Norfolk Coast & Countryside

Pedal down little lanes dotted with farmsteads and woodland, across lands associated not just with Tudor and Elizabethan queens, but with Queen Boudicca and her Iceni tribe. The medieval lantern-towered church of Swaffham is soon on the horizon, and it’s well worth calling by to admire the first of several awesome angel roofs which you will encounter as your Norfolk travels unfurl. Drink in a coffee along with the town’s Regency feel alongside the fine domed Buttercross perhaps, before continuing the fine walled gardens of historic West Acre and the unrivalled little collection of early medieval gems that is Castle Acre.

Nestled in a beautiful river valley, it’s a true window onto times past. The tiny medieval town sits sandwiched between 12th century castle earthworks and one of England’s largest and best preserved monastic sites, dating to 1090. If you’re into architectural treasures and tranquil, timeless views, this is a place for you!

Follow the Peddars Way (off-road path) a while and Great Massingham soon comes up with more abbey connections. A village known for its impressive green, the extensive ponds here were originally monastic ‘fisheries’, but a little further on, it’s Houghton Hall which steals the show.

This perfectly Palladian mansion was built by Britain’s first Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole and is now famed for its award-winning walled gardens, and sculpture park which often plays host to the work of internationally renowned artists.

Finally, as you wind your way towards your accommodation near the market town of Fakenham, keep an eye out for the tell-tale earthwork signs of lost medieval villages in the lanes around Broomsthorpe and close to the medieval church at Dunton.

Overnight: In the Fakenham area

Mileage: Rec 31 Min 30 Max 39

The route options for today’s circular rides are packed with fascinating finds and famous folk storylines.

Take a gentle pedal west to revisit Palladian pile, Houghton Hall on route to royal family favourite, Sandringham and spin back by Bircham’s impressive tower mill. Both stately homes on this tour are a real treat, with something for everyone…
Be sure to plan a longer visit to Houghton Hall if you’re military-minded – as well as being home to sumptuous state rooms and amazing gardens, its Model Soldier Museum features one of the largest private collections of painted soldiers in the world, displayed in fascinating recreated battle-scapes.

Sandringham may be the Royal family’s residence of choice at Christmas, but the Victorian-built Jacobean-style house and its 600 acre park are beautiful throughout the year. With its stunning grounds, ‘homely’ royal house and fab museum packed with royal memorabilia, there’s so much to while away the day.

Or what about a cycle northwards to out-of-this-Norfolk-world destination, Walsingham – a pilgrimage site since medieval times? Following holy visions in 1061, Little Walsingham attracted the attention of the great and good from across Europe, even rivalling Canterbury with its shrine. The Reformation left its mighty mark here, but abbey ruins in beautiful grounds, religious communities and a pilgrim chapels still make this a fascinating and highly spiritual place.

Lazy lanes will lead your there via North Barsham’s tiny tower-free church and Houghton St Giles, an historic treasure church, ‘pilgrim’s rest’ and home to one of Norfolk’s most renowned painted rood screens. Your return ride winds past chequered brick farmsteads and sleepy villages including Great Snoring (!) for a chance to explore the bustling market town of Fakenham with its more down-to-earth Museum of Gas and Local History.

Overnight: In the Fakenham area

Mileage: Rec 37 Min 16 Max 37

Time to beetle off on your bike to the county’s iconic North Norfolk coast for a day dotted with ecclesiastical ruins, coastal encounters and Palladian home and parklands number 2. The 13th century Augustinian ruins of Creake Abbey are only a pedal push from the hauntingly beautiful rural landscapes of North and South Creake – like the mighty ruins of Binham Priory near the route later in the day, they have so much to say about the scale of Henry VIII’s Reformation.

In contrast, Holkham Hall and its almost endless estate seems pristine and pillar-perfect with the superb ride across the neat parkland giving plenty of selfie-worthy views of the Palladian home of the 1st Earl of Leicester and its coastal backdrop.

It’s hard to resist the call of Holkham’s huge expanse of beach and captivating dune coast, but the historic quayside at Wells-next-the-Sea has to be the go-to spot to get a taste of what Norfolk’s coast really has to offer, from fresh fish and chips to seafood specialties. It’s a charming little town full of flint-faced cottages and hidden greens, with iconic beach huts standing of stilts on the beach to the west which can be reached by a miniature steam train ride.

Steer inland to encounter the brick-flint farmsteads and villages of the Stiffkey and Glaven river valleys, and the mighty remains of Binham Priory – an awesome edifice set adrift in the Norfolk countryside. Your final destination for the day is the Georgian market town of Holt, located at one end of North Norfolk’s most scenic steam-railway, the Poppy Line. Super stylish, full of delicious discoveries and just a short ride to the bird-rich coast, it’s a great place to stay for your next two overnights.

Overnight: Holt

Mileage: Rec 35 Min 19 Max 35

Take your pick from our selection of great rides today, each introducing a small element of rollercoaster ride as you dive down to the sea and back up again. They also set quite different North Norfolk Coast scenes from wild, natural beauty to the ordered world of grand estates and great houses, from quaint quaysides, historic priory sites and beacon churches to parklands and piers.

Head north to discover the North North Coast’s famous tiny villages and timeless quaysides. At Morston, a spot of seal-watching is only a boat ride away, whilst at Blakeney, tiny lanes lead to the ancient port that’s still busy with craft small enough to make the passage up the narrow channel from the sea. Don’t miss its church, set apart some 100 feet above the quayside with its strange second tower and fragments of medieval glass, rescued perhaps from Binham or from its own, long-gone Carmelite priory. Return to Holt via the little village of Cley-next-the-Sea with its fine windmill and bird-rich marshland reserves.

