Christopher Somerville

First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window


Half of Norfolk seemed to have descended on Hunstanton this glorious afternoon. Corny old tunes blared from the seafront bandstand, chip vinegar scented the breeze, and holidaymakers in their thousands strolled the dusky red sands and revelled in the unbroken blue of the sky.

It feels weird that Hunstanton, a Norfolk coastal resort, faces west rather than east. The town sits on the eastern flank of The Wash, a mighty tidal basin into which drain four great rivers – Nene, Welland, Great Ouse and Witham. Looking seaward from the promenade today we saw long banks of purple sand, scars of red rock, and paddlers far out in the shallows of the receding tide.

The cliffs to the north of Hunstanton are remarkable to behold. They form a striped sandwich of rock, the white of chalk on top separated from the rusty orange carrstone below by a thin crumbly band of red chalky limestone. It looks as though a giant carrot cake with white icing has been neatly sliced and left at the back of the beach.

We walked the sands and clambered among the rounded and thickly barnacled boulders on the beach. At the feet of the cliffs a litter of big chalk slabs showed how unstable and prone to falls the structure is. Stretched out among the rocks we found the cast-iron skeleton of the steam trawler Sheraton, wrecked in 1947, now slowly rusting into dissolution.

The muddy shore was scribbled with wormcasts. A gang of turnstone chicks pattered among them, quite unafraid as we passed. In cracks of the cliffs on the boundary line between red and white, fulmars stared out from their nests with sooty panda eyes.

At Old Hunstanton the cliffs dipped. The orange carrstone disappeared beneath the shoreline, the white chalk followed suit, and a line of sandhills took over the north-eastern march of the coastline. Soon the kaleidoscopic jumble of brilliantly coloured beach tents and swimming costumes filtered out to an empty beach and a dune system rich in birds and flowers.

The coast path ran between dunes and grassy hinterland. Sea holly showed its blue-green prickles, stonecrop pushed up sulphur-yellow stars from fleshy stems. Everything that can withstand salty winds and retain rainwater flourishes here – solid southern marsh orchids and spindly twayblades, deep blue curls of viper’s bugloss and white trumpets of sea campion.

Beyond Holme Dunes we emerged from the sandhills to find the sea suddenly close inshore, a fan of sand spreading beyond an apron of creek-cut saltmarsh to the east. Linnets with rose-coloured breasts flitted among the sea buckthorn bushes, and a reed bunting with white collar and black bill swayed and squeaked on a twig like a tiny impassioned preacher.

We turned inland along a zigzag of flood banks guarding grazing marshes reclaimed from the sea, and made for the red roofs of Thornham across the fields as evening began to close in.

How hard is it? 6½ miles; easy; level walking on beach and coast path

Start: Hunstanton seafront, PE36 5BQ (OS ref TF 672409)

Getting there: Bus – Norfolk Coastliner from Thornham (on A149 Hunstanton-Cromer)
Road – Hunstanton is on A149 between Heacham and Brancaster

Walk (OS Explorer 250): From Hunstanton seafront, turn right along beach (low tide) or Norfolk Coast Path along cliffs, to Old Hunstanton. Continue along Coast Path (waymarked) to Thornham. Opposite Orange Tree Inn (733432), take Norfolk Coastliner bus back to Hunstanton.

Lunch/Accommodation: Orange Tree Inn, Thornham PE36 6LY (01485-512213, theorangetreethornham.co.uk) – excellent village inn, perfectly placed at walk’s end.

Info: Holme Dunes – norfolkwildlifetrust.org.uk
Coastliner bus timetable – lovenorfolk.co.uk/norfolk-coastliner

First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window

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Just behind the houses and the big flint-built Bailey Gate in Castle Acre’s main street, a great castle fortified in the 12th century by the de Warenne family stands in ruins on its 100 ft mound, still strikingly severe and dramatic.

We walked the ramparts and descended into the ditches, picturing those desperate days of Civil War between 1135 and 1153 when Stephen of Blois and the Empress Matilda contested the English crown and only the strongest stronghold gave security.

The ancient thoroughfare that brought friend and foe to the walls of Castle Acre, a route known nowadays as Peddar’s Way, had been in use for millennia when the de Warennes held sway here. We followed the old road out of the village to where the River Nar dimpled over shallows of flint and sand across a wide ford.

At South Acre, St George’s Church stood by the roadside. Inside we admired the ornate, 20-foot-tall medieval font cover and the intricately carved foliage of the old rood screen. In the north chapel, Sir Edward Barkham (Lord Mayor of London, 1621-2) lay in stiffly splendid effigy on a tomb chest beside his wife Jane, while on the floor nearby the 14th-century brass likenesses of Sir John and Lady Katherine Harsick lay fondly holding hands.

