Little Cressingham to Castle Acre
Walked by Richard and Helen, Sunday 4th June 2006
11.75 miles along the Peddars Way
Click here for all our photos from this walk.
This section of the Peddars Way involves rather a lot of walking on tarmacked surfaces which I decided that my knees would probably not appreciate - so I dropped Helen and Richard off in Little Cressingham, spent a few hours wandering amonst the rhododendrons at Sandringham, then picked them up in Castle Acre. Despite the rather high proportion of road walking, Helen and Richard enjoyed the walk and I enjoyed my day too.
The route follows the minor road north of out of Little Cressingham, past Caudle Hill and Houghton Carr, before leaving the road by a footpath to the left and descending into the valley of the River Wissey and up again to the outskirts of North Pickenham. We'd past signs of a census on previous sections of the path (and we'd completed a questionnaire from an unstaffed survey point) but Richard and Helen were surveyed properly between Little Cressingham and North Pickenham.
After skirting around North Pickenham, the route picks up the path of the original Roman Peddars Way again, on an attractive track known as Procession Lane (the name is thought to relate to the ceremony of beating the bounds) through pleasant countryside and complete with sculpture.
The Peddars Way crosses the A47 and passes close to one of the Swaffham wind turbines (you used to be able to climb up the other one as part of a visit to the Ecotech Centre). After a slight detour to the left and then the right you pass Palgrave Hall and then the deserted medieval villages of Great and Little Palgrave.
The route to Castle Acre is via the Bartholemew Hills and (as I only discovered when writing this website, despite having lived in Denver for 20 years), the track that you cross at this point is part of another Roman road , 'The Fen Causeway' that goes from Denver to Smallburgh. The road into Castle Acre, by way of a ford with good views to Castle Acre Priory is much better known to us, as is the attractive village centre and Church Gate Tea Rooms, where we stopped for a cup of tea after I'd met Helen and Richard.