Knettishall Heath and Hopton Walk

What a lovely walk! Perfect walking conditions and convivial group of walkers. I was standing in as walk leader for Joyce while she was on holiday and I pinched and embellished a Bury St. Edmunds Ramblers walk from last year for today. Thanks Chris for the inspiration!

This is what the walk listing (should have) said.

"Friday 28th June. Let’s have a proper Breckland walk. We will visit the Norfolk side of the boundary with Suffolk along the river Little Ouse, taking in some of the Angles Way, seeing where Princess Diana went to school and stopping off at The Well in Hopton for refreshments (great value). We will return via Knettishall Airfield and through Knettishall Heath where we will hopefully encounter the Exmoor ponies. The total distance will be about 9 miles. Meet at the main Car Park at Knettishall Heath, IP22 2TQ (suggested donations of £1 per car for parking) to start walking at 10am or, alternatively, at Skyliner Sports centre, Rougham Tower Avenue, Bury Saint Edmunds IP32 7QB for car share at 9:15am."

This was our route....

Here are a few photos.

We joined the Angles Way just after crossing the River Little Ouse.  Passing Riddlesworth Park Glamping site...

...we soon reached Riddlesworth Hall School, which Princess Diana attended between 1970 and 1974. Read more about her time there here.

 

Not the Exmoor ponies, but we saw these in a field along the way,

We passed the Old School House for children of workers on the estate.

We came to Gasthorpe village, from where Bill Gates family originated. It has a working public telephone box!

 We crossed back into Suffolk by Little Lodge Farm, recently on sale for about £9.5m

Passing Hopton Fen we climbed up into Hopton village, where we had our half way stop the the delightful little coffee shop, The Well.

Here I took our group photo of the day...

Leaving the Angles Way we set off back to Knettishall Heath. We came via this nice boardwalk through a wood.

We passed Market Weston Fen before climbing up to Knettishall Airfield, home in the second world war, as described here, to 500 Flying Fortress air crews. We walked around the perimeter concrete path...

...and around the lovely memorial line of tress planted along the original main runway....

...to reach the Knettishall Heath nature reserve once again.

We didn't head straight for the car park. Instead we walked through some of the woodland...

...and heathland...

...and along the river...

...where we saw plenty of fish, before we returned to the main car park.

We never met the ponies, so here is a photo of them from a previous walk here.

You can see more of my photos here on Flickr and more details of our route here on MapMyWalk.