Beyond South Acre the sandy lane of Petticoat Drove climbed out of the shallow Nar Valley through gently undulating corn and beet fields. A rising wind whistled in the tops of ash and sycamore as we passed Three-Cocked-Hat Plantation. Dropping down a long grassy lane towards the River Nar again, we caught glimpses through the hedges of tall blocks of flint masonry, the remnants of West Acre’s Augustinian Priory.

The Nar Valley Way led homeward along duckboard trails, over squelchy ground and on past the juicy reedbeds and marsh ground of Castle Acre Common. This valley was nicknamed the Holy Land for its many religious houses, and on the outskirts of Castle Acre we found the Cluniac Priory established by William de Warenne at about the same time as the castle.

Guarding the tight cluster of monastic buildings stood the tall west front of the abbey church, superbly built and engineered, sculpted with a row of stone heads more pagan than Christian, enigmatically staring down as they have done for almost a thousand years.

Start: Castle Acre, near King’s Lynn, PE32 2AE (OS ref TF 816152)

Getting there: Flexibus from Swaffham (Booking – 0300-123-1145)
Road – Castle Acre is signed off A1065 between Swaffham and Fakenham

Walk (7½ miles, easy, OS Explorer 236): Follow signs to castle (819152); walk ramparts. From SE corner of precinct (820150), right along Nar Valley Way/NVW). At Bailey Street, left (819150, ‘Peddars Way’/PW). In 100m, right (PW) up Blind Lane. In 100m, fork left (white acorn); at T-junction (816148), left past ford (816146). Just beyond Church Farm, right along road (812143). Pass South Acre church (810143); in 350m, left (807144, ‘Restricted Byway’) up Petticoat Drove. In ¾ mile, right at grain silos (801133, ‘Circular Walks’/CW); in ¾ mile, right (788137, CW), north for ¾ mile to cross road (785148). In ¼ mile, cross NVW (785151); bear left (‘public footpath’) across common. At ford, right along road (789151); in 50m, left (NVW) for 2 miles back to Castle Acre.

Lunch: Picnic by River Nar ford on outskirts of Castle Acre.

Accommodation: Pigshed Motel, George & Dragon Inn, Swaffham Road, Newton by Castle Acre, PE32 2BX (01760-306037, thepigshedmotel.co.uk)

Info: Castle Acre castle and priory – english-heritage.org.uk – booking required

Kings Lynn TIC (01553-763044), satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk

First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window

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The River Thurne went chuckling round the boats moored at Potter Heigham. We watched a beautifully restored Norfolk wherry, with mast folded flat, preparing to pass under the arch of the 14th-century bridge, now that the ebbing tide had left just enough squeeze room there.

The banks of the Thurne were lined with little dwellings, some smart, others weather-beaten old shacks. The sun shone on the white cap and tall brick tower of High’s Mill, one of dozens of windpumps built in times past along these waterways to drain the sodden fen fields for agriculture.

Reed buntings creaked and reed warblers chattered in the reedbeds. The feathered heads of the reeds tossed and whispered together in the wind. A big new area of reedbed is being planted and nurtured for wildlife here, a good example of farming and conservation in Fenland making easier bedfellows than in the past.

Two large birds sprang up beyond the water, black and white, slowly flapping their big wings – cranes, aliens until recently, now domiciled and breeding here.

The path passed through a gate, a portal into a different world, the sedgy fields left behind for damp oak woodland and the vast reedbeds of Hickling Broad. Remarkable noises came from the reeds, a mixture of chicken clucks and porker squeals – a water rail, skulking like a naughty child where it could be heard and not seen.

Hickling Broad, like the other Norfolk Broads, is a flooded medieval peat digging. The big inland fleet of water lay masked by reeds. Hugh clouds moved with stately gait across the windy blue sky, casting an elephantine calm over the landscape.

Potter Heigham’s church of St Nicholas is a flint-built chest of treasures – a magnificent hammer-beam roof, a rare medieval font of brick, a rood screen painted with saints, and a 14th-century wall painting showing the good deeds a charitable lady ought to perform – giving a loaf to a starving old man, handing coins to a fettered prisoner, spooning soup into the mouth of a sick man.

Our way back lay along farm tracks where larks went up singing over the pastures, a stolid bull eyed us across his ditch, and a great dark marsh harrier, a female with a golden head, went flapping along the hedges while every crow in Potter Heigham hopped and skipped and cursed her to hell.
Start: Latham’s car park, Potter Heigham Bridge, Great Yarmouth NR29 5JE (OS ref TG 419185) – £8.50 all day.

