(A) Brockley Church is a major constituent of the group consisting of church hall and farm though now the village is centred on Brockley Green about !/2 mile away. Brockley Hall is a mediaeval Grade I listed house but it is private and not open to the public. At the base of the church tower is a fine mediaeval inscription to Richard Copping and in the churchyard the remains of the base of a mediaeval cross. Visit the church at the beginning or end of the walk.
[1] Begin at Pound Green Brockley with your back to the church. Leave the car park and turn right. Do not wander about the farm but keep on the same surfaced track back to the track leading from the B1066. Turn left so that your back is to the B1066 and otherwise continue along it between more farm buildings. Just before the farm buildings you are joined by the Bury to Clare walk which continues on the same course as this walk until it turns off at Somerton. Keep slightly uphill, following track and telegraph wires for some way, passing a dilapidated farm, until you go round two left hand bends to face a dilapidated farmhouse (Hawk’s Farm). Turn left through a gap in the hedge on to a grassy path with a ditch on the left. You are still on the Bury to Clare walk. Follow this path until you cross a plank bridge. Turn right. The footpath ends at the Brockley to Rede Road (Cooks Lane) where you turn right.
[2] After some way and immediately after the first farm turn left onto a footpath beside the farm and with a fence (then a hedge) and finally some trees all on the left. At a crossing farm track continue straight ahead across the field. Then continue slightly downhill, the track becoming grassy and with a hedge on the right. You then pass between hedges until you come to Francis Farm. Pass straight ahead in front of the farmhouse onto a gravel track which continues as a road and bears to the right and slightly uphill to the village of Upper Somerton. It is here that the Bury to Clare walk goes off in a different direction.
(B) Like much of the rest of the walk Upper Somerton is a small, unremarkable and unspoilt part of the village, up a cul-de-sac and containing a church. Interesting to see a blocked Norman doorway on the North side of the church nave. A reminder that it is often worth checking the North side of a mediaeval church which frequently displays evidence of the earliest development of the church.
Continue through the village, past the church, following the bends. At the last house on the left take the footpath which goes into a field on the left.
[3] This grassy footpath goes downhill with the hedge on the left. Do not turn left over the plank bridge but continue downhill on the same path between fields aiming for a gap in the hedge through which you pass into the next field. At once you take a path going diagonally across the field to some trees. Then continue with the trees on the left. They gradually become a hedge and you go through a gap where you cross a plank bridge into the next field where you continue with both the hedge and a stream on the left. At the end of this short section (150m) when you reach more trees turn left over a wide grassy bridge and then immediately turn right and having crossed another plank bridge continue along the bottom of the fields with the stream and trees on the right. Pass through a gap in the hedge and continue for some way passing through through another gap in the hedge until you reach the corner of the field and another plank bridge where you go down some steps to join an unsurfaced track (Smithbrook Lane) at a bridge (can be muddy). Turn right at the bottom of the steps and follow the track uphill to the road from Somerton to Hartest.
Finding the path in this section can be tricky but it may help if you remember that between the bottom of the first incline and the beginning of the uphill track one is really doing nothing more than following a stream at the bottom of a valley - first on one side and then on the other.
[4] At the Somerton/Hartest road turn left along the road to the village of Hartest, go over the cross-roads, down the right-side of the village green and just after the pub (the Crown) turn right on to a footpath (signed as a restricted byway) which runs between the pub and the church.
(C) It is worth pausing at Hartest Green (nice houses and pub) which is attractive in its own right and also if timing is right making use of the Crown (food usually available - but at the time of writing the licencee is changing). There is a curious non-conformist chapel on the green and Simon’s Suffolk Churches expresses the view that the church is most attractive and much to be preferred to the rather grander church at Boxted nearby.
[5] After turning right between the church and The Crown follow the path to a footbridge and cross it, go ahead up a few steps, through trees to a plank bridge and into a field where one turns left and goes uphill (with the hedge on the left) through a gap into the next field (follow round the far edge of the field still with the hedge on the left). Do not go up a field entrance but turn left (now with the hedge on the right) to a road. Turn left at the road and then shortly right through a gate and onto a bridleway between a farm and a house. At first there are no hedges but follow a grassy bank past a young wood on the left, then trees on the right.
Join a concrete track and go forward to a T-junction and turn left down it, between hedges. After a long left hand bend, turn right on to a track between hedges. Pass a house on your right. The track now becomes grassy with a hedge on the left. As the hedge ends you can see on the left a wooden pavillion and on the right (on the far side of the field) a house with a slim tower. At this point go round the end of another hedge and continue in the same field and with the hedge still on the left until you come to a farm track at a T-junction. Turn left. There are trees on the right. When you come to a crossroads of tracks (wooden pavillion on the left) take care here to go ahead on a grass path keeping the main track close but behind the hedge on the left. There trees on the right but always follow the path which remains close to the hedge. Where the path swings to the right, leave it and go ahead through a gap in the hedge onto a bridleway. Continue on the bridleway with the hedge still on the left. Pass through another gap and rejoin the track as far as the double gates on the road.
[6] Turn right at the road. Follow a left hand bend then on the right hand bend immediately following turn left onto a footpath which straight away bends round to the right. Proceed ahead with a hedge on the right. At the cross roads of the track and field entrance, continue ahead with the hedge still on your right. Go under telegraph lines and continue some way until at the corner of a field you enter a slightly sunken path with trees on both sides. Shortly cross a footbridge and continue on the path (see photo) but now sometimes with trees only on the left. After some way, follow the path slightly to the left (do not take the farm track forking to the right) and shortly reach a small group of houses and farms.
[7] Where the track meets the road turn left onto a footpath going left but somewhat hidden at the point on the left where Tuffields Road (facing you) reaches the cross tracks/roads. Follow the footpath over a plank bridge and between two gardens. At the end of the garden fence swing left then right into a long meadow. Now continue through the long meadow ahead slightly downhill for some way. At the bottom do not bear left (over a wide plank bridge) but continue straight on, then swing round to the right with a hedge to your left and pass under telegraph wires. At the corner of the field do not go over the stile and follow the footpath ahead (although it is marked as a right of way) but instead turn right and continue on a permissive DEFRA path slightly uphill. You are still in the same field with a hedge on the left. The permissive path then turns left at a field corner. Continue on the path. Go through a gap into the next field, keeping the hedge still to the left, round a right, then a left hand bend (you may then see Brockley church tower in the trees) until you reach the road.
Turn right at the road. Take care here: it is the B1066 and the busiest road on the walk. However you can now see the bungalow at the point where you left the road. Continue walking along the right side of the road but it is possible to cross (with fair visibility) at the first house you reach on the opposite side. Cross with great care when opposite the house and then walk on the verge to reach the surfaced track where you turn left. Go down the track until you reach the point where you turn left down another track to the church and its car park (the starting point)