Day Six

Monday 23 August - Mildenhall to Newmarket

Mildenhall is known for two things. The first is the large RAF base, located immediately north of the town. The base, now used by the United States Air Force, was established as a Royal Air Force station in 1930. During World War II, Bomber Command used the station for operational combat missions until 1945. Placed on standby status after the war, it was reopened by the Royal Air Force and became a USAF-RAF joint operation base in 1950.

Secondly, Mildenhall is noted for the discovery in 1943 of the Mildenhall Treasure. Now at the British Museum, the treasure is a hoard of Roman silver objects buried in the 4th century. In 1946 the discovery was made public and the treasure acquired by the British Museum; Roald Dahl wrote an article about the find which was published firstly in the Saturday Evening Post, and later as "The Mildenhall Treasure" in his short story collection The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More. (Thanks to Wikipedia for facts, and the picture.)

Having said all of which, the town centre is quite small and traffic-clogged, so I left by a side door and headed back to the River Lark. Despite the torrential rain during the night, the going was firm on the field paths leading to the river – the soil round here drains well. The river was in quiet mood on this Monday morning, nobody fishing or picking blackberries, just me and some cows.

At Kings Staunch Cottage, a footbridge crossed the river by a weir, a beautiful spot. The light was dramatic, sun breaking through lowering clouds, rain threatened but never delivered. So it was to remain all day.

Another field path led to the outskirts of Worlington, a pleasant village. From here I was to take a track marked on the map with green dots. These are significant, marking “other routes with public access.” The OS map goes on to say that “the exact nature of the rights… on these routes may be checked with the local highway authority.” In other words, don’t blame us, guv, you’re on your own. These pop up all over the place; often they are part-metalled road, part-track, depending on local needs along their length. A hundred yards might be tarmacked between a road and somebody’s garage, whilst another stretch is gravelled between farm gates. So it was here, the local feature being that it was (surprise!) almost dead straight. This was to remain another day dominated by straight lines.

Near Blandings Farm (no sign of the Empress, but lots of more common pigs laying waste to the fields), I rejoined the Icknield Way Path. Having glanced at the map, I was not expecting the path designers to deliver me a grassy walk. They ran out of footpaths at this stage, and instead the route lies along lanes for two to three miles.

Beyond Chippenham, the road got busier, with (gasp!) some bends, so I had to pay attention for a few minutes. The reason for the bends is that the road respectfully skirts the grounds of Chippenham Park, a 17th Century house entirely hidden behind trees. At Snailwell, I left the road to follow a bridleway, which ran parallel with a gallop, white rails and all – I was now well inside the area of influence of Newmarket.

Even by local standards, bridleway and gallop were remarkably straight. The poor horses must get bored to death galloping for a mile without the hint of a turn. A farm-style bridge led over the very busy and noisy A14, on to what appeared to be a disused drive through trees, ending with some ornate gates. A glance at the map solved the mystery – this was the bottom end of a former two-mile driveway from Chippenham Park, where the gentry issued forth to mix with the common herd in the town of Newmarket.

This is generally considered the birthplace and global centre of thoroughbred horse racing. It is the largest racehorse training centre in Britain, and home to most major British horseracing institutions. Racing at Newmarket has been dated as far back as 1174, making it the earliest known racing venue of post-classical times. King James I greatly increased the popularity of horse racing there, and King Charles I followed this by inaugurating the first cup race in 1634. The Jockey Club's clubhouse is in Newmarket. The town is also home to the National Horseracing Museum, the National Stud, and Tattersalls, the famous bloodstock auctioneers whose sales are attended by big names in the racing business. (Thanks Wikipedia)

Yes, it’s all about horses. Some of the traffic lights can be triggered by horse riders so that they can cross the road. And alongside some of the main roads there are passages which look like cycle tracks but are forbidden to cyclists, being there to allow horses safe passage away from the traffic. I used one of these on my way into town, for the same purpose. Newmarket’s High Street is very long and very s******* (you fill in the blanks).

After three days of often blustery weather, with no effect on my progress, my coach journey back to London was held up by a fallen tree. In Wanstead, near the tube station.

Day Five

Sunday 22 August - Thetford to Mildenhall

This was to be a strange day. More than any day’s walk I could remember, it was to consist chiefly of walking in straight lines. Not always in the same direction, but very straight between turns. But it was a bit wiggly to start with.

Taking leave of the Captain, still sitting to attention on his bench, I set out South on yet another named path, in fact one with three names - the St Edmund Way, the Icknield Way, and the Angles Way Link (I had never heard of this last). They love them! Show them a footpath and they’ll give it a name. If I walked along just another footpath, I half expected a sign to declare it the Just Another Footpath Footpath.

My way lay across Barnhamcross Common.Thetford is singularly blessed with commons, still nudging into the outskirts of the town despite recent housing developments. After a bit of shilly-shallying (too many tracks on the ground) I picked up the first of my straight runs.