Getting there: Bus 6 (Great Yarmouth – North Walsham)
Road: Potter Heigham Bridge is signed off A149 between Stalham and Caistor-on-Sea.

Walk (6½ miles, easy, OS Explorer OL40); Walk towards old Potter Heigham bridge; just before, left along bank of River Thurne, then Candle Dyke, passing alongside Ground Plantation and Wagonhill Plantation. After 3½ miles, pass bird hide opposite Rush Hill lagoon (423209); in another 350m, left (421206, fingerpost) through Coll’s Plantation, then on south to T-junction of hedges (421201). Right (‘Weavers’ Way Circular Walk’, green arrow) to road; left to St Nicholas Church (419199). Retrace steps to edge of Coll’s Plantation (421204); right for 1 mile along south edge of wood, and past Glebe Farm (428197) to T-junction opposite High’s Drainage Mill (429193). Right (yellow arrow) along Middle Wall; cross A149 (419187) and on; in 200m, left to car park.

Lunch: BridgeStones* café, Potter Heigham Bridge (01692-671923, www.Wayfordbridge.co.uk)

* sic

Accommodation: Wayford Bridge Inn, Stalham, Norfolk NR12 9LL (01692-582414, norfolkbroadsinns.co.uk)

Hickling Broad NNR: 01692-598276, norfolkwildlifetrust.org.uk

Info: Great Yarmouth TIC (01493-846346); visitnorfolk.co.uk; satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk

First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window

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Ill-fated, black-eyed little Anne Boleyn lived as a child in the north Norfolk countryside at Blickling Hall. But the Tudor mansion she knew is not the one we admired as we crunched down the grave drive – these pepper-pot turrets and huge central clock belong to the following century, as do the curly Dutch gables.

Blickling Hall is magnificent, and so are its widespread grounds. We followed a waymarked walk which skirted the inverted comma of the ornamental lake. Storm-splintered cedars spread their wide dark skirts in the pastures, and the carcases of dead oaks lay as pale and massive as elephant corpses among the long grasses.

We passed a signature beech, its smooth grey bark incised with lovers’ names and initials – SDF & Di, AW loves BW, Olly hearts Dolly. A cold west wind drove wavelets against the northern shoreline of the lake, where we took to well-trodden tracks among fields full of the glinting leaves of sugar beet.

Boardwalks spanned the squelching woodland of Moorgate Carrs. We crossed the dimpling water of the River Bure where whorled mint gave out a savour half minty, half sharp. The blackberries in the green lane hedge were sharp on the tongue, too.

In the corner of a field by a margin planted to please the palates of pheasants with goldenrod, mayweed and purple brassicas, we lay on our backs for half an hour for the pure pleasure of watching the sky. Then it was up and on, heading south through pastures grown tufty and lumpen. We recrossed the Bure, a skein of rushy watercourses dried to trickles in the grass where tangled curls of water plantain pushed up their flowers, each with its three pale blue petals.

From the southern skirts of Itteringham a dusty lane ran east between stubble fields. Pheasant poults went scurrying away up the rows, too flustered to feed, too young to fly. The wind rose and shoved at our backs, and we were glad to get into the shelter of Blickling Park’s Great Wood.

On a grassy ride in the middle of the wood we came on a bizarre structure, a sharply pointed pyramid as tall as a house. Over the eastern portal posed a fine stone stag, brandishing real antlers. Within this eccentric mausoleum John Hobart, 2nd Earl of Buckingham, lies alongside his two wives.

The plaque on the western face of the pyramid, topped by a great bull, seemed to suggest that the Earl had married his own daughter. Perhaps I misunderstood it. In any case, I can report that the north- and south-facing openings of the tomb make great echo chambers. They allow one to sing harmonies with oneself, to truly eerie effect.

Start: NT car park, Blickling Hall, Aylsham, Norfolk NR11 6NF (OS ref TG 176286)

Getting there: Blickling Hall is on B1354 Saxthorpe road, signed from Aylsham (A140 Norwich-Cromer)

Walk (7 miles, easy, OS Explorer 252): From car park walk down road to Blickling Hall. Down drive towards house; just before buildings on right, turn right through hedge, up steps. Keep right of Courtyard Bookshop; half right to map notice; from here follow waymarked Estate Walk (blue arrows). At top of lake (179295), left along gravel path. In 150m fork right (orange arrows). In 400m, right at 3-finger post (174295, ‘public footpath’).

