Peddars Way: Some Comments

The Peddars Way is unusual among long distance paths as it is straight, following the path of an old Roman road. This also means it misses most villages. Castle Acre is the important exception, with its the extensive ruins of a Norman priory and castle. 

The southern part of the route is through the Thetford forest with birch, beech and conifers. North of the forest and for most of the way the path is over farmland, used to grow grain and raise pigs. Stands of trees are common, often with devices to feed the pheasants - game birds for shooting. Accommodation in pubs and bed & breakfasts can be found each night although it may mean a deviation of a few kilometres to a nearby village. Except for the Thetford forest section it is not ideal for wild camping, although if you are confident there are patches of woods to hide in. For food there are pubs where there is accommodation but few shops. I walked the trail in February and met others doing the same. In winter the bare trees and low sun have a certain beauty although I missed the flowers I would find later in the year. It also meant mud and pools of water on the track in places, and some accommodation was closed.

A relatively short walk at 47 miles, there is also a cycle route that differs in parts. Waymarking is good with the National Trail acorn sign used to mark the route and as it mostly proceeds in a straight line navigation is straightforward. Nevertheless, there a few places where it jumps around and a map, guidebook or gpx track is needed. Parts of the walk are on quiet roads, the rest on tracks, also used by motorcycles, or footpaths. For road sections watch out for footpaths that run parallel to the tarmac just behind a hedge. These avoid dodging cars and tractors. 

Not the most wonderful walk in the world but an easy one to complete over a few days.

Start of Peddars Way.

Ringstead to Burnham Deepdale: Greater Ridgeway and Norfolk Coast Path Day 33

A momentous day, I finished the Peddars Way and the Greater Ridgeway, crossing England, coast to coast, from the south west to the east on the chalks outcrop. Then I started the Norfolk Coast Path...I forget why.

As if to celebrate my final day on the Greater Ridgeway (also called the Great Chalk Way) the skies were a deep blue, cross-crossed by decaying jet streams. Leaving Ringstead, the village where I had spent the night, I noticed a sign at the gate of the church stating it was open. Churches advertising they were open seemed a trend today, although due to time constraints (I had a long day ahead) I only visited this one. It seemed appropriate to give thanks in God's house for my success so far despite my dodgy knee. Inside the church was a mural of all the ills of the world in the 1970s, not so different to those today including drug addiction, inter-racial strife and poverty. The policemen in the picture seemed ambiguous, were they to protect or threaten?

Skylarks were singing as I headed north on my final short section of the Peddars Way. A buzzard flew overhead. Passing a lady looking through binoculars I asked her what she had seen. In addition to 13 hares she reeled off a long list of birds from her notebook that she had spotted today. The number made me feel ashamed of my lack of observation. In my defence I lacked a pair of binoculars, although I would not have recognised most of the birds she named even if I could see them. She pointed out one in the field. It looked like a clod of earth to me, then three of them rose into the air and flew off, maybe they heard us speaking of them.

Final Norfolk Songline on Peddars Way.

After another barely intelligible verse on a slab of stone I reached the end of the Peddars Way and my walk across England on the chalk of the Greater Ridgeway. An anti-climax, just a finger post pointing back the way I had just walked and signs to the east and west for the Norfolk Coast Path. As the Norfolk Coast Path technically starts in Hunstanton I set off in that direction to discover "Sunny Hunny". I walked on hard sand between the golf course and salt marsh, then along the top of the beach and behind blue beach huts (I later saw one in an estate agent's window priced at £80,000)! Although I had hoped to have continued along the beach all the way to Hunstanton, admiring the pink and white chalk cliffs, my arrival coincided with high tide. The sea reached up to the jumbled boulders of old rock falls at the base of the cliffs, forcing me to follow the official route of the Norfolk Coast Path along the cliff top on a wide strip of grass in front of housing. I noticed there were multiple lines of fencing by the cliff edge. I assumed as the edge eroded away they erected a fence progressively further back.

