North Walsham to Stalham
Saturday 31st July 2010
About 9.5 miles of walking, 8 miles on the Weavers' Way
Click here for all our photos from this walk.
It had rained heavily overnight and was drizzly in the morning, but the weather forecast was for an improving day with showers in the afternoon, so we decided to give it a go. This leg of the Weavers' Way follows minor roads out of North Walsham then resumes its journey along the disused railway line. The amount of road walking made us reluctant to do a 'there and back' walk from the car, so we left the car in Stalham and caught the bus from there to North Walsham before walking back. In fact the section of the path along the roads was very interesting. However the railway line, whilst offering excellent walking through attractive scenery as on the previous leg, was a bit 'samey' and we'd had enough of it by the time we got back to Stalham. It may of course also have been relevant that one of the showers descended on us as we approached Stalham on the railway line!
We drove to Stalham by way of Norwich's outer ring road (quite slow and not pretty) and then along the A1151 through Wroxham, the 'Blackpool of the Broads', and the A149. The little pay and display car park at the western end of Stalham High Street was easy to find and less expensive than we had been led to believe from a Ramblers Association entry on the web. We paid £3.80 for up to 6 hours, though with the benefit of hindsight 4 hours would have been sufficient. Finding the public toilets was more of a challenge - we eventually spotted then down an alleyway by the side of the Town Hall but only after I'd gatecrashed a charity coffee morning in the Town Hall in order to use the toilets inside!
We caught the 10.38 Sanders Number 6 bus to North Walsham and set off from the Market Cross at about 11am. We walked through the Church grounds, past the ruined tower, then headed out of the town past Lidl and Ray's Department Store. We retraced the bus's route along Yarmouth Road, with former elegant residences converted into private schools and care homes etc. We passed the police station and turned left through an estate of bungalows. At the end we turned left onto Field Lane.
There then followed a complicated section - always well signposted - along minor roads, presumably because the only direct routes are along relatively major roads. However the minor roads were delightful, taking us through attractive countryside and the hamlets of White Horse Common and Meeting House Hill (sometimes just called 'Meeting Hill'). The 'Meeting House' here does not appear to have quaker connections but rather is the sometime Worstead Baptist Chapel and former home of the Golden Fleece Museum of Weaving. From Meeting House Hill we cut across a barley field, with views of Worstead Church in the distance. Worsted yarn and cloth take their names from the village of Worstead, another reminder of the area's former importance as a weaving centre.
We rejoined the disused railway line at Bengate and followed this all the way to Stalham. It was initially wooded and through undulating countriside, though as we approached Stalham it became flatter - not suprisingly given that we were approaching the Broads (and in fact, near Honing, we were walking on the edge of the Broads Authority Area). The disused railway has benches every mile or so, and we ate our lunch sitting at one near Briggate. The railway line crossed the North Walsham and Dilham Canal (a canalisation of the northern reaches of the River Ant; an attempt to improve its navigability). The canal was rather narrow and unmemorable here; it was more interesting in the Honing area, where recent clearance has taken place. Honing was attractive in other ways too; there are interesting road bridges over the railway line (shown left) and the canal and good views to the Church.
A little later, I had expected to see the lake at Mown Fen but I was wrong - I'd misread the map. All we passed was a fishing lake on our right, from which visitors were fiercely excluded. And it started to rain! A couple of fields of llamas restored our interest and the ease of the walking along the railway line meant that we were able to get to Stalham quickly, without getting too wet. We took shelter in Reads Coffee House, a lovely if slightly idiosyncratic place, with compliments from former customers scribbled on the walls. It had just about stopped raining when we left, so we walked the half mile or so down to Stalham Staithe (the beginning of the Broads proper, with boatyards adjoining the River Ant) before driving home by way of Potter Heigham, Acle and the A47 to the south of Norwich - a better route.
