The Vulcan Arms - Sizewell - Suffolk

Sizewell Circular Walks

Walk 5 - Chapel Ruins - Eastbridge - Sizewell Belts

Difficulty 7 miles - 3 hour Fairly long walk. Refreshment stop at the Eels Foot in Eastbridge

Directions

From The Vulcan Arms, go over the stile opposite the pub car park and cut across the field towards the power station and the sea front car park. From here steps lead you down onto the coastal footpath. Proceed northwards past the power station where information boards detail the conservation and wildlife aspects of the coastal area. Carry on across all the way past Sizewell A, (The square shaped building) and Sizewell B (the huge golf ball building) until the perimeter fence turns inland. Follow the coastal footpath until you come to Minsmere Sluice, where a small footbridge takes you over the dike and leads onto a track on the Sizewell side of the Mismere river.

To get up to the chapel ruins, follow the ditch on your left until you come to an access across it. This is not a public footpath, but is well trodden by many other intrepid walkers.

Returning to the track by the river, follow this inland until it comes to a sharp left hand bend. Here you will find a footpath sign directing you across the field opposite the track. Proceed along this until it brings you out onto a lane which takes you into Eastbridge Village. At the road, turn left and keep to the road for half a mile where, on the left, a footpath sign directs down another track. Take this track, bearing to the right at the old cottages, and keep to it all the way to the Kenton Hills Car Park Follow the blue arrows on the marker posts located alongside this route until you come to a sign directing you to The Sizewell Belts. Walk down here, past a small pond, over a stile and across the pasture. The path then leads you up a steep bank and onto Leiston Common. Turn left and follow the bank round and down to the edge of the woods. Keep walking through the woods to the end of the path, where, turning right you join a track. Keep to this until you see a footpath sign within the trees on your left hand side just before the bar across the track. Take this footpath, across the field, over a stile, then keep bearing right until you meet up with a farm track. Turn left onto this track, up over the hill, past the woods on the left until the track bears round to the right. As it does so, you should see a gate on the left with a stile next to it. Proceed over the stile and along the lane until it junctions with a second Sandy Lane. Turn right and the lane will bring you out on the road, 200 yards from the pub.

Information

Chapel Ruins This ancient stone ruin is all that remains of what was originally believed to be an Abbey founded by Lord Chief Justice Ranulph de Glanville in 1182. Its' isolated and remote island location resulted in the Abbey being moved to Leiston in the 14th century by Robert Earl of Suffolk. The only structure remaining is thought to have been a small chapel connected with the abbey. Today it holds a World War II pillbox within its crumbling walls.

Sizewell Belts was an unmanaged reed marsh until it was drained in the 18th Century. It is now a complex system of freshwater grazing marshes interspersed with dykes and narrow tree belts and rich in wildlife. Information boards along the waymarked route describe the flora and fauna to be seen through the seasons.

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