Today I did my first full walk back with Joyce's Weekly Walks Group after my knee surgery.
It was a linear walk from Pulham St. Mary back to Diss. This was the invite from Joyce.
"Thursday August 20th Please street park on Walcot Rise, Diss IP22 4PD for Midday. We will be getting a single fare to Pulham St Mary (12.08pm) and walking back to Diss. The walk was tested last week but I have shortened it to a 10-mile route. There is now a Footpath that hasn’t been tested but I am hopeful it will be ok. Yes, it’s a later walk but sometimes that is just lovely. The bus drops us at approx 12.40pm and we will walk to Pennoyers for a coffee (they do fruit and cheese scones but they recommend you reserve these so do let me know). Pennoyers is a wonderful community space – you will be impressed. Please note that we will start walking after our stop at Pennoyer’s. There is some lane walking but we follow a lot of The Boudicca Way back to Diss with a delightful church thrown in. We will aim to finish approx 5.30pm and then move our cars, round the corner, to enjoy the delights of Ampersand Brewery and Burger Jam afterwards. Please find the menu for Burger Jam attached. Maybe you fancy joining us for the refreshments only?"
This was our route today.
Here are some of my photos. There were fifteen of us today and it was a bit of a squeeze to get on the bus at the start. Here we are gathering at the bus stop. Umbrellas up as some light rain falls and thunder rumbles around.
We were, fortunately, just at the edge of the thundery shower. It wouldn't be our last!
Getting off the bus at Pulham St. Mary. As you can see, it wasn't a big one.
What a brilliant place! This building is named after William Pennoyer, who left money to the village for a school in his will in 1670. This free school educated the children of Pulham St Mary and surrounding villages until 1988. Before Pennoyer's became a school, it was a chapel. It was built in 1401, by the hat-makers of Pulham, who had formed a guild. Read about the subsequent history that turned it into what it is today
here.
Time for drinks and a few scones.
You can see how the building evolved from the original chapel here.
One of the 'flying pigs' features on the village sign, underneath which the group photo at the top of the post was taken.
And so off we went on our walk. No time, alas, to visit Pulham St. Mary church.
Our walk was very rural, but with some excellent paths. I managed to keep up with the front of the group.
Looking back at the others, the sky looked ominous behind.
Now we were on the familiar paths of
Boudicca Way. Here we passed the well-preserved Pulham Market station (opened as Pulham St. Magdalene station in 1855 and renamed in 1856) on the disused Waveney Valley Line, now a private residence.
As the station clock indicates, the railway was also known as the Waveney Valley Light Railway.
Yes. We are on the Boudicca Way.
We saw some spectacular cloud formations today.
Here we got caught in a thundery shower for a few minutes. It was tempting to shelter in The Ram, but we pressed on.
Now we were in bright sunshine again.
But looking to our left we could see this.
It was "changeable weather" as they say.
We came to Shimpling and this information display by the road and village sign.
We went inside briefly and I got my sandwich out for my lunch but was only half way through it when I got the call that we were moving on. In my haste I managed to leave my umbrella behind on the pew. Grr!
I think this is Thelveton Hall. This was as close as we got to it.
And this is Thelveton church which we also passed by.
Oh dear. We are heading into some more rain.
We had one ploughed field to cross, but I managed it fine.
And now the rain came down. I wished I hadn't left my brolly behind!
But then the sun came out again.
There must be a rainbow somewhere, and yes, here it is.
And suddenly it was bright warm sunshine again.
...and the familiar signpost where the Angles Way and Boudicca Way diverge.
Fortunately there was a footbridge so we didn't have to wade through the ford here.
Not far to go now, as we passed under the railway line.
And here we are back where we started.
They had a great selection of beers on.
A good time was had by all. Most of the group had stayed on for a drink...
...and the burgers were excellent!
A lovely day out and it was nice to get a bit of rain. Thank-you Joyce for leading us round and to everyone else for the additional company.
You can find more details of our 9.8 mile route
here on MapMyWalk or
here on OS Maps (or download a GPX file
here) and more of my photos
here on Flickr.
Other related walks you can find on my blog include
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