Features of Our Walk

This was a linear (quasi-circular) walk of about 13 miles (21¼ Km) in south Suffolk. The walk is based on Sudbury and reaches Long Melford. Long Melford was a mediaeval business centre which made good from the wool trade. Testimony to the resultant prosperity is Melford Hall, Kentwell Hall and Holy Trinity Church. The walk therefore took in Melford Hall and Holy Trinity Church, with a cursory glimpse of Kentwell Hall before candle light.

Melford Hall, just to the south of Long Melford, is distinctly Elizabethan.

Maximum and minimum heights were 78 m and 22 m respectively. However, although the walk was reasonably level, as might be expected in Suffolk, history was all around and the weather was nice and sunny. In fact, Sudbury and Long Melford are just over the border from Essex.

Now prepare ye for some plots and graphs. Not too overwhelming, but hopefully quite interesting! You will see here:

• Our Walk in the context of South East England
• An Outline Map of Our Walk
• Height Profile of Our Walk
• Some Facts and Figures
• Extra, Less Quantifiable, Considerations
• Timing & Speed
• Track File
• And Finally

How far were we from the Centre of London?

Sudbury and Long Melford are just outside a 50-mile radius of the Centre of London. The centre of London is officially taken as the intersection of The Strand, Whitehall and Cockspur Street. This intersection is often referred to as Charing Cross, not to be confused with the nearby Victorian Eleanor Cross itself, nor the station in front of which the cross stands. The detailed figures, for the fun of it, are as shown below.

Long Melford can be reached on a day trip from London -
indeed very comfortably in Summer.

Our "straight line" distances are actually "great circle" distances on the earth's surface. To calculate these, we assume here that the earth is spherical, which is not far off the mark. Assuming the earth to be a sphere gives us a maximum error of about 0.1% in our distance values. Not that much really! Can't complain! Indeed, we can speak of the distances as the "hypothetical crow" (cornix hypothetica) flies.

Cornix Hypothetica, our hypothetical crow,
isn't any old bird, as we should know.
Cornix Hypothetica! Many miles for us you go,
with many a "straight line" o'er Earth to show.

Sudbury and Long Melford are
just outside a 50-mile radius of the Centre of London and
just over the border from Essex.

The y-axis gives degrees latitude in the range 50.0 to 53.5.
The x-axis gives degrees longitude in the range -3 to +2.

Outline Map of The Walk

This was a mainly linear (quasi-circular) walk of about 13.2 miles (21¼ Km) in south Suffolk. The walk was based on Sudbury and reached Long Melford to the north; both start and destination were in Suffolk, but there were also some "incursions" into Essex to the west. Some parts of the walk were on sections of track beds of former railway lines axed by the notorious Beeching.

Outline Map of Our Walk
Y and X axes are in degrees latitude and longitude respectively.

The map grid scales translate to 1.112 Km per 0.01° latitude and a mean of 0.684 Km per 0.01° longitude, all when using 6371.0 Km as the volumetric mean radius of the earth - as per the WGS84 standard! Scales, in the Lake District, is further north than Suffolk; hence, as expected, the longitude scale for Scales, is less. For Scales, we have a mean of 0.644 Km per 0.01° longitude; this is 40 metres per 0.01° longitude less than in Sudbury and Long Melford!

Because we don't live on a flat earth - unless you are a convinced "flat earther" - maps are inevitably a distortion of what is. In other words, it's all a matter of mapping a curvaceous surface onto a flat surface. We don't want to carry curvaceous representations of the terrain on our walks, do we? In our case, the northern length of our map grid is stretched out by an extra 0.16 %, to make it the same on the page as the length of the southern part of our map grid. Not that much for hiking purposes really! Can't complain.

Height Profile of Our Walk

Because of the topography of the area traversed by the walk, the height profile is reasonably symmetric about Kentwell Hall at the centre. Apart from the reasonably level aspect, another aspect catches our attention. Places regarded as important were built on the higher ground in the district. Kentwell Hall is at the highest level, with the parish church (Holy Trinity) also faring well in the height stakes. Melford Hall is less well favoured. In Elizabethan times there was an appreciation of heights, even if it was more difficult at the time to assign numbers to the said heights. To what extent these heights related to sea level as opposed to merely the surrounding countryside is another question. The question of height also related to protection from marauding miscreants, whose presence could be seen more easily from high ground.

Height Profile

Some Facts and Figures

Here are some "vital statistics" in metric and imperial units. Start and end elevations are the same - as expected! The total ascent (here 85 m or 279 ft) exceeds the difference between maximum and minimum elevations (here (78 - 22) m or 56 m or 184 ft). I'd suspect things, if the reverse transpired! The total distance, as always measured on a conceptual "flat" plane at mean sea level, is 13.2 miles or 21.3 Km. Of course, to this probably should be added anything up to a mile for actually visiting locations such as Melford Hall (building and grounds) and the Holy Trinity Church.

"Walk facts and figures"

Extra, Less Quantifiable, Considerations

On any walk there are considerations which are very real but tantalizingly out of ready reach of those who wish to espouse a numerical approach to many of life's activities. Here are three considerations for starters.

• Weather: It was fine early autumn weather with ample sunshine. A tad nippy, but fine for walking. However, I do not have detailed weather records!


• Ground Conditions: Walkable and not too muddy.


• Signposting: The paths were reasonably signposted, but as always, a map was useful.

Timing and Speed

It's one thing to discuss the terrain over which we walk. It's quite another to ask how we personally respond to walking over that terrain. There are a number of considerations, of which timing and speed can be taken as starting points.

• Timing: Excluding stops for "sightseeing", the actual walk took a leisurely 5 hours.


• Speed: The distance of the walk - excluding sightseeing - was about 13.2 miles. This gave an average speed of about 2⅔ mph; this was nice and leisurely, considering that the terrain, while reasonably flat, had some twists and turns which required familiarization!

Track File

If you are keen to see our walk superimposed on an Ordnance Survey® (OS) map, then you can use the following file to do so. The numerical data in this file were plotted by hand using "Bike Hike". The data are based on WGS84. Of course, for copyright reasons, I do not show the OS-based map here. The file does not include "walkabouts" at the "sightseeing" places.

GPX WALK FILE

Derived using BikeHike.co.uk

And Finally - a Matter of Practicality

Any map is an approximate representation of what is. Practicality and scale are relevant considerations. We are not dealing with a planning application calling for detailed spatial descriptions of intricate boundaries. For us in the hiking community, the degrees of accuracy and precision should be just enough to give us useable and helpful knowledge of the terrain about us and beneath our feet. I hope my humble endeavours on this page are in this respect interesting for, and useful to, you, my reader!