Pedal off to Holt station for a steam train ride east to the Victorian resort of Sheringham, where Cromer is just a pedal push away or another short train hop away. They’re both fascinating seaside towns – one, once visited by Albert Einstein, the other a favourite with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who is said to have found inspiration for his ‘Hound of the Baskervilles’ in local devil dog legend, Black Shuck. Return to Holt by bike with forays close to beautiful parklands in Sheringham and Felbrigg, home to a 17th century stately home with a walled garden.

Alternatively, take the steam train east to Sheringham and then a shorter cycle ride back to Holt, via the National Trust’s beautiful Sheringham Park, a place renowned for its amazing rhododendrons and camelias.

Overnight: Holt.

Mileage: Min 9 Max 22

Norfolk may be remembered as Nelson’s country, but it might seem that the first Prime Minister of England owned half of it! Set out via the villages of Mannington and Wolterton and both great houses here still have Walpole connections.

Flinted hall Mannington with its famous rose gardens is still in the family today, whereas Palladian mansion, Wolterton Hall, plays home to a room full of Walpole portraits even though it was recently sold out of the family. Wolterton’s links with Lord Nelson seem normal for Norfolk, but down the road the Blickling pyramid (a mausoleum) seems rather out of place. Look out for the two rows of double yew hedges in front of magnificent Blickling Hall and stop off to enjoy its beautiful gardens perhaps, before cycling back in time to the ‘filmset’-style redbrick estate village of Heydon.

At Cawston, the church boasts time-honoured treasures; at Booton, the double pinnacles of village folly church aka ‘the Cathedral of the Fields’ seem madness enough, but the nearby market town of Reepham goes one further, with two whole churches on the same site – and the remains of a third too! Stories tell of a shrine here, making it an important place of medieval pilgrimage.

Could the mysterious early ‘cathedral’ at final stop North Elmham have been the same perhaps? Ah, but that tale has two sides to the story too. Not so very far away in Suffolk, South Elmham also has a ruined minster. Which one was the real Saxon cathedral? Only history knows.

Overnight: North Elmham

Mileage: Rec 30 Min 16 Max 30

There’s plenty of history and mystery in today’s small villages and flint-clad churches as you cycle gently back to Oxborough in the Brecks through the peaceful Norfolk countryside.

The fascinating Farm & Workhouse Museum of Norfolk Life at Gressenhall is the first stop of the day – unless you fancy swinging by Swanton Morley, a village with a host of impressive American connections. This was not only the ancestral home of Abraham Lincoln, but the WWII location of Robertson Barracks, where Eisenhower reputedly stood alongside Churchill to witness the launch of the first British and US combined bombing raid in 1942. The airfield’s Art Deco air traffic control tower still stands proud to this day, just like the village’s great church and windmill towers too.

Within the site of a mighty Victorian Gressenhall workhouse and featuring living history exhibits in season, the Norfolk Life Museum is a must. With its cottage gardens and rare breed animals, brightly coloured gypsy caravans and dark tales from workhouse days, it’s full of contrasts and insights into the rural farming communities and medieval textile industries which put Norfolk firmly on the European map.

The 18th century hall at Bradenham once hosted Lord Nelson and was later the birthplace of Sir Henry Rider-Haggard, friend of Rudyard Kipling and author of King Solomon’s Mines, but bold, buttressed St Mary’s also catches the eye. Now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust, today it is sadly redundant whereas at nearby Houghton-on-the-Hill it is the village which is gone! You’ll find it by its church – still standing tall, if lonely, and sharing some early wall-painting treasures (from 1090 and 1400s) which reveal the wealth and importance of the village in days gone by.

North Pickenham’s history is unusual too. Once deemed part of Yorkshire, it has close connections with Richmond Castle dating back to medieval times. The market town of Swaffham has some fine tales to tell too. The Museum and Heritage Centre has all the details – how the Dick Whittington-style pedlar discovered that his fortune was not to be found in London after all, but in his back yard… and how a local Edwardian gent hit the jackpot in Egypt, when he discovered Tutankhamun’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings.

Steer back across the sandy Brecks (aka Valley of the Queens?) to rest up for the night and treasure all your Norfolk discoveries alongside Tudor Oxburgh Hall.

Overnight: Oxborough

Mileage: Rec 31 Min 30 Max 31

We’d hate you to miss out on one final unique Norfolk experience, so if you have time, rather than locking up your hire bikes and heading off home , you’re welcome to enjoy another circular cycle ride and dig a little deeper into the history of the area.

Pedal via Breckland woods and heaths to the haunting, pitted landscape known as Grimes Graves – an area of flint mines dating to Neolithic times. About a quarter of this ride is along gravel forest tracks, but that all adds to the atmosphere! Grimes Graves has a real element of the other-worldly about it and the landscape even still bears the scars of ancient glaciers.

Let the on-site museum fill you in with all the details from the history and geology to its settlers, then don a hard hat and descend by ladder into the depths of an original Neolithic flint mine yourself! The glassy grey rock dug out from this lunar-style landscape was a valuable commodity and ‘knapped’ or chipped to create sharp tools. Millions of years later, making gun flints was big business in the Brecks, with the products exported worldwide.

Return via the forest fire tracks to Oxborough to lock your hire bikes away in the accommodation’s bike store, before heading homeward.

Mileage: : Min 28 Max 31