WALSINGHAM WALK 5 WALK 5 SUMMARY Hill House Trail Parking: centre village car park (charge) This route starts in the Common are now walking above the Little Length of main walk: 3½ miles (approx) Place, near the Tourist Information to Houghton road, which Duration (average walker): 80 minutes Surfaces: surfaced by-ways, a wide, grassy Office and the village’s original water can be busy. In about five minutes lane, rutted and muddy in places, field- supply, the Pump. you observe the T-junction with the edge paths and bridleways side road down to the R C National Dogs: on leads, please [This walk can be combined with 00 minutes Shrine and Slipper Chapel. Keep atop 4 With your back to the Bull public Walsingham Walk 4 to make a the bank on the field edge for a significantly longer walk: + 75 minutes] house set off across the High Street, further two minutes when you can past the Pump into an arched then descend to the by-road via a entrance between 53 and 57 High slope used by farm vehicles. Street. This is Swan Entry. At the top of the Entry turn left onto Cokers 15 minutes Hill and, crossing Station Road, keep Retrace your steps (but at the lower 4 straight on into Back Lane. Within a level of the road) to the T-junction, few minutes you pass the last house and turn right (signposted East on your right, Pilgrim Cottage. Keep Barsham) onto the Houghton road. straight on to a T-junction with Traffic hazard! another little-used by-road, Blind Stay on the right facing the oncoming Dick’s Lane. traffic and cross the road bridge over the stream-like River . Water Cross the lane into the field and turn meadows on either side are used at left along the field edge, with the  times for grazing. hedge on your left-hand side, going downhill parallel to the lane for a Cross the main road opposite a gap minute or two. Keep to the field in the hedge just after the bridge, go edge, turning at the field corner. You through the gap and turn right onto a grassy path inside the Abbey park 25 minutes (permissive access). Continue to the At a sinuous copse (Boundary ON THE MARGIN Estate lodge and gate, exit the park, Plantation) the track may appear to The most visible change in farming practice in the last few years has been at the and turn left up the track between fork into a field, but keep right on the margin of arable fields. Uncropped strips are now often found between the the cottage and a wood. You are now main track. However, two minutes boundary hedgebank and the crop itself. These managed strips may be from two on the Green Way, an ancient route later this walk (5) turns left off the to six metres wide. Part may be cultivated, for example to encourage traditional between Little Walsingham and Great Green Way onto a permissive path annual cornfield flowers. Strips may be sown with a low-maintenance grass Snoring. The first part of this track which runs alongside the southern mixture. Once established this grass provides habitat for ground nesting birds alongside the wood may be muddy edge of Boundary Plantation. [Walk 3 and invertebrates, and also benefits game birds and predators such as barn owls. but it improves. The wide, grassy continues on the Green Way at this The strips are usually cut once, after harvest. track climbs up towards Great point.] Although tempting, please do not walk on these strips or allow dogs on. Snoring past grazing pastures and arable fields. Substantial trees and In about five minutes you arrive at hedges border the lane. the Gt Snoring to Walsingham road. Traffic hazard! Turn right on to the [Once through the hedge you have a Traffic hazard! Straight on (no entrance to the Abbey Grounds and road. After two minutes cross the choice. To make a significantly longer pavement) towards the Bull public Georgian court house). [Visit road and enter a field through a wide walk turn right here, joining the Walk house and the Common Place with possible] gap. To your left is concrete hard- 4 route, and taking approximately 75 its early sixteenth century Pump standing, used to load sugar beet in minutes to return to Little House, Shirehall Museum (visitor 80 minutes the winter. Go straight ahead along Walsingham via high fields above the field edge (permissive path) Great Walsingham.] THE SOURCE TO SEA keeping the hedge on your right-hand As the crow flies, the River Stiffkey originates some six miles to the south- side. The main Walk 5 route continues straight on and gradually downhill, on east of Little Walsingham, near the small village of . On the 40 minutes a permissive bridleway running ground it wanders for twenty miles from its source before discharging into the At the end of this field turn left onto parallel with the Road. North Sea, to the east of the village of Stiffkey. Never large or dramatic the a section of public footpath beside Continue on this sometimes river can seem more like a stream. Yet its existence has shaped the landscape the next field. The hedge on this indistinct bridleway through two and determined settlements. field-edge path is now on your left- fields, to the copse straight ahead. At The river skirts before running alongside the magnificent Tudor hand side. At the bottom of the field the edge of the copse, near the Manor House at . Behind the Slipper Chapel and through go through the gap, beside an old tree electricity poles, bear right away from Walsingham Abbey grounds it continues northeastwards. Just before Warham trunk, into the next field, bearing the road, keeping the mature trees on an arc in the river strengthens the defences of an ancient Iron Age hill fort. immediately left and then right along your left-hand side. Enter the next Two ramparts and ditches enclose this awesome site covering 3 ½ acres. the footpath into an adjoining field. field and turn immediately left [Visit possible] At least part of Hill House Farm can downhill on the field-edge bridleway, be seen ahead, and the hedge will still skirting the copse. Towards the Flowing through the coastal village of Stiffkey (traditionally pronounced now be to your right. After a few bottom of this field, on your left-hand Stewkey), and through magnificent, bird-rich water meadows, the river finally minutes you arrive in front of the side, you emerge on the outskirts of meets the sea. farm and its outbuildings, on the Little Walsingham. Traffic hazard! In 1932 the national press descended on the village of Stiffkey where Harold Thursford to Walsingham road. Davidson had been Rector since 1906. Much loved by his parishioners for his Traffic hazard! 70 minutes practical kindness, the Rector promoted the rights of ordinary people. This Turning right as you leave the field made him some powerful enemies locally, and in the Church. In 1932, on 50 minutes keep straight on across the little evidence, was charged with immorality and tried in a Cross the road and turn left, Scarborough Road junction to the Church court. Still declaring his innocence, and despite much popular continuing on the road away from the pavement. Continue straight ahead support, he was defrocked. farmyard and outbuildings towards besides a grazing meadow and cross Little Walsingham, passing a pair of the flint-sided bridge over the River In the following years Harold Davidson struggled to find work to support his semi-detached flint cottages (nos. 3 & Stiffkey, to find vestiges of the village’s family and pay the costs of his trial. In August 1937 he was hired to appear at 4) and a house (no. 6). In a couple of former pound for stray animals. a Skegness amusement park. For the finale he was to walk into a lion’s cage. minutes enter the field at your right- Cross Knight Street by the Anglican The act went badly awry. Harold Davidson was mauled and died the next day. hand side through a gap in the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham At the request of his former parishioners he was buried at Stiffkey, his life hedgerow. Turn left onto the field [Visit possible. Welcome centre, celebrated by some 3,000 mourners. edge, running parallel with the road. gardens, Shrine church, café-bar] At the field corner go on through a opposite the fabled, diminutive Read more: The Landscape David Dymond (1985) gap in the boundary hedge. ‘Knight’s Gate’ to the Abbey grounds. Harold Frances Davidson, a biography of his life and trial Karilyn Collier