On my way back to the Peddars Way I walked through the small community of Merton. In the green triangle at its centre was a thatched, circular "shelter", the thatch turning slightly green, built to celebrate the Queen's Silver Jubilee in 1977. I wondered who might choose to shelter there and why? Overhead, grey clouds covered the sky as I walked over farmland on tracks with muddy patches, pools of water and occasional stands of trees. Last year's crops had either been reduced to stubble, or ploughed under. Green fields sprouted this year's wheat or barley. Scatterings of snowdrops spotted the sides of the trail. Beyond a slight rise a ragged band of pale satin blue stretched across the horizon between grey clouds. My camera refused to reproduce the blue, turning it white, despite my efforts to use different digital filters and under-exposing (Later I realised that the LCD screen on the back of the camera was partly to blame for the poor colour rendition, see the picture below). Gradually the area of blue widened to cover half the sky. From pale blue on the horizon to a deeper, richer colour higher up. My camera could no longer deny that the sky was blue! Periodically the sun penetrated the clouds, bringing warmth and light and colour to the landscape, changing its mood from sombre to contented if not actually happy.
Can you see the blue band above the horizon?
In my planning I had noted that a café should be open at North Pickenham offering the enticing prospect of coffee and cake. However when I arrived at the spot I had waymarked, all I saw was a Community Hub with no indication that tea might be on offer. I turned to resume my hike, checking Google as I walked. Previously I had found "cafés" on Google were plotted in the wrong location or else some teenager with a sense of the wicked had reported that their mothers house was a catering establishment. However the Google entry looked genuine so I returned to the "hub". In one of the halls they were serving tea and cake, so I avoided disappointment and bought a slice of Victoria sponge and a cuppa. Had I realised there was a Gregg's and Macdonald's a few kilometres up the trail I might not have persisted!
After North Pickenham the Peddars Way returned to a straight section of Roman road. For a while the track was framed by trees their branches meeting above, other sections had hedges with periodic trees festooned, or if the trees were dead, entirely enclosed, with dark green ivy. A stone cross stood by the track with a verse, similar to those on the stone slabs I saw yesterday. This time the words were about the prayers of men and women. A few motorbikes passed. Giant pylons strode across the landscape high above trees, bent by the prevailing weather. The wind was increasing, making the pylon wires hum, seagulls high in the air were blown around like ragged scraps of paper.
As I approached the village of Castle Acre, I could see the ruins of its once large priory. Dating from 1090 this Cluniac monastery had once been very extensive. Arriving just as the ruins were being closed for the day, I was restricted to walking around the outside of the fence, looking at the great walls made of flint, and the move delicate masonry work of the church and its windows. In the village of Castle Acre a medieval gatehouse guarded one of the roads. It dated from when the village had walls to keep out intruders. A large area of earthworks defined the extent of what had been a large Norman castle built in the 11th and 12th centuries. High mounds and deep ditches extended over the site. Ruins of a circular wall stood at the top of the high sides of the "motte", which had a curiously lower area inside with the foundations of a tower. Flint was used as the construction material for the castle. Either flint or red bricks were used to build almost all the older buildings on my walk today. Although the gentle undulating landscape was unlike the hills, downs and escarpments of earlier in my trip, the flint in buildings and as stones in the fields showed that the chalk rock was not far beneath the ground.
On arriving at the Inn where I had booked to spend the night, I was told that the food service would end at 6:00 pm. I hurriedly showered and returned to eat the hotel's last portion of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, a traditional Sunday lunch.
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