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Where to Ride: Essex: Road

Words and Pictures: Hugo Gladstone

Stour and Colne Valleys

In his famous espionage thriller, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, it is in the countryside surrounding the Essex-Suffolk border village of Bures that John Le Carre sets the location for one of the safe houses.

It doesn't seem a bad place to tuck yourself away if you're in hiding. Climb up from the Stour valley and you enter a labyrinth of tiny lanes that sprawl across a corrugated countryside of woodland, meadows and farmland.

There's a small area around these parts that I consider some of my favourite road riding on the planet. Despite having grown up nearby and spent hundreds of hours biking here, I still sometimes struggle to piece this tangle together. Out here in this rustic corner of this county where encounters with vehicles are few are far between, you couldn't feel much more removed from the Essex of Southend seafront or a night down the dogs in Romford.

Because my roots are from just over the Stour in Suffolk, I rope my friend Brett - "a true Essex boy," he states - to come out and join me for this ride. Conversely Brett comes from just south of the river and recently wrote one of these route guides for Suffolk. He tells me his weekly club run comes out on these roads and he's currently organising a reliability trial that also takes in one or two of these sections. Later in the ride he recalls a divisional championship on another part of the route and we discuss how the Grand Prix of Essex (a former Premier Calendar race) and an old chain gang used to come this way.

From the station in Bures our ride climbs over a couple of leg-warming hills then rolls north along the flats of the River Stour water meadows. My instinct is to lead the ride off into the aforementioned smaller back lanes but for simplicity's sake we follow the same road through Lamarsh and Henny Street. It's flowing, pretty and quite quiet enough anyway.

Due to an anomaly where the county boundary briefly diverts from the river, our ride dips into Suffolk at Ballingdon. Going straight over at the traffic lights we climb back into Essex and follow a rolling and exposed road through Bulmer and Little Yeldham. We also pass through the large-greened village of Gestingthorpe. This was home to the family of Captain Oates from Scott's ill fated Antarctic expedition. When Oates self-sacrificially announced "I am just going outside and may be some time" these went down in history as some of the most famous last words ever. His body never found, he is commemorated by a plaque in the village church.

After Great Yeldham we skim the edges of Toppesfield and High Street Green to loop into Castle Hedingham. This entry into the village gives you a fine head-on view of the Norman keep high on the far side of the Colne Valley. In the summer they hold falconry and jousting displays here. But today is a grey day in February and we seek retreat in the old Bell Inn down in the village below. Lunch is burger patties, real cask ales and a sniff from the big Dalmatian that wanders the creaky wooden interior. Across the road there is also a mini-market and the twee Magnolia tea rooms.

The climb out of Castle Hedingham is sharpish but short. Soon we are rolling along narrow but well surfaced lanes ticking off the Maplestead villages. In Pebmarsh we roll over a white line painted across the road at the top of a slope. Is this the finish line from yet another piece of the area's cycling heritage? Not this time. This is the start line of an annual billy cart race where homemade vehicles are pitted against one another down the village's main street.

After a couple more miles following the same road I insist on turning right up a tiny lane - signposted to just a couple of farms.

"I don't think I've been up here before," says Brett. I reply that I took him along here the last time I rode with him.

Every time I come near here I just can't resist this lane. Across open fields and past a Dutch barn, it meanders so wildly it reminds me of the cartoon roads Postman Pat does his round on. Further along, the lane enters a tree tunnel then whisks you right through a farm yard. Geese loiter in the road and a couple of agricultural workers in flat caps and boiler suits greet us as we pass. Beyond them a shed full of cattle process that unmistakable aroma of the country.

From here the ride finishes by looping through White Colne and tackling the climb up Tey Road before turning back towards Bures at Great Tey. On the way you pass beside the seven million bricks of the Chappel viaduct and then ascend past the East Anglian Railway Museum at Wakes Colne. It was here in one of the old goods sheds in 1988 that the band Blur played their first ever gig. Last June they marked their comeback by playing here again.

ROUTE DESCRIPTION

Distance: 61.7km

Highest point: 89m (Little Maplestead)

Total climbing: 235m

Local Amenities: Located about midway through the route with a selection of pubs, shops and eateries, Castle Hedingham is a good place for a refreshment break. There are several other pubs dotted around the route and village stores in Bures, Ballingdon, Great Yeldham and Wakes Colne.

Getting there: Bures station is on the Marks Tey-Sudbury branch line which in turn links with the mainline railway between London Liverpool Street and Norwich. The village sits on the B1058 10 miles northwest of Colchester.

Which way?

See route on Map My Ride.

(All distances are approximate. R = turn right; L = turn left; SO= cross straight over; SP = signposted)

• Start in The Paddocks outside BURES station in BURES HAMLET and turn L onto Station Hill to pass underneath railway bridge.
• Continue on same road through LAMARSH and HENNY STREET to BALLINGDON (Suffolk).
• SO crossroads with A131 at traffic lights (8.9km).
• Continue through BULMER, GESTINGTHORPE and LITTLE YELDHAM.
• L at end of road in GREAT YELDHAM (21.6km) then immediate:
• L at end of road onto A1017.
• R at junction SP: "Toppesfield" (22.2km).
• L at end of road in TOPPESFIELD (SP: "Gainsford End, Finchingfield, Wethersfield") (25.1km).
• L at next junction (SP: "The Hedinghams") (25.7km).
• L at junction SP: "The Hedinghams" (27.1km).
• L at junction immediately before village-entry sign for HIGH STREET GREEN (29.5km).
• SO crossroads with A1017 to enter CASTLE HEDINGHAM (31.0km).
• L at end of road (SP: "Great Maplestead") to climb hill. (32.3km). (R for services in village centre then return to this junction to continue).
• R at junction SP: "Great Maplestead" (33.3km).
• Continue on same road through GREAT MAPLESTEAD.
• L at end of road (SP: "Little Maplestead" (36.2km).
• SO staggered crossroads (R then L) in LITTLE MAPLESTEAD (SP: "Pebmarsh") (37.4km).
• SO staggered crossroads (L then R) with A131 (SP: "Pebmarsh") (38.2km).
• Continue through PEBMARSH and remain on same road.
• R at junction SP: "Fishpits, Polestead Farm" (43.6km).
• SO crossroads (SP: "White Colne") (44.8km).
• Continue past farmyard (46km).
• R at crossroads "SP: Colchester, White Colne" (46km).
• R at end of road in WHITE COLNE to join A1124 (SP: "Halstead") (48.4km).
• Continue into EARLS COLNE.
• L at next junction into Tey Road (infront of The Oxford House function rooms) (49.1km).
• L at end of road in GREAT TEY to join Chappel Road (SP: "Chappel (A1124), Wakes Colne") (53.2km).
• Continue through SWAN STREET CHAPPEL (55.4km).
• SO crossroads at CHAPPEL & WAKES COLNE (SP: "Mount Bures") (55.4km).
• Continue through MOUNT BURES. Take care on descending chicane over level crossing (59.9km).
• L at end of road onto B1508 (SP: "Bures") (60.5km).
• L in BURES HAMLET onto Station Hill (SP: "Station, Lamarsh") (61.6km).
• L into "The Paddocks" to finish at BURES station (61.7km).