Day 316 - November 12th

This morning I attended the village Remembrance Day service and Act of Remembrance and then this afternoon joined our walking group for a 4.5 mile walk from Silsoe War Memorial to Meppershall War Memorial.

The war memorial at Silsoe had been decorated for Remembrance Day with hundreds of knitted poppies which cascaded from the top of the memorial onto the grass.

Our walk took us through Wrest Park, past the manor house and through Whitehall Plantation.

At Lower Gravenhurst we stopped briefly at St Marys Church which we also visited during the Bike n Hike in September. 

The 14th century Church has been unaltered for over 600 years.

We followed the River Hit to the Cow Bridge before climbing back up into Meppershall. Cow Bridge is thought to date from the Victorian era and was used to allow livestock to access the meadows.

The bridge was repaired in 2003 and a plaque next to it commemorates this, but unfortunately due to the fragility of the bridge it is no longer possible to walk on the bridge.

Today when we walked past the bridge there were actually cows grazing nearby - Red Poll cattle, a native East Anglian breed.