Wensum River Parkway

From the end of the Marriott's Way we crossed the river by way of St Crispin's Bridge, and then crossed the busy St Crispin's Way (part of the Norwich Inner Ring Road, the A147). The route alongside the river and the first information board were quite obvious, and we were off! We could see Norwich's City Hall and Castle on the skyline ahead of us, plus a number of churches. Medieval Norwich had 57 churches within the city walls (though not all of these survive), built by wealthy wool merchants as a demonstration of their social standing and wealth. However, the first landmark that we reached was one we'd never heard of: New Mills Sluice. It's an impressive structure and water was pouring through, but it is slightly run down and there are various possibilities being discussed to make more imaginative use of the building over the sluice and the power from the turbulent water. Apparently they used to make compressed gas here.

There has already been much regeneration along the river, including tasteful modern houses and flats with excellent views. We passed the attractive St Miles Bridge; we knew we were going to have to take a detour away from the river (I think the 'Parkway' will eventually run by the river right through the city centre, but not yet!) but we hadn't expected it to be here. However slightly further on the route was blocked by a construction site, so we had to return to St Miles Bridge before heading away from the river on Costany Road, along Colegate then back to the river on St George's Street at Blackfriars Bridge. A rather drunk rough-sleeper was very keen to give us directions, but we knew our route. We continued along to Rye Bridge and crossed the river here, now very close to Norwich Cathedral. The route continued along the Quayside, which was most attractive, with multi-coloured medieval buildings reflected in the river.

We passed Whitefriars Bridge and entered a gated section which took us around the cathedral precincts, though the buildings on the other side of the river were more modern, including the 19th Century St James' Mill, housing on the hill on the other side of the river and distinctly 21st century gyms, offices and - I think - a petrol station. We also passed the pedestrian Jarrold Bridge, opened in 2011. I have to admit that my memory of the geography of Norwich city centre let me down at this point, as I had expected to reach the famous Pull's Ferry soon, but this is further round the loop of the river, east and marginally south of the cathedral, and further from it. After a slightly muddy section of path we came to the 14th Century Cow Tower and then, after some good views across the Norwich School playing fields, eventually we reached Pull's Ferry, This is an attractive former ferry house and was the watergate by which the stone used to build the cathedral, which came from Caen, was delivered.

We continued along the riverside path just as far as the Prince of Wales Bridge, which we climbed onto and crossed so as to photograph Norwich Station (where the Wherryman's Way starts), then we returned by way of the riverside to Pull's Ferry. From here we took Ferry Lane up to the Cathedral Close and then through the Ethelbert Gate and into Norwich's historic centre. After some difficulty getting past other people in socially distanced fashion whilst following paths around building works on Tombland, we made our way to and along the cobbled Elm Hill. While we were sad that Tier 4 meant that the shops were all shut, it was a delight to be able to get photographs of the famous lane without any other people on them! From the bottom of Elm Hill it was a very short distance back to Rye Bridge from where we retraced our steps back along the Wensum River Parkway and so to the Marriott's Way.

Our photographs taken on the Wensum River Parkway and our route back through the back streets of Norwich are here.

For our continuation onto the Wherryman's Way click here.