Horsecroft Nowton and Bury St Edmunds Circular Run

8am 7.5 miles in 1 hour 2 mins 25 seconds

Week to date mileage 14

Month to date mileage 47

Average weekly rate 30.1

Average Monthly rate 131

Year to Date 1232

Life time 9252

I set of for my run up Hospital Road past the statue of Ouida. This statue has seen better days and could do with a clean anyone listening?? Its design is to provide a drinking trough for dogs and horses. Her real name was Louise Rame and she was born in Bury St Edmunds in 1839 died 1908.

This memorial stone was placed in 1908 from funds raised by national newspapers . Apparently several thousand people came from all over the country came to pay tribute to this author who was one of the most popular novelists of her age.

Has anyone ever read one of her stories? They appear to be romantic tales perhaps a bit Catherine Cookson and include

Under Two Flags (1867), Moths (1880), and In Maremma (1882). Her stories for children include Two Little Wooden Shoes (1874), Bimbi (1882), andthe Dog of Flanders (1872).

One of her quotations was "A cruel story runs on wheels, and every hand oils the wheels as they run."

She made a lot of money from her books but apparently squandered it in London at Langhams where she held large parties. Apparently she wrote a number of her books at Langhams surrounded by candles writing with a quill on purple paper. She died in near poverty in Italy.

Her statue is largely forgotten these days.

I continued my run through Hardwick Heath which has some wonderful trees including large Cedar of Lebanon trees and was once the home of Italian prisioners of war.


I soon picked up the Hencote Lane path which takes you across the centre of farms which I presume belong to the Horsecroft farm. In the middle of the field there is a fourway crossing point where the Bury to Clare footpath meets the Hencote Lane path and I took the former back to Nowton. The pathways were particulalrly wet and my feet were soaked.

Back past Breckley Ley House and along by Nowton Park into Bury through the graveyard and the town centre and

home.