Brandon to Lakenheath Station
Walked by Sally and Richard, 8th January 2012
Just over 5 miles on the Angles Way to Fen Rivers Way link
Click here for all our photos from this walk.
There are five trains per week from Lakenheath Station to Brandon - one on a Saturday afternoon and the other four on a Sunday. So to walk this leg as planned (train from Lakenheath Station to Brandon then walk the return leg), we needed a free Sunday with decent weather. Both happened today - it was dry and mild for January and the sun came out briefly during the morning. In fact the walk is so close to home that we could easily have taken two cars and parked one at each end. Alternatively, given that the walk is so short, we could easily have walked a circuit, perhaps out along the north (Norfolk) bank of the river and back along the south (Suffolk) bank. So waiting for a day when the trains were running was not strictly necessary.
It only took us 25 minutes to drive to Lakenheath Station, by way of Southery and then across the fen to Feltwell. We were surprised to see the radomes (radar 'golfballs') at RAF Feltwell, so perhaps it is a bit more than a residential base for USAF personnel working at RAF Lakenheath and RAF Mildenhall. We parked at Lakenheath Station (there's just space for a couple of cars) then, after the signal man had closed the level crossing by hand, we caught the 9.17 train for the short (approx. 5 minute) journey to Brandon.
We'd decided to follow the north bank of the Great Ouse River, because it looked more interesting than the track to the south of the river. We walked towards the centre of Brandon and turned down to the river just before the bridge, following the sign to 'Riverside Walks'. There were lots of ducks on the river, presumably hoping that we would feed them, and Brandon Church was visible in the distance. The path was initially very good and there were other people about, but after we passed a lock/sluice/weir, with a path across the river, our path deteriorated somewhat but we had it more or less to ourselves. We've had some windy weather since Christmas and there were fallen branches to negotiate. At one stage we were progressing at approximately the same rate as a canoeist on the river, but he stopped for a drink and we overtook him. There were also swans on the river and walked past a pig farm on the opposite bank and through a field of cows (just before passing under the railway) and later through a field of sheep.
As we approached Hockwold (a Church was visible in the distance) we passed a flooded gravel pit, with boats moored on the river. We could see sluice gates ahead of us but we had to follow a slightly complicated route to get to the sluice and aquaduct (which is where the Little Ouse River crosses the Cut-Off Channel). We turned right, then left along Moor Drove East (past lots of small children on ponies) then left along the Cut-Off Channel and down to the sluices and aquaduct.
We rejoined the Little Ouse River and followed this across the Cut-Off Channel and back to the B1112. Just before the road we passed another flooded gravel pit, with ducks that didn't seem to be moving much - we eventually realised that they weren't real. As we walked back along the road to the car we noticed two cormorants in a tree by the river, further to the west - these were real enough! We were just approaching Lakenheath Station when the 11.17 train passed. So this walk can be comfortably completed in around two hours.
Note: when we walked this way on 18th November 2012 the path was very overgrown and so this section of our walk on that day took 3 hours - and we would probably have given up if we had not known it was possible to get through.
