Needham Market - Needham Lake

It's only 20 minutes down the A14 towards Ipswich from Bury St. Edmunds, but we had never been to Needham Market. Yesterday morning we changed that. We parked in the Mill Meadow car park at Needham Lake - one of several along the River Gipping Valley created from old gravel pits.

Here's the Missus with the little ones sporting their new hats from Dallas as we set off.

On a Sunday morning, the lake is home for the Gipping Valley Model Boat Club.

I could have sat and watched them for a while, but we had a walk to get on with. There is a 27 acre nature reserve surrounding the lake and, as advertised in the leaflet we got from the Information Room, we saw lots of pyramidal orchids.

The lake and nature reserve are just across the railway line from the town centre, so we took a stroll down the High St. Here's some impressive Suffolk plasterwork...

I rather liked this shop at no 77.

The sign says

Roy Arnold at Number 77 in the High Street Needham Market Suffolk buy and sell all sorts of Carpenters Joyners & Coopers Tools where Collectors Artificers & Others may be furnished with Greater or Lesser Quantities at reasonable Rates

Artificers - now there's a word you don't hear to often these days.

We recrossed the railway line and continued our walk through Kings Meadow and Station Field to finish our circumnavigation of the lake and a celebratory ice-cream in the car park. What an excellent place for a walk - I'm sure we'll be back sooner than later - maybe to do some of the River Gipping walk.