Castle Acre to East Lexham

We'd been wanting to get back to the Nar Valley Way for ages, but we'd been stymied by lack of time and very wet weather. A short window of better weather was promised for today. We had to go into King's Lynn first thing but we reached Castle Acre in time to sit eating our lunch in the car park by the castle. Then we set off across the lovely undulating countriside to the east. There was quite a lot of road walking, but not much traffic, and it was an attractive walk altogether - the river is pretty in this stretch and there are Saxon churches and flint cottages to admire en route. The photograph shows the Saxon round towered church in East Lexham.

We cut across fields, with good views towards the church at Newton, then we followed a sunken track and a minor road to the River Nar at Newton Mill. Immediately past the mill we turned left up a track (note that there isn't a sign here) which took us across open land with lots of pheasants.

We crossed the A1065 and then followed the road to West Lexham. The river has been widened here, either to look pretty for the residents of West Lexham Hall or for ancient fishponds; it feels as if there have been people living in this area for a very long time.

We climbed up through woodland, with good views down to the river, then walked through East Lexham. We left the Nar Valley Way by the Butter Market (a shelter in the middle of the village) and followed another road back to the A1065, before returning to the path back to Castle Acre.

Following leg of path