In 500m, right on road at Moorgate (174300); in 100m, left (yellow arrow/YA). Boardwalk crosses Moorgate Carrs and River Bure (175301). In 250m path turns left along field edges (YA), and on to road at Fring Wood (174308). Left, in 700m, fork right (167308) up drive past White House Farm; on along field edge tracks westward for ½ mile. Descend through gate to broad green strip at The Rookery (152309). Don’t go through gate with YA opposite; bear left along wood edge; in 100m through gate, follow hedge on left southward for 2 long fields / ½ mile to cross several channels of River Bure and reach road opposite Orchard Farm (154299).

Left, in ½ mile on left bend (161297), ahead through Woodgate car park; past 5-bar gate, follow stony track on outskirts of wood (orange arrow). In 600m, sandy track on left (165292) leads to mausoleum (166295).

Lunch/Accommodation: Buckinghamshire Arms, Blickling NR11 6NF (01263-732133, bucksarms.co.uk)

Blickling Hall: nationaltrust.org.uk/blickling-estate

visitnorthnorfolk.com; satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk

First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window

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The wolfman of Great Bircham stared down from his vantage point high above the chancel arch in St Mary’s Church. With his pointed ears, blank eyes and thick-lipped oval mouth he looked altogether too malevolent to be the resident spirit of such a gloriously light and airy building. Not for the first time I found myself wondering what was in the minds of the medieval masons who carved such vivid and disturbing creatures in the parish churches of these islands.

I wandered through the churchyard where ranks of Second World War airmen, Allied and German alike, lie buried. Then I set out into the cold, bright light of a North Norfolk morning, following an old green lane through the sugar beet fields. Partridges skimmed away with hoarse squeaks over the leathery green leaves, and a golden-brown hare went lolloping along the rows of a stubble field at a slow canter.

Soon the lane met the ancient trackway of Peddar’s Way, arrowing north-west across the low-rolling landscape. I stepped out along the wide grassy trackway, with a view eastward to Bircham’s tall windmill on its ridge. The iconic East Anglian hell-hound known as Black Shuck haunts Peddar’s Way, and I wondered whether the mason of St Mary’s had had that demon dog in mind when he did his chancel arch carving.

I was strolling along, singing The Darkness’s tender ballad about Black Shuck to myself (‘Black Shuck! That dog don’t give a … tinker’s cuss!’) when a tremendous commotion in a stubble field beside the track made me jump. A couple of hundred pinkfooted geese, gobbling the grain left behind after harvest, had been panicked by my hollering. With a tremendous honking and complaining, and a roar of wings, they took off and wheeled away with flashing white rumps to find less disturbed feeding a few fields away.

I left Peddar’s Way and came down into the hamlet of Fring, all brick and flint under red pantiled roofs. Along the lane the beet harvesters were roaring in the fields, stacking giant mounds of roots for the lorries. Bircham Windmill stood proud, its fantail revolving to keep the ladder-shaped sails to the wind.

There was no sign of Black Shuck on the way back to Bircham, but I did meet a dog at the entrance to the village – a soppy old Labrador, who was only too pleased to be chucked under the chin.
Start: Great Bircham Social Club car park, Church Lane, Great Bircham, Norfolk, PE31 6QW (OS ref TF 769325)

Getting there: Great Bircham is signed from Snettisham, off A149 between King’s Lynn and Hunstanton.

Walk (8¾ miles, easy, OS Explorer 250. NB: online map, more walks at christophersomerville.co.uk): Right along Church Lane to St Mary’s Church. Return past car park to B1153; left along pavement past Bircham Country Stores and King’s Head Hotel. Opposite village sign, right (767321) along lane. In 1¼ miles, right along Peddar’s Way (748309, signposted). In 2½ miles, at 3rd road crossing (733345), right into Fring. Ahead across bridge (‘Docking’). In 350m, right up track (739350, ‘Ringstead Rides’). In 1¼ miles, right (756342) on footpath to road (754337). Left; in ⅔ of a mile, turn right (760330) past Bircham Windmill. Cross road beyond (761324); green lane to junction (765320); left to King’s Head on B1153; left to return to car park.

Refreshments: Bircham Country Stores; King’s Head, Bircham (01485-578265; the-kings-head-bircham.co.uk)

Dinner/Accommodation: Rose & Crown, Snettisham, postcode (01485-541382, roseandcrownsnettisham.co.uk) – wholly delightful, friendly village inn.

Info: Hunstanton TIC (01485-532610)
visitengland.com satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk