No pies today due to a lack of pie munchers and this being Mothering Sunday, we bowed to Margaret’s wish of a non-pie day. In the absence of the Walk Master, King Canapé and the Pie Master managed to navigate, a poorly signposted, Boldero walk around Brome, Suffolk. Parking near to the Swan Inn, we set off towards Brome church, but just prior to reaching it, headed south to Mustardpot Hall, then picking up the Mid-Suffolk Path, headed to Brome Street, passing Brome Hall.
On reaching The Street, Brome Street, we headed west, back towards Brome. Noticing the ideal lunch stop, a covered seating area in front of the village hall – a memorial to the
490th Bombardment Group (Heavy) stationed nearby at Eye - we had our lunch early. Continuing our journey along The Street, full of beautiful thatched cottages, we came to Brome and the church of
St. Mary - much reconstructed rather than restored in the 1860’s - although the south porch and south side were much left intact, there were no scratch dials to be found. After inspecting the church interior and admiring its stained glass windows we departed. Retracing our steps a short distance, we then headed north via a footpath towards Warren Hills and shortly before reaching the B1118, turned west and followed a footpath across the A140. Our passage to the church at Stuston via the un-signposted footpath across a field, was blocked by deep furrows across our path, forcing us to follow the perimeter of the field. As can be seen on Google Earth, previously
crops blocked this right of way. We eventually reached the Victorianised
All Saints church, Stuston. This too had no scratch dials, so we left the church and headed south down a track zigzagging back up Stuston Lane and then south again, down Grove Lane, turning east under a crackling high-voltage pylon and heading to the A140. Walking the short distance down the A140 to the Swan Inn for refreshment, unfortunately it had closed at 15:00! We crossed the A140 to the car. Smoked salmon mousse crescents formed the entrée prior to sampling Don’s Pheasant Pâté on nairns Oatcakes. I really enjoyed this and thought it better than the Venison pâté sampled on the
8th February. Finally, dial-less, we headed for
St. Nicholas church, Oakley by car on the way home. This church did not yield any scratch dials either but had some good Victorian stained glass.
Mothering Sunday brought further new pies for the munchers: from R. J. Bray, Earlham, after being brought to the Pie Master’s attention by the Walk Master. We headed into deepest Norfolk to sample these pies, out along the Fakenham road to the church of St. Mary, East Bilney. Finding no scratch dial, we headed off on our figure of eight, pre-pie yomp. Our destination was the church of St. Mary Magdalene, Beetly.
Our route took us on some picturesque paths and over fields with masses of flint on the surface. With Stanfield water tower as our reference, north east of us, and the new East Dereham water tower in the distance, south east. Loads of snowdrops were in bloom as we walked the 3¾ miles to the lunch stop, seeing rabbits, a skylark and two deer on our way.
Arriving at the church, whose porch boasted a scratch dial either side, we stopped for lunch. The church was locked but the porch was open, though without seats, for some of us to shelter from the shower that had just started. It was a short walk back to the cars,
spotting a barn owl on route and finding a footbridge by the ford, over Black Water, as we followed Folly Lane back to the church. King Prawns with a Marie Rose sauce preceded the pies. These good looking, hand-raised pies revealed a dark pink filling with a little jelly and little in the way of aroma when sliced. The pies had a good crisp crust and the filling was pleasantly seasoned, resulting in an average score of 7.57143 with a high standard deviation of 1.39728 (one of the munchers only gave it a 5).
Following the pies we were joined by Ben - an elderly Red Setter who had no problem in detecting the pie aroma! Shortbreads were consumed with the last of the tea, before we headed to the Brisley Bell for pints of Flanker's Tackle from Green King. So a normalised score of 7.5 for R. J. Bray’s pies.
