Empire day saw conflict amongst the pie munchers – we were to have gone for a walk near to Gunton Park on the forth Sunday of last month, but it had slipped the Walk Master’s memory so we were to do it this week. A provisional route was agreed at the pub on Friday, but the Walk Master, who was not present on Friday, had arranged with the Führer to walk at Sheringham. When the munchers assembled, the Führer dug her jackboot heals in and refused to goose-step anywhere other than Sheringham Park, despite the fact we could not walk at Gunton next month.
Walking at Sheringham would not give sufficient time to look round the sawmill before it closed.The munchers split, three of us headed for the car park on the Weavers’ Way at Felmingham. We started by walking waking eastwards along the Weavers’ Way for two thirds of a mile. Then walking by the edge of North Walsham Wood and Lord Anson’s Wood, we spotted the top of Mundesley
water tower in the far distance and the two
water towers at North Walsham. Heading south along footpaths with a canopy of trees providing us with welcome shade from the baking sun, we arrived at the church of
St. Michael, Swanton Abbott. Here we consumed lunch and observed the previously recorded
scratch dial and two possible dials. We headed north, back along the footpath over Swanton Hill and then at the Common we headed northwest via a well-defined footpath across a field. Zigzagging along footpaths and quiet roads, avoiding a potential soaking from an automated irrigation machine traversing a field across the footpath, we rejoined the Weavers’ Way.
A third of a mile walk in an easterly direction, noting a proliferation of various butterflies, reunited us with the car. As it had just turned 15:00 and we had only done 5.6 miles, we strolled up to Felmingham and the church of
St. Andrew. The body of the church had been rebuilt in the 1740’s - so yielded no scratch dial, but an interesting item attached to the wall. We then headed to Gunton Park,
here a 180 year old water powered
Sawmill, restored by
Norfolk Industrial Archaeology Society back in 1980’s, was in operation and was open to the public. Meanwhile The Führer, Walk Master, King Canape & Co. had been goose-stepping around Sheringham Park admiring the Rhododendrons. King Canape traumatised by the breakaway group not being able to sample pork pies, popped into the village shop in Weybourne to purchase spiced pork pies from
H. V. Graves of Briston.
The Sheringham party called us from the pub stop and advised they’d bring the tea to Gunton Park. After inspecting the sawmill, the pies were tasted: First we had Salmon rounds to ready the palate for pies. We sampled the pies from H. V. Graves, these were very different and difficult to judge as a pork pie. The coarse textured filling providing a pleasant experience that resulted in a surprisingly low score of 7.3 with a standard deviation of 0.44721. A Large pie from G. Morris & Sons was then consumed: slicing revealed a pale filling and low on aroma with little evidence of jelly. The filling was OK, though not one of their best, a dab of mustard enhancing the experience. The pastry was sweet and lifting this otherwise average pie, resulting in a score of 7.1 with a standard deviation of 0.65192. Ricky’s Shortbread completed the grazing. So scores “normalised” to 7.5 and 7 H. V. for Graves and G. Morris pies respectively.
H. V. Graves (spiced) G. Morris & Sons (large)
