant end to the walk enhanced by the late afternoon light which lit up the landscape wonderfully. It was only a kilometre or so though some more heathland to the small village of Icklingham, where we were ending for the day. We soon arrived at the village and found the bus stops and spent some time trying to decipher the bus times, to discover that we had just missed one but another going to Haymarket would be coming soon. It did arrive but late, the driver roaring down the high street, like most of the traffic, he was not keen on waiting for me running to get on but we set off at breakneck speed on a tour of all the village and towns between Icklingham and Haymarket. We arrived in Haymarket conveniently on the other side of town from the train station and had a long time to wait for the next train, arriving in Cambridge to find signal problems had delayed all the trains but eventually we managed to get on one heading back to London.

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