Willy Lott's House on the River Stour at Flatford Mill credit The National Trust
constable country
We have spent many happy hours tramping along Dedham Vale, where we live. The Vale is celebrating its 40th year this May as a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. My children’s favourite walk with the dogs is between Dedham and Flatford down the Stour River. In the summer the water meadows are filled with buttercups and the gnarled silvery willow trees trail their branches in the cool brown water of the river. The young John Constable would have walked the same two miles along the riverbank every day to school in Dedham from his home in East Bergholt.
It is one of those walks you never tire of. There is always plenty going on: fellow dog walkers, children from the field centre at Flatford Mill on a mission, artists with easels entranced by the famous landscape and rowing boats on the river on summer days. When the children were younger, they fished for hours. They never caught anything, although large pike lurk in the deep shadows. There have been some best-forgotten incidents too. Plum, our English Bull Terrier, on the scent of a ham sandwich, trampled a painter’s canvas drying in the sun. Then the time when Plum ran amok amongst the clotted cream-coloured cows – only wanting to play with them.
When we left London, our main desire was to find a house with a view. That we have, looking south-west up the Stour Valley from Higham. From our field, we can count five churches: Higham, Dedham, Stratford St Mary, Langham and Stoke-by-Nayland. There are some Constable sketches of Higham church, which might have been drawn from our field.
Another famous local artist, Sir Alfred Munnings, was a regular visitor to our house. He was an old friend of Freddie Boucher, who lived here. Boucher was a keen horseman and, by all accounts, a great character. The story goes he kept a favourite horse in the drawing room after it had won a race at Newmarket.
constable tour
Our view up the valley changes with the seasons. In winter, water meadows are frequently flooded where the River Brett meets the Stour at Stratford St Mary. The
water brings great flocks of geese and swans, cackling and calling late into the night. Occasionally the floodwater has frozen and we’ve been able to skate on the shallows.
The National Trust owns Flatford Mill. There is a tearoom and small museum with guided tours and talks about Constable. Willy Lott’s picturesque cottage, immortalised in The Hay Wain, remains unchanged, overlooking the millpond where ducks still paddle.
Throughout the year, both the Dedham Vale and Stour Valley Project and National Trust organise walks of varying lengths throughout the vale with a knowledgeable guide. The popular Walking in the Footsteps of Constable tour never fails to enthral our family and
friends.
Maps, drawings and reproductions of Constable’s paintings are produced at various vantage points to compare past and present vistas. We learnt that his huge six foot masterpieces were in fact painted in his studio in London, reconstructed from his hundreds of sketches of Dedham Vale. From Fen Lane, leading down from East Bergholt, Constable sketched and painted the landscape over and over again. The two oak trees depicted in Dedham Vale Morning still stand today.
The church in East Bergholt is unusual in that it has no tower (probably because of lack of funds at the time of its construction); instead it has a medieval bell cage, which houses five great bells. Constable’s parents are buried in the graveyard and Willy Lott’s grave can also be found there.
A plaque in East Bergholt marks Constable’s tiny studio cottage by the village shop. Another plaque on some railings marks the grand house that his father built,but was pulled down in the 19th century.
