Nature Reserves – From start to finish the route passes through internationally important wetland including – R.S.P.B. Berney Marshes and Breydon Water, Mid Yare National Nature Reserve, Wheatfen Nature Reserve, Church Marsh Surlingham.
Heritage Churches – Can be browsed on Diocese of Norwich’s Exploring Norfolk Churches and Simon Knott’s Churches of East Anglia websites.
Great Yarmouth – Once no more than a sandbank at the mouth of the Great Estuary, the port and town grew up around the Minster Church . The Minster was founded as a cell of Norwich’s Cathedral Priory in 1101. Great Yarmouth has a railway station, moorings for visiting pleasure boats. It is a good place from which to make day pilgrimages to Burgh Castle in honour St. Fursey and Reedham, in honour St. Felix.
Berney Arms ( sadly, no longer a pub!) is at the half-way point between Great Yarmouth and Reedham. It boasts a wind pump, a request stop railway station and visitor moorings. Berney Arms is the central point of the Berney Marshes Nature Reserve.
Burgh Castle, on the opposite shore of Breydon Water, is the traditional site of St. Fursey’s 7th Century monastery. A church hub in the 8th Century, the church was transferred to a position outside the walls in the 11th Century to make way for a Norman castle. The round towered St. Peter and St. Paul’s Church, Burgh Castle remains in use today. Burgh Castle is served by a bus route to and from Great Yarmouth.
Reedham – When approaching the village from the east the bulk of St.John the Baptist Church can be seen from a distance, on a finger of high ground above the marshes. In Roman times, it was surrounded on three sides by the sea, the perfect defensive site for the small Roman fort. St. Felix, a contemporary of St. Fursey and 1st Bishop of East Anglia, established a base here close to the royal centre at Loddon. The present church, a little way off the waymarked route, occupies the same footprint as the fort. It’s present 14th and 15th Century fabric contains many re-used Roman bricks and pieces of masonry. The village has shops, pubs, a brewery, a railway station, moorings, a camping site and the ferry .
Heckingham there’s not much here except the Church of St. Gregory in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust.
Loddon – An East Anglian royal centre in the 7th Century. St. Felix founded a church here, most likely on the site of the present Holy Trinity Church. The town has moorings, a good bus service to Lowestoft and Norwich, shops, overnight accommodation and places to eat.
Rockland is home to the New Inn, St. Mary’s Church and Wheatfen Nature Reserve. There are moorings, a Post Office, Store and a Tea Room.
Surlingham – The Ferry House is a riverside pub providing moorings, over-night camping and good food. There are two churches, St. Saviours and St.Mary’s
Trowse – at St. Andrew’s Church the route turns north, to cross the river and the final leg into Norwich.
Arriving in Norwich, pilgrims pass the site of Carrow Abbey and cross the river to arrive at Norwich train station. Many will want to pop across the river on the Lady Julian footbridge to St. Julian’s Church and Centre to honour Mother Julian before arriving at the end of the Wherryman’s Way at Norwich train station.
Those intending to complete their journey at Norwich Cathedral can continue to follow the river up-stream to cross over at Bishop’s Bridge. Opposite the bridge, the Lollards’ Pit pub marks where so many, including some from Loddon, were burned at the stake. Crossing the river, we continue past St. Helen’s Church and the Great Hospital, established in 1249 and still going strong; to enter the Cathedral Close from Bishop’s Bridge Road and, perhaps, stopping at the grave of Edith Cavell, the pioneer nurse-educator who was executed during the First World War; before arriving at Norwich Cathedral reception.
The Walsingham Way 