‘A real village event’ is how one person described the launch of the Ufford Heritage Trail. Over 40 people of all ages turned up to celebrate the opening of the trail, which features a range of historic places throughout Ufford. The leaflet includes a beautifully illustrated map showing not only the Heritage Trail but all the footpaths in Ufford, and features illustrations by Stuart Atkinson of some of the key features. You can see more of Stuart’s artwork at the Aldeburgh Cinema Gallery, 17-22 July.

The guided walk, led by Wendy Colles and Jeremy Eyres, gave walkers a unique insight into the treasures that Ufford has to offer; some well known, others a glimpse into the history that has come and gone - such as Ufford Place House and Sogonho Chapel. One of the new features on the route is the interpretation board at the site of Sogonho Chapel. The board contains a beautiful illustration by Tom Barnes as well as the history of the site.

Walkers were treated to a wonderful array of cakes and cream teas on their return, organised by Marion Barnes.

The trail is waymarked to help you get around, so why not get out and enjoy the history on your doorstep. A leaflet with map is included in this month’s Punch. If you need more copies get in touch with the Parish Clerk.

Finally, the Parish Council would like to thank the Heritage Trail Group for all their hard work over the past few years in putting the project together. The current group is Wendy Colles, Jeremy Eyres, Tony Prentice, David Chenery, Pat Marr, Marion Barnes and Heather Heelis.

The leaflet, with map, is available to everyone who want to go it alone.  For more information please contact the Parish Clerk.

Ufford Heritage Trail is a village project to create a new footpath map for the parish.  The new leaflet will incorporate a 'Heritage Trail' which will take walkers on a 3 mile around the village pointing out places of interest and some fascinating snippets of history. 

The project also includes the restoration of Ufford Place Gates, an interpretation board at the little-known Sogenho Chapel site as well additional information being posted on this website.  Ufford is steeped in history, too much to include in the walk leaflet!

We hope the project will encourage more people to get out and about to enjoy this lovely village. Included in the illustrated walk guide will be shortcuts, to avoid stiles and beautifully illustrated places of interest you will see as you journey on some of the well known, and not so well known, routes.

The project is being partly funded by the Parish Council and County Councillor Clare Aitchison’s Locality Budget and supported by Stuart Atkinson, local artist, who very kindly produced the map and sketches. For more information contact the  Parish Clerk.

Ufford puts its best foot forward

Over 60 people took part in an event held on Saturday 11 March 2006 to ‘trial’ the new Ufford Heritage Walks, which form part of the Ufford Heritage Project. The three guided walks explored some well known features such as the village stocks, water meadows and Listed buildings, as well as some less known historical sites such as Sogenhoo Chapel and the remains of the barracks hidden in the woodland.

Ufford Parish Council Chairman, David Chenery, said “The amazing turnout for today’s event exceeded all expectations. The project has generated a great deal of interest from local residents who are now looking forward to the launch of the Heritage Trail Walks leaflet this summer. The support for the Heritage project has been very encouraging and it has been suggested that these walks become an annual event, but preferably with better weather!”

Parish Clerk, Heather Heelis commented “The project will not only produce a walks leaflet and waymarked routes which we hope will encourage people to get out and about in the countryside and explore the heritage on their doorstep, it will also aim to restore the Ufford Place Gates, provide an information board at the Sogenhoo Chapel site and capture all the historical data uncovered during the research, on the new website which is currently being developed. It’s a very exciting time for Ufford.”