The nature of the tracks went with the territory. This is Breckland. Wikipedia tells me that “”The Breckland as a landscape region is an unusual natural habitat of England. It comprises the gorse-covered sandy heath that exists in the north of the county of Suffolk and the south of Norfolk. An area of considerable interest for its unusual flora and fauna, it lies to the south east of another unusual habitat, The Fens, and to the south west of the Norfolk Broads. The typical tree of this area is the Scots Pine. The Brecks are one of the driest places in England. The area of Breckland has been substantially reduced in the twentieth century by the impact of modern farming and the creation in 1914 of Thetford Forest.”

What this means in practical terms is two things: firstly, you are walking mostly on sand or sandy soil; and secondly that you walk old-established tracks which went straight across the landscape because they could. No hills or other natural features got in the way, and the rivers could be forded or easily bridged.

I was walking through woodland. To my left, signs urged me to keep out of MOD property, and from my right, deep in the woods, came the sound of gunfire. The map revealed the existence of a firing range. I relied on the fact that there is a presumption against shooting civilians on public footpaths unless absolutely necessary. This had been confirmed to me on my coastwalk, some years ago. As I passed Chickerell Sands range (behind Chesil Bank), carefully walking along the recommended route for firing days, I was hailed by an embarrassed officer, who urged me to move further off as he could not guarantee that his troops would miss me.

Trusting that the present lot would be better trained today, I pressed on. I turned South for a 2½ mile straight run down to Barrow’s Corner. I passed (and kept passing) pockets of Access Land, declared under the CRoW Act, on the grounds, I think, that they were “unimproved” heathland - that is, never altered by farming methods from their original state. They were lovely to look at, especially the land covered in gorse, now aflame with spectacular purple blooms, but these parcels of land are not much use as alternative through routes, since they are still fenced and access points are limited.

West from Barrow’s Cross, the route was not quite straight - on the map it looks as though it had been pushed from both ends, forming a series of pleats. The surface was lovely, semi-hard sand, settled by the heavy overnight rain, was a joy to walk on, like seaside sand just after the tide has gone out. I trotted happily along. A small animal with a long tail, its colour matching the sandy soil, crossed my path; dragonflies looped and swooped above my head; a pair of spotted-pink diaphanous knickers hung from a bough.

Ahead, rising above the trees, rose a very tall monument (a Corinthian column about 30 metres high and surmounted by an urn, I read on the Listed British Buildings website). Standing beside the A11, at the meeting place of three parishes, it commemorates the war dead of all three.

The track had the status of a byway - in effect this meant that any traffic could use it. I was passed by a few cycists, and I heard some motorcyclists, but only the occasional land-rovery vehicle drove past, until I had just turned off this track on to another heading South. When I looked back, a cortege of 4x4 vehicles, five of them, was processing very, very slowly. The effect was weird. Later, the same procession passed me. It was an outing of, I guess, 4x4 enthusiasts accompanied by partners and children. Each gave me a cheery wave, which naturally I returned. The use of byways by these vehicles is often controversial - large chunks of the Ridgeway have been ruined by them - and there was a stretch here where the sandy surface had been rutted, but you couldn’t fault this lot for courtesy and consideration - no crashing gears and clouds of dust in my vicinity. I hope they had a nice day.

The byway ended at Icklingham, which suffers from being on a winding main road. There was nothing here to detain me, so I turned West on to another byway. The main road led to Mildenhall, but I had another way to get there. I was after a lark, the River Lark, along whose banks I would reach the town. Some stretches of the river had, I think, been fairly recently reinforced or tidied up to maintain the effectivess of flood defences - these were boring to look at. But other stretches has been left alone, plants softening the bank, and these were delightful. A young woman in a brightly-coloured sarong was picking blackberries. She offered me one from her punnet - delicious! Further along, a girl and a woman were examining a decent catch of crayfish in a bucket. They were friendly but didn't offer to share them.

As I approached Mildenhall, familes were enjoying the lovely sunshine. A recreation ground bordered the path. Boys were fishing. In most places, signs declare that fishing rights belong to this or that club. Here the fishing is limited to residents to the parish of Mildenhall. I didn’t check anyone’s credentials. The town, apart from Sainsbury’s, was sleeping through the hot afternoon, so I bought an icecream and wandered a little way out of the centre of town to find my b&b.

Day Four

Saturday 21 August - Wortham to Thetford

Wortham was home to the author Richard Cobbold (scion of the Suffolk brewing family) between 1825 and 1877 - he was the Rector. He was best known for his novel, Margaret Catchpole, about a (real) Suffolk woman transported to Australia for stealing a horse. I had been reading this book for about a week before this trip - since this is a Nineteenth Century novel, I was of course only a quarter of the way through it.

