Sawbridgeworth: a Market Town on the Stort

1 Turn right from the car park into Bell Street. Sawbridgeworth is a delightful market town, despite the fact that most of its buildings lack the grandeur of nearby Bishop's Stortford. Bell Street is a good example, it's a street of well-preserved Georgian and timber-framed houses, some re-fronted.

2 Go straight on across the junction of the Square and Knight Street into Church Street.

3 Pass the 1652 Church House (clad in painted weatherboarding) to enter Great St Mary's churchyard. The church is built mostly of flint with stone dressings but it has a striking Tudor, red brick stair turret added to its tower. Since it was an important and rich market-town church, the local gentry filled it with their memorials, including fine brasses and wall monuments. The grandest are the marble one to George, Viscount Hewyt of Gowram from 1689, and the Jacobean one to Sir John Leventhorpe and his wife from 1625. The best brass is the 1430s, life-size pair to another Sir John Leventhorpe and his wife.

4 Once out of the church, continue downhill to the south east corner of the churchyard and into a close of quirky, 1920s brick and flint cottages. Continue on the path, now between garden boundaries, to the road. Here turn left to leave the town. At Sheering Mill, Lock Number 6 - the mill now replaced by housing - turn right on to the tow path of the Stort Navigation.

5 You reach the road at the Riverside Restaurant with the Harlow Mill pub on the opposite corner. Turn right over the Stort bridge, then turn right again at the footpath sign between the modern flats, Riverside Court, and the river bank. Go over two footbridges then through a kissing gate to continue along the river bank. At a post-and-wire fence go left, away from the river, then turn right through a kissing gate to walk parallel to the left boundary of the meadows. Go left over a footbridge to a grass track alongside a hedge, heading towards houses lining the old drive to Pishiobury Park. Passing between garden fences, you cross Pishiobury Drive - to your right is the west front of the mansion.

6 Across the drive you join the Pishiobury Park Circular Walk through a kissing gate. Through another kissing gate you enter proper parkland. At the crest bear left into an avenue of oaks and horse chestnuts, the avenue veering right along the ridge. Leave the parkland through a kissing gate. Carry straight on, along a path between gardens. Cross over a road then descend to a footbridge over a stream. Climb out of the valley on to another road and go along a path diagonally right, beside the cricket club entrance. Emerging at Far Green, go left past the Old Manse to the Square, and left back into Bell Street.