Hoggards Green/Stanningfield/Coldham Hall and Lawshall Suffolk

11.30am 12 miles in 1 hour 36 minutes 15 seconds.

Week to date mileage 37

Month to date mileage 66

Average weekly rate 34.4

Average Monthly rate 150

Weather: Steady rain.
Finally we have had some rain for what feels like the first time this year. It has been extremely dry and we could do with continuous rain for a month.

I parked the car at the Red House at Hoggards Green which is about 6 miles south of Bury St Edmunds towards Sudbury. The Red House is both a pub and a village shop.

I wasn't sure where I was going to run to as I set of in the rain. The first footpath I followed ended up at Yewtree Farm on the busy A134. As this was a deadend I retraced my

steps back to the Redhouse Pub. I set out on a B road hoping to pick up a footpath. I passed a very nice methordist church really in the middle of nowhere surrounded by fields. This road took me back to the A134 so again I retraced my steps back to the Redhouse. It was a good thing I wasn't popping into the pub each time I passed, though I was sorely tempted.

I again set out from Hoggards Green and this time picked up a road which took me into Stanningfield. The name apparently derives from stony field .

I passed the church of St Nicholas and then picked up on part of the St Edmunds
Way. However I was somewhat uncertain as to whether I should carry on as there were many imposing signs saying private besides the right of way pathway signs. This is somewhat intimidating and you feel a bit like an intruder. The private signs made reference to two private halls Coldham Hall and Rookwood Hall.

I never saw a soul on this run and decided that I was in my rights to follow the path. I soon reached Coldham Hall and its large grounds. It has a very long driveway and lots of a breed of Cattle in the grounds that
might be Highlands?

At the end of the driveway I couldn't see a way out there were some locked gates and I began to wonder again if I should be here and whether I was trespassing.

So I again retraced my steps but instead of going back to Stanningfield I decided on a quick visit to Lawshall along the wonderfully named Donkey Lane. I then took a visit in the opposite direction along Old Lane to the Little Rockwood Farm.

Before finally returning back through Stanningfield and into Hoggards Green . It was only when I returned home and had a look at Coldham Hall that I found out more about a very interesting history. The manor of Stanningfield and Lawshall was in the hands of the Rookwood family since Edward the 1st. The Rookwoods were members of parliament and staunch Catholics. Ambrose Rookwood inherited Coldham Hall in 1600 and soon turned the hall into somewhat of a secret retreat for catholic priests to practice.

However Ambrose Rookwood didn't enjoy his inheritance for very long as he was executed in 1606 as one of the conspirators involved in the Gunpowder Plot. he was executed along with Guy Fawkes. Could it have been at Coldham Hall that the plot to restore catholicism to England by blowing up the Houses of Parliament were hatched?

The last heir to the Coldham Hall estates died during the 1st World war and it is now owned by the German supermodel Claudia Schiffer. In 2002 when she married nearby in Shimpling apparently the locals who had gathered at the church were disappointed when Claudia Schiffer arrived hidden in blankets and she was roundly booed. I can now undertand the security around Coldham Hall which is aptly named. She has been stalked in the past and I guess my run through the grounds was probably recorded and watched on CCTV!

Still it is not every day you take a training run in Claudia Schiffers back garden!