Red and white chalk cliffs of Hunstanton at high tide.

The Norfolk Coast Path officially starts at a memorial to our "glorious dead", those killed in 20th century wars. Opposite a small slab commemorated those who died, glorious or not, in the 1953 floods, wreaths were placed beneath, memories still strong, whole families dying. With rising sea levels due to climate change I wondered if more catastrophic floods were likely in the future. After a coffee, muffin and stocking up on supplies in the nearby high street I returned to the War Memorial to start the 84 miles of the Norfolk Coast Path. 

Arriving at Holme, the first village on the route, a sign stated that the boardwalk was unsafe at a point two kilometres or so away and the path was therefore closed with "immediate effect". Details of a diversion were posted. I contemplated ignoring the closure and finding some way through, such closures are often unnecessary if you are prepared to go off trail onto rough ground for a bit, the authorities err on the side of caution. However, if I could not safely get through I would have to return, adding four kilometres to my already long day. So reluctantly I followed the many diversion signs, yellow arrows on laminated paper, which took me over fields, well inland. Not my idea of a coastal walk. I was disappointed especially as it added more distance to my day. At the end of the diversion the coastal path ran along the top of a bank, part of the sea defences against another big flood. Salt marshes lay on one side and flooded fields the other. This was much more interesting especially as I could see several species of birds and wildfowl of which I could at least identify a curlew with its long curved beak and a lapwing, black and white with its distinctive crest.

My enjoyment of this coastal area was terminated by another trip inland, this time on an official section of the Norfolk Coast Path. Presumably the path's creators could not negotiate a coastal route. So it was fields and pig farms again. However the final part of my day was an improvement, a board walk running behind Brancaster and adjacent villages. To my left the marsh spread out, sometimes with large beds of tall reeds, waving their seed heads at eye level, sometimes with winding creeks and lower level vegetation. By now, as dusk was approaching the tide was out, boats, large and small, old and not quite so old lay stranded on the grey mud of the creek bed, the water reduced to a few small patches. Some smaller boats and faded canoes were pulled into the reeds or onto rough roads. Behind me the sun was setting, hidden from me by houses, but reflecting off windows ahead of me, shiny orange rectangles ablaze with light. Turning frequently I could see the deep pink and grey clouds in the western sky (which my camera refused to reproduce)!

Creek by Brancaster.

Sunset.

Night was falling as I reached my campsite, erecting my small tent by head torch on a neat patch of grass by trimmed hedges. I stopped at the nearest pub for dinner, one of those places where they charge a lot of money for a modest portions arranged in pretty patterns on a plate. However, the beer and warmth has made me content and as I write this I am satisfied with all I have achieved.

Castle Acre to Ringstead: Greater Ridgeway Day 32

A day similar to yesterday on the Peddars Way.

Peddars Way.

My day began with me possibly damaging the new and complex coffee machine available for the use of guests at the inn where I was staying. Maybe I added coffee beans where I should have added water. Anyway it refused to work so I settled for a mug of tea with the muesli, banana and "Moo juice" provided. Then I struggled to open the blind in my room, possibly damaging that as well. No one was around to pay my bill, although it was after 8:00 am, so I rang up the manager and got him out of bed. Not sure they will be inviting me back...

Last night my left knee had been hurting and my right hip was not too good. However after starting to exercise and walk the discomfort disappeared or else I forgot about it. Walking seems to be the cure for my knee pain....but I worry it may also be the cause, especially if I push longer distances....like today at 28 kilometres.

Thin sheets of ice covered puddles, begging to be broken, and the sky was blue when I left the village, passing what appeared to be a water tower converted into a house. Must have had good views. Today's walk was similar to yesterday's, on a straight track, footpath or road on the line of an old Roman road through farmland with stands of trees. Most fields were devoted to growing crops, but many were used to raise pigs. Fields with a slight aroma, were filled with lines of their "houses". Around these simple, steel shelters, the hogs rootled about in the muddy ground, climbed over their troughs and each other, or relaxed, lying down on straw or mud. A litter of piglets scurried around before hiding inside their "house". I was glad the pigs could move around rather than being confined to stalls, unable to turn around. Eating meat would be difficult to justify if its production caused pain and distress to the animals. The one field of sheep I saw were artistically backlit by the low morning sun as they grazed in a field of stubble.

