Marriott's Way

Today we had a walk through Norwich and along part of the route of the old Midland and Great Northern railway, known as Marriott's Way.

This was the invite from Joyce

"Thursday 9th December Norwich - a longer walk of approx 14-15 miles as we explore the Marriott's Way. Parking is free at Notcutts Garden Centre , Daniels Road, Town Centre, Norwich NR4 6QP . We will meet here at 9.30am and walk through Norwich City Centre to the start of the disused railway line called Marriott's Way. We will walk to Drayton for a coffee stop and then to Lenwade where we will catch a bus back to Norwich and walk back to our cars. "

William came too and, as were starting in Norwich, Laura was able to join us. They hadn't seen each other for a long time, what with Laura beavering away at her research in Portsmouth and William being in York, We worked out that it was, in fact, on our snowy seaside walk  at Sea Palling at the beginning of April - see here. They did enjoy a good chat along the way!

This was our route up to catching the bus back.

We met at Northcutts Garden Centre as planned and walked into the city centre to meet up with Glen and Laura. Marriot's Way itself starts by a roundabout at the junction of Barn Road and Barker Street on the inner ring road and we were on it by 10:30.  Here are a few of my photos.

Joyce explaining the plan at the start.

In town we came across a shop window with lots of little figurines. It is part of the Let's Fugurine it Out exhibition, with thousands of young people creating their own figurine to capture how they are feeling as restrictions lift and people come back together as a community.

William and I went to find Laura and we circumnavigated the market to rejoin the rest of the group.

This is the start of Marriott's Way. The name of the route originates from the chief engineer and manager of the Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway, William Marriott, who held the position for 41 years. The line itself is also known as the ‘Muddle & Go Nowhere' line.

Much of this area was part of the former Norwich City railway station. Here is the information board at the start.

 

The route follows the valley of the River Wensum, which we crossed and recrossed a few times. There are a number of circular walks from points along the trail as described here, but we just followed the main route.

Each milepoint along the way has a marker. Here is the first one.

It was a bit drizzly most of the way to Drayton, so I had to keep wiping my camera lens.

There are also milestones like these, showing the distance to... we don't know. But here it was 50 and it counted down as we followed the route of the old track. Looking at the map here, could it be distance the to great Yarmouth via Aylsham? [Update: I read here that it is distance to Kings Lynn].

Some of the markers had engravings attached - here's one of them. You can see the complete set here and read about the first 10 here.

We completed the 4.4 mile stretch to Drayton Station in 80 minutes, which I make an average speed of 3.3mph. No wonder I was struggling to catch up when I stopped to take photos!

We stopped in Drayton for a drinks break here.

Laura, William and I sat outside.

Thwarted! We couldn't rejoin the path here, so had to reroute lightly.

Not all of the path is surfaced in tarmac or compacted gravel, so we did find a few muddier bits. Nothing impassable, though.

Something was happening in the sky.

We got buzzed several times by this pretty blue bi-plane.

This is what used to be Attlebridge station, now a private dwelling, but it retains the level crossing gate, signal and remains of the platform.

The River Wensum is close to breaking its banks in places.

Nearly there - we're approaching Lenwade station here.

We were in nice time for the 3pm bus back to Norwich.

Then it was back to garden centre car park as the sun went down. And, yes, we had totalled just about 15 miles.

Well that was a bit different and very enjoyable, with some lovely scenery. Thank-you Joyce for leading us and to her and everyone else for the company.

You can see more of my photos, including more of the mile markers and information boards, here,  on Fickr and more details of our route here on MapMyWalk or here on OSMaps.... of which more anon.