| SAXLINGHAM
NETHERGATE . 1965. 3.6.00. This walk of 7 miles can be combined with
last week's for a splendid 12 mile round. Saxlingham Nethergate claims
that its earliest inhabitant was a descendant of the Saxons from north
Germany who drove out the Celtic people and destroyed the Roman civilisation
after 410 AD. Those early invaders were illiterate barbarians of whom
we know very little except that those Nordic people are our true ancestors
and from them we inherit the distinguishing characteristics of being
English. The venerable Bede records the kings who brought the early
Saxons out of the dark ages and the Anglo-Saxon chronicle adds a little
more but the country folk lived in wooden huts so that their short
and simple annals are known only by artefacts. Nevertheless Norfolk
archaeologists tell us that they were formed into tribes by about
550AD under lords who regulated the tribal customs which accorded
every man a value. If any man was caught in adultery then he had to
provide the wronged husband with a new wife. If he discovered that
his bride was not a virgin, he returned her and claimed back the price
he had paid. What their women folk thought is fortunately unrecorded.
Start with the recreation ground in Saxlingham Nethergate on your
right and follow a green path alongside the road to a junction with
a narrow lane. Turn right and the lane leads past the playing field
and one field on your right before you turn right into a clear path.
The path follow a right edge and then through trees to a road on Saxlingham
Green. Turn left parallel with the road using a green path on the
grassy verge to a road junction by a telephone box. Continue ahead
along the road through Saxlingham Green, passing attractive houses
redolent of the rural life of times gone to the end of the green marked
idyllically with a pond and old barns. Follow the road passing Elm
Cottage and Thetford Farm for three quarters of a mile to a junction.
Go straight ahead for Shotesham but when the road bends sharply left
into Fylands Road you go ahead into an unpaved lane. Ignore all side
tracks leading into fields but when the lane bends sharply left you
go into the tree lined path ahead. The path leads for a quarter mile
to a clear crossing lane. Turn left and once more a tree lined route
leads delightfully to a road on a corner. Turn left past Oakdene and
two fields on your left then turn left over a culvert into a field.
Turn and follow a right edge parallel with the road to a corner where
turn left and continue by the right edge but halfway along the field
turn right over a culvert into the corner of another field. Go straight
ahead along a right edge to the next corner. Turn left and a right
edge leads to another corner. Go ahead through a wide gap and again
along a right edge but just after a pond on your right you turn right
through a hedge into the next field. A right edge leads you to a road.
Turn right and quickly left into a green track alongside a house which
soon follow a right edge of a long field but when you reach a cultivated
patch you turn left. Go straight to the middle of the field where
turn right and follow a path between two crops to the end of the field.
Go over planks and into the corner of another field and ahead along
left edge to a road. Turn left and at the top of a rise you bear right
into Wash Lane. This ancient sunken lane leads for a mile to a junction
with Wood Lane. Turn left and the lane bends right but when it bends
left you go straight ahead into a field corner. Follow right edges
but halfway along the second field turn left and go straight up the
sloping field passing closely to the third lone tree from the left
and ahead to a road on the far side. Turn right and follow this pretty
lane to its end. Turn left along a green path back to the recreation
ground. "Rambler" |
