South Elmham and Saints Country

The scattered group of parishes which makes up South Elmham is collectively known as Saints Country. This is an area of high arable farmland, with huge skies and endless views, punctuated by little villages with the names of St James, St Margaret, St Michael, St Nicholas, St Peter, St Cross and All Saints.

Religious centre

Although there is no firm evidence for this, it is believed that South Elmham was an important religious centre in Anglo-Saxon times. The walk passes South Elmham Hall, a 16th-century moated manor house on the site of an old hunting lodge and deer park used by the bishops of Norwich. It was an 11th-century bishop, Herbert de Losinga, who built the minster here, possibly over the ruins of a 7th-century wooden church. The historian Bede refers to an Anglo-Saxon see at Elmham, which may either have been here or at North Elmham in Norfolk. We know that Felix of Burgundy arrived in Suffolk to convert East Anglia to Christianity and established his cathedral at Dunwich. South Elmham, 14 miles (22.5km) inland, would have made an obvious spot for a second church.

Environmental improvements

The present owner of South Elmham Hall, John Sanderson, has made a number of environmental improvements under a countryside stewardship scheme designed to ensure a balance between farming and conservation. New hedgerows have been planted and green corridors have been established alongside all of the fields, providing important habitats for wildlife. The hall itself is open for guided tours at 2pm every Thursday between April and September, while adjoining Bateman’s Barn is a popular wedding and party venue.

The walk starts at St Peter's Hall, a 13th-century moated farmhouse that was extended in 1539 using materials from the abandoned Flixton Priory. This magnificent house is now home to St Peter's Brewery, which produces traditional ales from local barley and malt, and water from a deep borehole below the hall. Among the beers that they have revived are Suffolk Gold, wheat beer, honey porter, spiced winter ale, elderberry beer and a millennium brew dating back to the year 1000 and containing juniper and nettles but no hops. Their bottled beers come in a distinctive oval-shaped bottle whose design is a 500ml copy of one produced c1770 for Thomas Gerrard, an innkeeper with a tidewater inn on the Delaware River in Gibbstown, near Philadelphia, USA.

The visitors’ shop stocks the full range of St Peter’s beers and merchandise, as well as other local products, and is open seven days a week. The story of brewing at St Peter's is told in their tour, which also explains the brewing process, and finishes with a tasting session. Brewery tours take place on Saturdays and Sundays every hour and a half between 11.00am and 3.30pm from Easter until the end of December. Included in the price of the tour is a bottle of beer to take home.

Turn left out of the entrance drive to St Peter’s Hall, then left across a plank bridge to walk beside the moat. The path swings right then left, following the line of a hedge between open fields.

At a junction of paths beyond the hedge, turn left along a field-edge track, waymarked 'Angles Way' and ‘Otter Vale Walks’. This soon becomes a grassy lane and then a pebbled farm drive. Cross a road and keep straight ahead on a dirt track.

Turn left at the next road to pass the mushroom farm and, in 300yds (274m), go right on a field-edge path. After 0.5 miles (800m), you reach a junction of paths with a half-white, half weather-boarded farmhouse visible to your right. Turn left to climb towards a small wood and continue through the woods. Go through a gate, cross a stream, go through another gate and climb the green lane to a road.

Turn left onto a road, then right in 300yds (274m) on to Hall Lane. Follow this lane round to the right, past the entrance to South Elmham Hall, followed by a couple of houses on your left. Turn left at the ‘Byway’ sign on the left, following a green lane enclosed by hedges. At a junction of tracks, turn left to cross a footbridge and through a kissing gate. Walk up the length of a series of narrow fields watching out for a kissing gate to your right with a ‘Friars to Flyers’ sign on it. The ruins of the minster lie beyond under trees.

After visiting the minster, continue through the enclosure out into a field. Turn left along the path and then right at the corner before the gate along the line of the hedge. Turn left at the end of the next meadow to cross a stile and a footbridge and go through a kissing gate and climb on a field-edge path. Turn right at the road and after 300yds (274m) turn left on to a quiet lane signposted to St Nicholas. Follow this lane as it bends to the right and continue for 0.75 miles (1.2km).

Cross the main road and keep straight ahead on a grassy field edge path. Pass through a hedge, bear half right to cross the next field and, in the far corner, squeeze through the small gap in the hedge over a footbridge and turn right. Walk beside this hedge for 0.5 miles (800m) until you come to a junction where you turn right on to a cross-field path that becomes a wide grassy track. Turn left at a crossroads by a young oak tree and walk across the fields on an ill-defined path to the right of a ditch, with a water tower to your right, to reach St Michael's Church.

Turn left along the road. After 0.5 mile (800m), cross a humpback bridge and stay on this road to climb to St Peter's Church. Follow the road round to the right back to the entrance to St Peter's Hall.