Peddars Way and Norfolk Coast Path

Note written 2023: The descriptions of our walks on The Peddars Way and Norfolk Coast Path were accurate at the time of writing. More recently, the Norfolk Coast Path has been rerouted in several places and it has also been extended, with the end point moving from Cromer to Hopton-on-Sea, which extends the whole National Trail by about 40 miles to 133 miles.  We have now walked virtually all of the section to the east of Cromer too, as part of our exploration of the England Coast Path and you can follow the link to this below. However the rest of this page is as it was written in 2007 and 2012. It seems wrong to alter history.

The Peddars Way and Norfolk Coast Path is a single 93-mile National trail. However it comprises two routes of very different origin: the Peddars Way (an ancient route) crosses Norfolk from south to north; the Norfolk Coast Path, more recently created, travels along the coast from the cliffs at Hunstanton to the cliffs at Cromer, via stunningly beautiful marshland and beaches.

The two routes cross at Holme next the Sea and can be walked as one continuous path, with a slight detour to Hunstanton, a couple of miles to the west of Holme next the Sea. However, because we live in Norfolk, we initially walked the trail in a series of one day legs, mostly between April 2006 and September 2007. It was lovely to be following a long distance path close to our home; most of the starting points were within an hour's drive and we have been able to revisit places that we 'discovered' whilst walking the path. 

The Peddars Way was originally a Roman Road; there's rather a lot of road walking in the middle section (so much so that Richard and Helen walked between Little Cressingham and Castle Acre without me in June 2006) but much of it is a track, running in classic straight-line Roman fashion. The first mile or so are in Suffolk, then it passes Thomson Water (a new discovery for us), Castle Acre (an old favourite) before emerging at the coast. Highlights of the Norfolk Coast path included saltmarshes, ancient ports and beautiful sandy beaches, especially around Holkham Bay. Parts of the route were well-known to us, from beach holidays when the children were small and from visiting Old Hunstanton on Christmas Day for several years (1994 in the photograph), but we discovered new places too including Burnham Overy Staithe.

In 2006 and 2007, we walked the Norfolk Coast Path in a large number of separate legs (largely because we usually parked in one place and walked out along the path and then back) and we walked a few legs out of order. This resulted in a lack of continuity, so in 2012 we decided to walk the Norfolk Coast Path as one continuous four-day walk. Having booked our B&B in Wells-next-the-Sea for a long weekend in October, we then decided to re-walk the Peddars Way too, in a series of one-day legs in late September, some legs longer and some shorter than previously, but all done is as short a time as work and weather permitted (just over a week) and I did it all this time!.  Click here for more about our 2012 walk along the Peddars Way and Norfolk Coast Path. (The links under 'Peddars Way and Norfolk Coast Path' on the left-hand side and the map below relate to our earlier walk.)