Blicking Hall to Railway Line North East of Aylsham and return via Aylsham

At last - a glorious spring day! We drove to Blicking Hall and had a walk around the gardens, especially admiring the attractive planting of hyacinths and daffodils.

We had lunch in the car park at Blickling then set off, past the Church and down Silvergate Lane to the pretty little Estate village of Silvergate. Then we cut accross fields, along a track and on a path alongside a road to join an attractive and quiet disused railway line. This is the former Midland and Great Northern (M&GN) Railway, which was affectionately known as the 'muddle and get nowhere' line. This section of the line closed in 1959.

We followed the disused railway line to the north of Aylsham, to the former North Aylsham Station. From this point the former railway line is used by the road, so the Weavers' Way meanders its way around a bit, firstly on Banningham Road (with the tower of Banningham Church clearly visible ahead), then a right turn onto Green Lane, across the A140 and another right turn to return to the disused railway line at another former station, now a smallholding. The Weavers' Way turns left onto the old railway line here, but we retraced our steps to Banningham Road, then walked into Aylsham, stopping to admire an old mill and a nesting goose as we crossed the River Bure.

Aylsham is an attractive town - well worth the diversion from the Weavers' Way. Many of the houses look Georgian, but they are apparently older. We walked past the Lych Gate and the rather grand Church of St Michael and All Angels, across the market square and then down to the Bure Valley Railway (a narrow gauge railway that runs between Aylsham and Wroxham) where we stopped for a cup of tea. Then we joined a continuation of the disused railway line on which the Bure Valley Railway sits (this one is the former Great Eastern Railway), now the Marriott's Way, and followed this to the south of Aylsham, past a modern housing estate being built on the site of the former St Michael's hospital (originally the Aylsham Workhouse).