WALK 2 SUMMARY Walsingham Walk 2 Parking: village car park (pay & display) Length of main walk: 2.5 miles (approx) Pilgrim’s Progress circular walk from Friday Market Place Duration (average walker): 65 minutes [Extra time needed for visits to Orthodox PILGRIM WAY and Slipper Chapels] Surfaces: mostly paved paths and by-roads; The modern Pilgrim Way, from Little Walsingham to the Slipper Chapel at the some field-edge paths. Roman Catholic National Shrine of Our Lady, follows the old railway track The majority is pushchair-friendly. through the River Stiffkey valley. Dogs: on leads, please Walsingham was a station on the Great Eastern Railway line from East Dereham to Wells-next-the- Sea. The Fakenham to Wells section was opened by the Wells and Fakenham Railway on 1st December 1857. A goods-only branch to Wells harbour was added two years later. The line closed to passengers in October 1964, and not long afterwards also to freight traffic. Besides local passengers the single track line carried pilgrims to and from Walsingham. Pilgrims and summer visitors to Wells enjoyed through carriages from London. The growth of East Dereham also led to the line’s prosperity. Freight included coal, grain and milk, with bagged shellfish and shipped items from Wells, and bunches of snowdrops in season from Walsingham. Since 1982, the five-mile Walsingham to Wells section has been used by the narrow gauge trains of the Wells & Walsingham Light Railway. The track is 10¼ inches wide. Popular with visitors, and passing through typical North Norfolk farming land, this is said to be the longest 10¼ inch railway in the world. [Timetables on display by the Egmere Road halt] The Pilgrim Way path is well surfaced for cycles, wheelchair and pushchair users. It is maintained by the Walsingham Estate to benefit wildlife. There are plentiful
bank and hedgerow flowers, and a good range of small birds. Cowslips are abundant in Spring. For more information: Rediscovering Railways – Norfolk Past and Present by Richard Adderson & Des Saunders (1999) Chapel and Museum of Railway via Fakenham and Heritage. Also the peaceful Quiet Walsingham. Continue southwards on 00 minutes Garden, open to all. [Visit possible] the by-road. Start from Friday Market Place, Little 05 minutes Walsingham. Go up Station Road, 10 minutes Turn left into the Coach Park, uphill beside the Black Lion, keeping At a crossroads with a private track formerly the station goods yard. straight on at a crossroads with the by-road bears sharp left. You Vestiges of the station platform can Coker’s Hill and Back Lane. In a keep straight on, onto the modern be seen on your left-hand side. You couple of minutes you’ll reach the old Pilgrim Way. [Estate noticeboard] are now on the track of the former railway station, with an added onion The path continues towards the Great Eastern Railway Line, which ran dome, now St Seraphim’s Orthodox south, at a gentle gradient due to the from Dereham to Wells-next-the-Sea embankments and cuttings. SEX, POWER AND THE CHURCH Mile route, but traffic can be HENRY VIII AND ALL THAT 20 minutes hazardous.] King Henry VIII was the last monarch The path crosses a bridge over a farm to walk the Holy Mile. His marriage lane, Stanton’s Track. In a further ten 55 minutes problems, quarrels with the Pope, and minutes, at the end of the surfaced Reaching the end of the Pilgrim Way lust for money and power led to the path, turn left, briefly, onto a concrete path [Estate noticeboard] turn right dissolution of the monasteries and farm track, to a crossroads. Turn right onto the road (slightly downhill) and desecration of holy shrines. The Priory onto the by-road. The Slipper Chapel then take the first road on the left. of Walsingham was surrendered in is ahead of you, and beyond that the This road [Back Lane, but unlabelled August 1538 and the building fell into barn-like roof of the modern Chapel at this end] passes behind the ruins of ruins. Pilgrimage ceased. of Reconciliation. This complex the Friary, founded by the Franciscans comprises the Roman Catholic in 1347. National Shrine (Basilica) of Our Lady. Twelve friars and a warden lived here. [Visit possible. Shop. Refreshments] The main walk continues along the The Franciscan Grey Friars took care by-road for a further five minutes, of the poorest travellers, including 35 minutes alongside the diminutive River lepers. Retrace your steps on the by-road in Stiffkey. Between fine flint walls Back Lane front of the Slipper Chapel. Keep to passes behind the modern Roman this road between sheep meadows, 45 minutes Catholic parish church (constructed also used by pilgrim campers in the Turn up left from the road into a field 2006) and Roman Catholic Shrine summer. Up on the ridge to the right opposite a white-painted narrow Pilgrim Bureau at Elmham House. In the last years of the nineteenth you can see St Giles Church and bridge over the river. Keeping the century a Miss Charlotte Boyd bought other buildings in the small village of hedge on your right-hand side ascend 60 minutes the Slipper Chapel (pictured). This Houghton St Giles. You are now the field and turn right to rejoin the At the crossroads with Station Road fourteenth-century chapel had been in walking part of the original Holy Mile. Pilgrim Way path. and Cokers Hill, turn right, downhill use as a cowshed and barn. Miss Boyd In the Middle Ages monarchs and [OPTIONAL return route 2: stay on the to the Black Lion Hotel and Friday restored the chapel and bequeathed it to countless other less exalted pilgrims by-road until the T-junction, turning left Market Place. the Benedictines of Downside, a abandoned their footwear at the onto the Fakenham Road, and back into Roman Catholic order. In 1934 the Slipper Chapel. Barefoot, they walked the village. This is the historical Holy 65 minutes Roman Catholic National Shrine was the penitential mile to the Shrine at eventually established at the Slipper the Priory of Our Lady in the centre Chapel. In 2017 Pope Francis elevated of Walsingham. HARE TODAY AND AGAIN TOMORROW the Shrine to the status of a Minor 40 minutes The brown hare, like the grey partridge, is an indicator species for land in good Basilica. Keeping to the by-road you pass by heart for wildlife. Declining in much of Britain, the brown hare is locally Meanwhile, in 1922 the newly the bridge over Stanton’s Track. abundant in Norfolk. In March and April you may see as many as eight or ten appointed Anglican parish priest, in one field - a true ‘conference’ of hares. Father Alfred Hope Patten, installed a [OPTIONAL return route 1: go under the In contrast the grey partridge is shy and somewhat elusive, less obvious than statue of Our Lady of Walsingham in bridge and up the wooden steps on your its red-legged French cousin. Partridges thrive in residual dead grass in hedge the parish church, St Mary's. His right to return to the Pilgrim Way, bottoms. Weeds harbour insects, essential food for partridge chicks, especially energetic leadership led to the opening retracing your steps to the end of the if they are to survive the first, difficult weeks of life. of the Anglican Shrine in 1931. path. Rejoin main walk at 55 below]