Hewitt's Medium Pies

Quality pies return this week: medium pies from Hewitt’s of Church Plain, Mattishall. We sampled their small pies on the 8^th June last year last year, when they scored a healthy 8.7. To get ourselves ready for the tasting, we headed west and parked by the OS monument – what you or I would call a trig point, at TF 794 201. From here we headed south down the road following Peddars Way until we came to a track that took us east a short distance, before we headed north up a track that became Sandy Lane. This took us to Great Massingham where we made our way to St. Mary’s church. After searching for scratch dials and finding none, we ate our sandwiches in the huge porch. The church was locked and the shop holding the key was closed, so we made our way to the pub, finding a small Giant Puffball in the churchyard, which was harvested and taken home by the Pie Master. “The Dabbling Duck” by the village green is a fine pub and provided us with pints of very tasty “Worth The Wait” from the local Beeston Brewery, Wherry and stamps for our Woodforde’s Ale Trail. Also taking refreshment at this establishment was Hugo with his mum and dad, together with cousin Darcey. We left the watering hole and ventured west, along footpaths sampling wild plums on route. Then turning north for a short distance to join the metalled track that took us past the Braithwaite water tower – still in use by Anglian water. We again joined the Peddars Way and followed it south east to return to the cars, walking by fields of porkie pie filling! No canapés this week as King Canape was in London, so straight into the very good-looking pies with their high gloss crust. Slicing the pies revealed a pink filling, nicely jellied and a faint pleasant aroma. A very tasty, non-lardy crust enclosed a lightly spiced filling finding favour with all munchers. These pies tasted equally as good with or without mustard and scored 8.16666 out of 10 with a standard deviation of 0.51640, so a normalised score of 8 for Hewitt’s. Shortbread then accompanied any remaining tea.

Doreen's 80th

An early start for the pie munchers this week: 10:00, as we had to celebrate Doreen’s 80th Birthday. The Walk Master had chosen a local walk from Newton St. Faiths: parking the three cars on the road that led to Manor House, a dozen pie munchers crossed the A140, Cromer Road and headed west along the wooded Green Lane. The Pie Master having taken on lots of fluids after a pre-walk bike ride, had to “turn his bike around” frequently along this stretch! We headed southwest along Mill Lane to cross the B1149, Holt Road, then a loop around west Horsford and the Activity Centre, by track and road to once again cross the B1149. 700 yards along footpaths brought us to All Saints church and our lunch stop, at just over 4 miles. The church provided shade but no scratch dials and after a short stop we were off again. As the day progressed so did the sun’s intensity, forcing a trip back over the B1149 and stop at the Horsford Dog for a pint of Courage Best at £2.20 a pint. Once more into the baking sun, we again crossed the B1149 and trekked across fields of cereal back to Newton St. Faiths. As we approached the A140 Cromer Road, two deer were spotted crossing our path and then lingered in the tall grass before disappearing into woods. We arrived back at the cars, where tea was available but no pies today. We arrived at Doreen’s do to find King Canape and Don, back from his adventures down the smoke, already there. A superb selection of Canapés had been laid on and the alcohol flowed freely. Great hospitality and a chance to catch up with other Bystanders, celebrating Doreen’s birthday in style - the octogenarian managing to blow out all her candles! Hugo did his best to take centre stage from the birthday girl, but the “wine fight” restored Doreen to the limelight before the celebrations wound up and the rain came.