In order to try and halt the decline in pie standards, since the 8.5's of late September / early October, pies were sourced from the Sheringham
Shop of
J. & D. Papworth Farms (Butchers & Graziers) who were voted Norfolk's best butcher in 2002 & 2004! But before we could start munching on these promising pies, we had to hoss around
Holt: We eventually found parking at the
Holt Country Park visitors centre and set off east, towards Little Thornage via the ford on the Glaven. Then north on to Letheringsett and the church of
St. Andrew, taking (in) the piscenae, of which there were three, but no scratch dials. We passed
Letheringsett Hall with its five Doric columns, on our left, then passing
Letheringsett brewery mill on our right, as we headed back towards Holt. Pausing at the springs at
Spout hills, once the source of Holt’s water supply, for
lunch. We emerged from the hills passing one of the
taps for the poor, on route to the Victorian
Methodist church, but it was locked, so we were unable to admire its low false ceiling covered in polystyrene tiles! We headed into town via a convoluted route, passing the remains of the other surviving
tap for the poor, at the entrance to Weston Square. We mourned the loss of the 1855, 56ft high, red brick, 15,000 gallon
water tower in Shirehall Plain, demolished in 1957 two years after it went out of service. We drowned our sorrows with a freezing pint at the Feathers Hotel, before we concluded the walk, exploring another
St. Andrew's church. Heading east we saw the Walk Master’s former residence (yet to get its blue plaque) then south, across the bypass, and back through the country park for tea and pies. The good-looking hand raised pies revealed a reasonable amount of jelly when cut. A pleasant aroma preceded the tasting of the nicely seasoned meat filling contained within a very pleasant, non-lardy piecrust. These pies, surprisingly, only scored 7.664286 with a fairly high standard deviation of 0.80178. This may have been due to the absence of one of our core seasoned pie tasters and novice taster joining our ranks. So, that’s a normalised 7.5 for J. & D. Papworth Farms. No Canapés this week, but the shortbread made a welcome return to round off proceedings.
parked in the large car park of the Chapel of Reconciliation, next to Slipper chapel at Walsingham, where mass was being celebrated outside – it being Palm Sunday.
As we walked along the road, we spotted a drove of hares; about a dozen in number, not boxing but leaping about full of March madness. We then headed east, passing the enlarged water treatment works.
Lunch was taken at the church of St. Mary the virgin, Great Snoring. No scratch dials were found, so we set off on the two-mile hike to the pub, mostly by road, the grass banks being adorned with white violets. At the end of Water Lane, the stream under the bridge provided the facilities for a game of Pooh sticks. The Pie Master won the challenge by a large margin - as Josie's stick had sunk!
A short walk past East Barsham Hall brought us to the White Horse for pints of Adnams in good condition. Passing “Toad Hall”, we made our way up the hill to the parish church of East Barsham of All Saints, a much-mutilated church with a north entrance and no scratch dial.
It’s font however reminded the Pie Master of a traditional water tower, with service shaft and supporting legs. On to the church of North Barsham, All Saints with black chickens in the grounds. Returning to the cars for Tortillas with sour cream and chive dip and Moroccan style houmous. A selection of small and large pies from J. & D. Papworth Farms’ North Walsham shop, were supplied by Josie – Josie hadn’t realised it was early closing on Wednesday, when she was working there and these were all that were left. The good looking pies released a little “roast pork” aroma and revealed a nicely textured dark pink filling, with no jelly. These pies were very tasty, the pastry too. However, many thought the crust was too thick. The pies scored a 7.68182 with a standard deviation of 0.56003. Ricky’s Shortbread was then consumed. So a normalised score of 7.5 for J. & D. Papworth Farms.
