This easy local walk of about 3.5 miles takes you across a golf course, along the delightful Bury Brook, down shady paths and out into open countryside. It’s suitable for dogs, although you’ll likely need to keep them on a lead for most of the walk.
WORDS AND PHOTOS Richard Groom
1. This walk starts at St Thomas à Becket Church in Ramsey. Park at or near the church and cross Hollow Lane to walk into Ramsey along the left-hand side of the High Street. Very soon, turn left under an archway onto Abbey Rooms Lane.
2. Follow the lane until you reach the golf course. The public footpath is clearly signposted and soon Bury Brook will appear on your right.
3. Ignore the bridges and continue so that the brook always remains on your right. This is a lovely section of the walk, often taking you between tall hedgerows offering much-needed shade on a hot summer’s day.
4. After a while you’ll turn left between a large tree stump and a section of log. Then turn left where the path forks, so that you continue into a wooded area. I could hear woodpigeons in the distance, and a comma butterfly stopped to pose for a photograph.
5. The path continues through the trees for a few minutes, with the golf course on your left and open farmland on your right, visible through gaps in the trees.
6. After a few minutes you’ll emerge from the woodland with open countryside in front of you. Follow the wide grass path with a dyke to your left and fields on your right. Over to your left are a dozen or so wind turbines. Notice how ahead the land rises to a ridge. This is a great example of the edge of the Fens: the land you are walking on was underwater before the draining of the Fens.
7. After a few hundred metres the path bends to the right. Follow this bend and head towards trees on the outskirts of Bury.
8. Soon the wide track veers left through a gate but, as the sign indicates, this is private land and not the route you’ll take. Instead, go straight ahead where the path narrows through trees and hedges. After just 100 metres or so, emerge onto a road (Meadow Lane). Carry straight ahead along this road, walking slightly uphill, passing the small electricity substation on your right.
9. Just before you reach the main road turn right, following a sign that reads ‘Church hall and car park’. Walk through the gravel car park into the graveyard of Bury Church.
10. Your route turns immediately right, down the path between two hedges on the right-hand edge of the graveyard. If you have time, however, stay and walk around the church itself and look at some of the headstones. You will see that, like so often in our region, a section is given over to members of the armed forces who perished in World War Two. As always, it is heart breaking to see that so many were just in their teens or early twenties when they lost their lives.
11. Leave the church along the footpath mentioned above. This soon opens out onto a wider grass path with fields to your right. Follow this path back towards the golf course. When the path crosses a fairway, look in both directions to make sure there are no golfers preparing to take their shot. If there are, please let them take their shot so you can walk safely across the course.
12. After crossing the course, carry on straight ahead and you will see a green ‘public footpath’ sign pointing to your left. Follow the direction of this sign along a path with open fields to your right, and trees and a large hedgerow to your left. Keep following the path as it bends to the right, always keeping open fields to your right.
13. Enter back onto the same wooded path that you walked earlier, passing back between the tree stump and large log. This time, veer left and walk until you reach the bridge over the brook. Immediately after the bridge, turn right and head back to Ramsey with the brook on your right.
14. The walk along the brook is even prettier now, with no hedgerow between you and the water. Take a few moments to pause, listen to the birdsong, and see what wildlife you can spot in and around the brook.
15. Soon you will cross another fairway of the golf course. Once again pay attention to whether players are taking their shot. Staying quiet and still until they have taken their shot isn’t just good etiquette. It’s also a way to protect yourself from getting hit on the head by a golf ball!
16. Carry on walking with the brook on your right. As you cross the fairway, you will see St Thomas à Becket Church in the distance to your right. Keep walking until you pass through the metal kissing gate.
17. After the gate, carry on to the gravel car park of the Ale House Kitchen pub, walking with the pub on your right and guest rooms on your left. Walk under the archway and turn right, walking along the High Street back to the church.
