To the source of the Little Ouse and the Waveney and return to Knettishall Heath
Walked by Sally and Richard, Sunday 12th June 2011
About 16 miles; 7.6 miles and return on Angles Way
Click here for all our photos from this walk.
A run of working Saturdays meant that we were looking for walks not using the number 580 bus (which doesn't run on Sundays) so we decided to walk a leg back from the end of the Angles Way - where there isn't a bus to help on any day of the week! It turned into a suitable challenge in itself - from the end of the Angles Way at Knettishall Heath back to the source of the Little Ouse River. This lies to the west of the B1113 between Redgrave and South Lopham and, curiously, the source of the Waveney River is just the other side of the road - and since the Norfolk/Suffolk county boundary follows the course of both rivers, the location of the sources is remarkably easy to find. We were extremely lucky with the weather (most of the country had torrential rain, but it didn't rain seriously where we were until we were in the car on the way home). It was a lovely walk, though with a reasonable amount of walking on tarmaced surfaces, slightly hard on the knees. We parked at Knettishall Heath (£1 for all day parking in the main car park at TL956806 - you may be able to avoid paying by using one of the smaller car parks) which is in Suffolk, almost immediately crossed the river and so into Norfolk, then after a couple of miles we crossed back into Suffolk for most of the walk, and ended the outward leg spot on the county boundary.
The Little Ouse and Waveney valleys have a number of anomalous features: two river sources close together and at a very modest elevation, apparently in the same valley; the sandy heaths such as the one at Knettishall Heath (puzzling given that the underlying rock is chalk and boulder clay); and fens that are well inland and well above sea level. The headwaters of the Little Ouse are managed by the Little Ouse Headwaters Project (LOHP) and I was delighted to discover from their excellent website that others have been puzzled too, and that Professor Richard West has undertaken a field study of the geomorphology of the area. From my understanding of his report (a summary of which is on the LOHP website under 'landscape/geology' - check the details for yourself), I think the theory is that after the retreat of the Anglian Ice, the Little Ouse had its source further east, near Brockdish, and flowed west, past Diss etc. to the Wash. Later glaciation reached as far as Brandon and blocked the valley further downstream. This resulted in a large linear lake in the Little Ouse Valley, with an overflow channel, the Brockdish channel. Sand was deposited - this is what you see on the sandy heaths - and the Brockdish channel resulted in the erosion of the original watershed. When the glaciation retreated, the source of the Little Ouse moved west to the current location, with the Waveney using its former valley, but flowing to the east, The fens are on land where the chalk has been eroded by glacial activity (freeze/thaw cycles etc.).
The headwaters of the Little Ouse cover a broad area of extremely attractive fenland and we also crossed undulating farmland, with cows, sheep, horses and cereal crops - complete with poppies. But lest you be fooled into thinking that the whole walk was pretty, I should point out that, close to the source of the Little Ouse, the path skirts an enormous poultry unit and cuts between the poultry unit and a pig farm. Ah well - at least the pigs looked happy enough.
After following the Angles Way to the point where it crosses the B1113 to the north of Redgrave, we left the official route and walked a short distance along the road to the source of the rivers (definitely worth doing). Then we retraced our steps, past a cycle race near Redgrave, past the pig farm and poultry unit - and onto Hinderclay Fen, a beautiful and peaceful place, complete with information boards and a bench where we stopped for lunch.
We crossed Thelnetham Fen and emerged onto a road to the north of Thelnetham, passing a group of walkers on a heritage walk led by the Little Ouse Headwaters Project. Thelnetham Windmill is attactive enough, but it's in the middle of some rather tatty sheds and Spring Farm is also rather dilapidated. However after skirting Spring Farm we crossed attractive cereal fields with poppies, walked along the road through Hopton and then cut between houses to more attractive cereal fields (barley this time) with more poppies. The path then took a series of right-angle turns around Hopton Fen and crossed the river to Lodge Farm and so to Gasthorpe, complete with pretty thatched cottages.
Most of the remaining walk was through what would have been the grounds of Riddlesworth Hall, now a prep, pre-prep and nursery school, whose main claim to fame is that Princes Diana was a pupil. What an amazing place to go to school.
After passing a gatehouse we turned on to a minor road, back to the car park at Knettishall Heath (the end of the Angles Way), just after crossing the Little Ouse River which has grown considerably in the 7 miles or so from its source.