Today's hills were maybe a little more pronounced than yesterday's, although the inclines were still gentle. There were not many sights to break the hike's monotony: another stone slab with a farming related verse or "songline"; a trig point with a sign stating it was part of a GPS Network (not sure why it was needed); a bronze age round barrow; a distant wind mill and wind turbines; a group of trees that might have marked a "marl" pit (where marl, a mixture of clay and chalk, was dug as a fertiliser). An old oak stood beside the track, its contorted, gnarly branches raised like arms beseeching the heavens for a return its youth, as a strangling cloak of ivy climbed ever higher up its trunk. Other trees spread their branches as if to say welcome, while yet more seemed undecided, creating irregular shapes as if not sure which way to grow. Then again, as I looked at the trees I thought these thoughts were just the imagination of an empty brain!

Peddars Way.

Often I walk staring at the ground in front of me and so maybe miss something ahead. In this way I just caught an orange brown animal flash in the periphery of my vision, disappearing behind a hedge. I resolved to walk straighter and look into the distance, sadly this hurt my knee as I unexpectedly stepped into dips and potholes I had not seen, jarring the joint. Nevertheless I spotted one hare chase another around a field. Maybe a male wanting to mate with a reluctant female.

Apart from touching the edge of Sedgeford, there were no villages on my route today, so sadly no chance of a coffee or cake. Consequently, a mile or so before my destination of Ringstead I sat on a bench. One of three I had passed with little messages on like "take a rest boy", so I did, the elderly lady already sitting there said she did not mind. We discussed daffodils and the drifts of snowdrops I had passed. The snowdrops in her garden were still in flower having started at Christmas.

Peddars Way.

For dinner at my Inn at Ringstead it seemed appropriate to eat pork having seen so many pigs today. Maybe having pork for starters as well as the main course was overdoing it a bit, as I could not manage a dessert. All being well, tomorrow will be a momentous occasion as I will reach the sea and so complete my crossing of England on the Greater Ridgeway.....

....then I will start on the Norfolk Coast Path.

Watton to Castle Acre: Greater Ridgeway Day 31

A day in which blue sky fought with the clouds as I walked on the residues of Roman roads to Norman ruins at Castle Acre.

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?

A road section of Peddars Way walking towards a deep blue sky.

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.

Peddars Way enclosed by trees.

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.

Castle Acre Priory.

Norman castle at Castle Acre.

A11 Rest area to Watton: Greater Ridgeway Day 29 & 30

After an enjoyable rest day with my cousins, a relatively short walk today on Peddars Way, out of the Thetford Forest.

Yesterday was spent catching up on family news, eating some excellent food prepared for me, exchanging greetings with very friendly dogs with comically big eyebrows and moustaches, in addition to laundry and learning more about the area. Today one of my cousins generously drove me to where the Peddars Way crosses the busy A11 road at a rest area, saving me a train journey and a long walk. I felt very blessed (as my mother would say).

After our goodbyes I turned to continue my walk north. Following the Peddars Way is easy. Not only are there multiple finger posts, the route is also very straight, a sign that I was on a road originally built by the Roman's almost 2000 years ago, possibly following an earlier route. At times on a single track road, on others a forest track or footpath, the landscape is not quite flat, but very nearly. Much of the day's ramble was through woodland and forest with occasional fields and one lake. On my left for one long section the path ran beside lands owned by the Ministry of Defence with numerous keep out signs. I was looking for stone slabs with writing carved on them as reported by my guidebook. Of the two "Norfolk Songlines" I found today I could only read the words on the second. They described surveyors creating a web of roads reaching "the edge of empire", presumably the Roman empire.

Watton was not on the Peddars Way but nearer Bed & Breakfasts were closed (opening March one told me), so I diverted into the town. I walked by small shops on the high street: a carpet shop, a funeral director, a café, a butcher, a bakery, estate agents, "International Shops" catering to people from Eastern Europe and beyond who have come here to work, finally reaching my bed & breakfast. After extracting a key with the code sent by text message I was into my room for the night. At a similar time, money for the accommodation was extracted from my bank account. Now feeling stuffed after over-eating at dinner after being tempted by arancini, chicken and chorizo tagliatelle and blueberry crème brûlée, my length of walk today did not justify it. By the time I had finished the wind outside had strengthened, flapping the loose material of a marquee standing outside, redistributing leaves and litter.

Peddars Way

Kettishall Heath to Brandon: Greater Ridgeway Day 25

A sunny walk through sandy woodland for almost all the day.

Birch trees in Thetford forest.

I was disappointed this morning. A wind speed of over 40 miles per hour was still being forecast but the branches of the trees were barely moving. If I had known the weather was going to be this mild I would have camped out in Thetford forest last night instead of diverting into town. However the Travelodge was clean, functional and reasonably priced and I enjoyed breakfast at the Costa Coffee so I cannot complain too much.

Last night I arranged a taxi to pick me up and it duly arrived and took me to where I had left the Peddars Way last night. My driver knew where it was as the Covid lockdown had given him time to explore the local walks, there being no business. I began by walking on a boardwalk as it wound over an area of tall, dry reeds then crossed a small river. Then it was by a piggery, with lots of pink "porkers" out enjoying the sun, snuffling around. A variety of pig houses were spread over a large area for the piggies to shelter in. After that it was forest for the rest of the day, sometimes on wide rutted tracks, sometimes beside a busy road, occasionally on a path. Birch trees lined the tracks, their trunks highlighted by the low sun, behind them were conifers. Beech trees predominated in parts, their brown leaves and nuts covering the ground. 

A "rest area" beside the busy A11, gave me the opportunity to buy a cup of tea and a bap. Shortly after I left Peddars Way and began a section of Hereward Way. By walking for a few days west on this route I will reach the area where two of my cousins lived. I was looking forward to meeting up with them. The Hereward Way is named after Hereward the Wake, who fought Norman conquerors in the 11th century in the area around the city of Ely, which I will shortly walk to. Surprisingly I found no signs or waymarks indicating I was on the Hereward Way, although other paths such as the Via Beata and St Edmunds Way were marked. Sometimes it seems that people prefer to create new routes rather than maintain and improve existing ones.

When the route followed a busy road I kept to the uneven ground beside it among birch trees. Although there was no path, many of the trees had initials carved in them, sometimes within heart symbols, and occasional dates between 1961 and 1971. The carvings had expanded with the tree trunks over the last 60 years. I imagined couples coming here long ago to enjoy some intimacy that might not be possible in their parents homes and carving signs of their love on the trees. After much more woodland I reached  where St Helen's church once stood, only some mounds and an information board recorded its presence. Beside it was a holy well, now a spring at the bottom of old flint workings. Although the soil of Breckland is sandy, the sand is a superficial deposit covering the chalk rock. Wind blown material that collected in front of the ice sheet during one of the Ice Ages. They did not have to dig very deep to reach layers of flint in the chalk rock, flint once used to generate sparks for rifles. The sandy soil is not ideal for agriculture hence the large area of forestry through which I have been walking. Not long after there was a church still standing although no longer used for regular services. The little All Saints church at Santon, with its curious octagon tower, is maintained by a trust, and was a welcome place to rest and contemplate. Nearby was an old moat, no longer filled with water. No-one knows what it was for. After passing the entrance to the forestry office (by another church and a memorial to soldiers who have died) I took a path through woods with the low afternoon sun in my eyes.

Track approaching Brandon.

Finally a track took me around the back of new housing, by some horses backlit by the sun, to the centre of Brandon. After deliberating between the angel cake and the citrus cake I chose the later to have with a latte at a coffee shop while waiting for my accommodation to open. Now thinking of my supper!

Icklingham to Kettishall Heath: Greater Ridgeway Day 24

My last day on the Icknield Way was through Breckland, a landscape of trees, heath and farmland quite different to other parts of this long distance path.

Breckland landscape.

This morning my tent's flysheet was coated with sparkling white frost. Despite the cold my winter sleeping bag and air bed had kept me warm overnight, although I was conscious of an occasional drip of water from condensation above my head. Outside the tent a scattering of small clouds above the trees were capturing the pink light of the sun, still over the horizon. One of the joys for me of wild camping is being up to see the sunrise, away from any light pollution, and the effect of the low sunlight on the landscape.

Sunrise.

Packing my tent into its bag was a struggle, its material still stiff and packed with frost despite my attempt to shake it off. I was curious to see what might have caused motorbikes and cars to stop on the main track near my tent last night. There was an area where the track was enlarged, widened with numerous rutted tracks. Maybe a convenient place to stop and chat. Yellow signs on trees said the area was monitored by CCTV. Nothing was explicitly prohibited, so I asked a dog walker the purpose of the signs and was told some of the Land Rover drivers were "animals". Most of my walk today was on "byways" on which you can legally drive your four wheel drive vehicle or scrambler motorcycle. There were plenty of both out today, maybe as it was a weekend, the motorbikes loudly screaming down the tracks, the four wheel drives moving at a more cautious pace with older men driving.

Rutted tracks were lined with birch trees, their white bark side-lit by the morning sun. Beyond the birch there were the regular rows of a mature coniferous plantation. Even after I left the forested area, lines of pine trees marked the edge of fields I crossed on wide, rutted lines. In places a copse or larger wooded area was on one side of me and open fields on the other, elsewhere I was on a tree lined track through fields. Pigs occupied several of those fields, each with its own pig house and bales of hay.

Rutted tracks through Thetford forest, made by four wheel drive vehicles and motorbikes which can legally drive on these byways.

Motorbikes out for a Sunday ride.

The only village on today's route was Euston, and I merely touched the edge of it by the grounds of Thetford Rovers Football Club which seemed to have just finished playing the Bulldogs. Although only a village league there were many cars in the parking area.

The Icknield Way ended at Knettishall Heath, an area of rough ground with grazing ponies behind a fence. A small child tried to attract their attention but the horses were facing away from her and ignored her entreaties. I had planned to continue up the Peddars Way, the next waymarked trail on the Greater Ridgeway, camping in some woodland area, but the weather forecast was warning of high winds overnight with a yellow warning from the Meteorological Office. As the day had been sunny throughout and the air still, I was not sure I believed the forecast. However my tent was designed to be lightweight rather than rugged and sheltering in woodland might not be prudent with the risk of branches or trees falling in high winds wind. Consequently after walking a short way up Peddars Way through woodland, I turned down a quiet road towards Thetford. 

This town was several kilometres away but the nearest I could find accommodation. My knee was causing me pain and the thought of a two hour walk was depressing. However, I was extremely fortunate that a car stopped and a kind lady gave me a lift into the town centre. Having been without coffee for 24 hours, that was my first priority. My driver took me to a Portuguese café where I had a coffee and cake, and bought her something similar in gratitude for saving me a long road walk. As well as pointing out some handy East European food shops where I could resupply she told me that Thetford was where "Dad's Army" had been filmed. A TV comedy favourite from my youth I was surprised that it was filmed in Thetford as the events supposedly took place in a seaside town (the fictional Walmington on Sea). Outside the Travelodge where I am staying there is a statue of Captain Mainwaring, the leader of the Home Guard troop featured in the series. Private Pike was painted in a doorway nearby.

Private Pike in Thetford.