Stour Valley Path

The Stour Valley Path is a 100-kilometre long-distance walking route from Newmarket to Cattawade, following the River Stour through a landscape that has changed remarkably little since the eighteenth century. The section around Sudbury and downstream toward Flatford Mill — John Constable's territory — is the most visited, and deservedly so.

The day walk from Sudbury to Nayland (about 10 km) passes through the Stour water meadows, through the small wool town of Nayland with its church containing an altarpiece by Constable, and through quiet farmland with wide views across the valley. It is accessible and not technically demanding, and the scenery is exactly as the painters rendered it. The path starts from the Common Lands on the western edge of Sudbury.

things to do sight
A story
The landscape of the Stour Valley was already famous before Constable painted it. Gainsborough grew up here and painted the river and the water meadows as a teenager, more than two decades before Constable was born. The two painters knew each other slightly in London — Constable admired Gainsborough's landscapes and said so — but it is a curious fact that they both found the same stretch of river to be the most paintable in England.