The Dedham Vale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty team is working to ensure our special landscape is for everyone, including those people who may have previously had limited access to the countryside.

In late May, the team organised for women from the P.H.O.E.B.E. centre in Ipswich to visit Flatford for a guided walk as part of the Walking and Writing with Constable project.

The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge organises the project centred on the artist John Constable (1776-1837), the local landscape, the artworks he created in the area, as well as the intriguing. rebellious side of his personality.

P.H.O.E.B.E. is a registered charity organisation that offers psycho-social support services to underprivileged women and children. 

You can find out more about P.H.O.E.B.E at https://phoebecentre.org.uk. For more information, contact Jenny Moss, Landscape for All Officer, at jenny.moss@suffolk.gov.uk.

What is the project?  

The project is called ‘Walking and Writing with Constable’ and is an invitation to step into ‘his’ landscape and get to know what it means to people today, by walking a planned route, and then by looking at his art, to look at the views as they appear now.

Along the walk, discuss the things we see, hear or feel, and what that means to us or what it makes us think about. Capture the thoughts, memories and feelings that spring up from our own experiences and knowledge as we walk the landscape he immortalised 200 years ago.

The project website records blog posts about some of the conversations that happened on the walks at https://walking-the-landscape.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/blog.