Ixworth Pykkerell

Just a 20 mile loop from Bury today, via the Pykkerell for lunch. £28 for roast lamb, pud and pint of orange and lemonade x2. We've been there before and it is consistently good for food and service, with the added advantage of an interesting-looking ancient outhouse at the back, and lovely old yard for parking the bicycles. Nice starched linen tableclothes too.

Ixworth itself seems to have seen better days, and has a rather faded grandeur to it. The village is no stranger to cycling though, and hosted the West Suffolk Wheelers' Ixworth Criterium earlier this year.

The return route took in pig town at Livermere and the mysterious but perfectly preserved Ampton Hall. Bury Blue has taken some nice photos of Ampton. But this is the view one gets from a bicycle.

Bury to lovely Lavenham

Lovely to ride in the sunshine on Sunday; so hot was it that the rays seemed positively to press down on us. We headed for Lavenham, 'a remarkably preserved medieval village' according to the National Trust, which has a presence there (the Guildhall, below).

Our route to Lavvers is fantastically rural - arable land just about all the way, as far as the eye can see. The combine harvesters were out, getting in the barley and wheat, but we also passed fields of sugar beet, oilseed rape, sweetcorn and great purple swathes of linseed.

We lunched at Sweetmeats Tea Rooms and ice cream parlour, down the side of the Swan Hotel. Three courses of unusual but tasty grub and a pot of tea for £25.

Lavenham looks beautiful on a sunny Sunday, no doubt about it.