Cobbold’s morality tale almost certainly took liberties with the truth - he needed a fallen but reformed woman, in thrall to a blackguard, to serve his own rectorly purposes, so that’s what he wrote. In 1860 he also published The Biography Of A Victorian Village - Wortham, which contained a series of drawings and character details of various members of the community during the mid-Victorian period.

It’s a spread-out community; the church is a mile or so North of the village green, from where I started my walk. The green is crossed by roads and drives leading to houses sprinkled round the edge. I walked West along Redgrave Road, which has a broad swathe of green on either side, all the houses being placed well back. Temporary fences contain animals - horses and sheep - on what may be common land.

The road was very quiet, but it was still good to turn off on to a footpath. “Very flat, Norfolk.” (N. Coward) “Ditto, Suffolk. (D.Oldman) The fields roll at most very, very gently, and often not at all. Hedges and bits of woodland break up the landscape, staving off boredom. Harvesting was going on, a combine charging along in a cloud of dust a couple of fields away. Despite leaving the Redgrave Road, I reached Redgrave anyway.

This is a long linear village, the variety of cars in drives indicating that it is not just a country retreat for the rich. There was a shop, but I had enough supplies on board.

Beyond Redgrave, the map indicated that I was climbing up to Gallows Hill. You could have fooled me. But there must be some relative height here, because this is a watershed. Within a hundred yards or so of each other, the Waveney starts to flow East, while the Little Ouse begins its journey West.

 Skirting a field full of huge sheds, I reached Hinderclay Fen, a nature reserve and recreation area managed (very well) by the local community. This was the first of a string of fens serving as nature reserves along the route. By now I was back on the Angles Way, heading generally Westwards.

As I walked past but not through the village of Thelnetham, A windmill appeared on the right. It was in a good state of repair, which often windmills are not these days.

The Angles Way lived up to its name again, dog-legging its way back towards the riverside, although now it was a different river, the aforementioned Little Ouse. Soon I  crossed the river, entering Norfolk again.

Beyond Gasthorpe, I passed School Plantation, Old School House and Riddlesworth Hall School. A pattern was beginning to emerge. The last-named is a rather imposing country house coverted, by the addition of features such as a spiral fire escape from a terrace (!) into a private school.

The Angles Way breathed its last at Knettishall Heath, a country park with open heathland, woodland walks, and a splashy pool in the river which was being enthusiastically splashed in by several children. One of the woodland walks (not on the map) led me to my next named path, a National Trail no less, the Peddars Way. In fact Knettishall Heath is the meeting place for four long-distance footpaths: the Angles Way, the Icknield Way Path, the Iceni Way and the Peddars Way (part of the Peddars Way and Norfolk Coast Path National Trail). As if that weren’t enough, the Hereward Way ends at nearby East Harling!

None of these routes actually goes to Thetford, my stop for the night, so I was now heading North on the Peddars Way to connect with what I hoped would turn out to be quiet lanes into Thetford. After a quick burst of main road (the A1066, not too much of a battle - arf! arf!) I found the first lane, which was indeed fairly quiet.

At Brettenham I turned West on to another road. There was not much traffic, but it was fast, witness the incredible amount of roadkill (all pheasants) spread along the tarmac. Luckily the lightness of the traffic allowed the drivers to give me a wide berth, and for a mile or so I happily trespassed along the edge of a couple of fields, allowing me to switch off from being on constant alert.

Just beyond Thetford Garden Centre (temptingly, they had a coffee shop, but I was too near to journey’s end to stop now, I turned South on to Green Lane, shown on the map as crossing fields towards the centre of the town. It actually now squeezes between a large enclave of new houses and a huge Tesco’s. Still, “they” have protected the route, even providing a shale surface to ease tired feet. By the time the ex-track, now footpath/cycleway ends, the town centre is very near.

Two glamorous police support officers directed me to my b&b, a former Georgian rectory. Later, after an excellent pub-supper, I went on a hunt for a statue. Not Tom Paine, he could wait his turn. I was after Captain Mainwaring. A riverside walk (lovely, with blood-orange sky glimpsed through the trees) I reached the Town Bridge, and there he was, sitting on a bench, contemplating glories to come in the service of King and Country. Why was he here? Because Thetford acquired a curious alias, doubling as South coast resort Walmington-on-Sea during filming for Dad's Army. Although the last of the 80 episodes was made more than thirty years ago, the programme still regularly tops "best of" lists, and Thetford's publicists are keen to point out the venues, in and around the town, where different scenes were filmed. The ultimate accolade is this statue of Captain Mainwaring, keeping watch by the river. I passed the Tom Paine statue just round the corner, but quite honestly it was a bit of an anti-climax.

Back at the b&b, I turned on the telly, and the next programme was, hand on heart, Dad’s Army!