Knettishall Heath to the River Thet near Bridgham
Walked by Sally, Richard and Helen, Easter Sunday, 16th April 2006
Approx 8 miles including 2 miles along the Peddars Way, and return.
Click here for all our photos from this walk.
For our first walk along the Peddars Way we combined a short foray along the path with a circular walk at Bridgham - both are described in Bruce Robinson's National Trail Guide. We left the car at the car park near Knettishall Heath (east of Thetford) and the point where the Peddars Way meets the Icknield Way. We set off on the Peddars Way with a sign indicating that it was 46 miles to Holme next the Sea.
The walking was easy, on a track through woodland to the Little Ouse River (note that this is the river that joins the Great Ouse at Brandon Creek, on the Fen Rivers Way).
As we crossed the Little Ouse we left Suffolk - the rest of the Peddars Way and Norfolk Coast Path is entirely in Norfolk. It also appeared that there were daffodils growing in Norfolk but not in Suffolk! We emerged onto the straight path of the Roman Peddars Way and followed this to the A1066 and another minor road, noting that the car park shown at this point in the guidebook does not seem to exist.
We turned off the Peddars Way and walked back to Dolphin Farm, then through the forest to the Bridgham Lane car park. We'd hoped to find a picnic table here, but we had to make do with some convenient fallen trees, just off the track heading towards Bridgham. We emerged from the trees by Stonehouse Farm and had some difficulty finding the correct place to turn back into the forest, but we got it right (on a path just after the farm) and followed a very pleasant route through the forest above the River Thet. This brought us to the caravan and camping site at Thorpe Woodlands from where we cut back to the Peddars Way and so back to the car.
