I wanted a walk today that would incorporate both the familiar and unfamiliar. I have walked on the Blickling Estate many times but usually on the main part of the estate, around the house and lake and sometimes into the woodland. This walk I began by leaving the car park and walking past the front of Blickling Hall (impossible not to stop and look at the magnificent view along the main drive) then crossing the road by the church to Silvergate. Just off the lane, tucked in amongst trees is the brick-built ice house which would have served the hall in the days before refrigeration: a long walk for whoever was sent to fetch the ice.
Crossing a meadow with a stream running through it (Pond Meadow is apparently prone to flooding) I looked to my right with a lovely distant view of Blickling Hall and the church. Leaving the meadow, the path took me through trees and hedging so dense that it formed a green tunnel, probably only saved from being too overgrown to walk through by continuous use. The path eventually opened up, still in woodland but running alongside the main road where I spotted another brick building, which I later discovered was the remains of an old brickyard, in use up until the Second World War.
I crossed the road, joining the main Blickling Estate and picking up a path through the woods, passing through Long Plantation then Bucks Common and Bunkers Hill Plantation. It was quiet along these paths, just a few dog walkers and not much bird song, only the alarm call of a blackbird as I passed by. As I followed the path round in a curve, Bunkers Hill rising slightly to my right, I could see farmland beyond the trees to my left: the western edge of the estate.
Leaving the estate at the Woodgate car park, I walked along the lane which gradually descended towards the river and Blickling Mill. I passed Mill Farm House, a very grand looking building, and some converted barns. At the bottom of the descent was Mill Cottage, not looking very occupied and with the mill stream rushing out from underneath the building. Here there were numerous swallows flying around: they may have been nesting in the old buildings slightly further along the lane.
Walking away from the mill I passed a field with a number of brown and white Hereford cows and calves, who watched me curiously. Above me in a tree a buzzard was sitting, taking off and gliding away across the fields as I approached but there were very few people on the lanes once I had left the National Trust land. I picked up a footpath away from the lane, passing fields on the way back up to the Blickling Estate. On my left there was a field of wheat and on my right barley, both huge open fields: neither had been harvested yet but both looked ready.
As I walked back onto National Trust land and began following the signposted walking routes I saw many more families, out enjoying a walk or cycle around the estate, although some of the children looked as if they needed convincing that they were having fun. I passed another big field of wheat right on the edge of the Blickling estate, the field curving away from me downhill so that I couldn’t see the boundary at the bottom.
I followed the paths to the Mausoleum, a rather sombre structure and a strange shape to come across amongst the trees. On an overcast day everything looked rather grey and dark, in keeping with the monument although it would originally have been much lighter, being built of Portland stone. The Mausoleum was built to commemorate John Hobart, 2nd Earl of Buckinghamshire, after his death in 1793 and contains his remains along with those of his wives, Mary Anne and Caroline.
I was now walking in familiar territory, through the parkland at Blickling. I found a bench down by the lake for a lunch stop, looking towards the lake in once direction and across the parkland in the other. The light was changing now, with clouds blowing over and the odd clear spell between.
Walking around the east side of the lake after lunch I passed several beech trees, liberally carved with initials and messages. I overhead a young boy, walking past on of the trees in the other direction, calling it a word tree. Some of the messages had clearly been there some time, expanding with the trees as they grew.
I walked to the eastern edge of the estate, the ha ha dividing me from the formal gardens along with some high fencing. Above me to my right, at the edge of the formal gardens I could see the back of the Temple, built in the C18 as a focal point in the gardens and with a view right down the formal gardens back to the hall. On my left I looked across the fields and could see in the distance the tower of St Michael & All Angels church in Aylsham.
Having completed my circumnavigation of the Blickling Estate and beyond I finished my walk at St Andrews church, just beside the hall. The exterior of the church is largely Victorian but inside there are C15 arcades and the south door through which you enter the church is C13. There are many brasses inside the church including one to Sir Nicholas Dagworth (d. 1401), who was responsible for building the first Blickling Hall. There is also a brass which commemorates Roger and Cecily Felthorp (1454) also depicting their sixteen children, lined up in neat rows along with their parents.
After my visit to the church I sat outside in the graveyard, sketching the tower of the church. Having carried round a very nice sketching set all day (a gift from my daughter) and dismissed most of the views or objects I had seen on the rest of the walk as too difficult I felt I couldn’t go home without at least attempting to put pencil to paper.
Pevsner, Nikolaus and Wilson, Bill, Norfolk 1: Norwich and North East, The Buildings of England, Yale University Press 1999.
Mortlock, D P and Roberts, C V, The Guide to Norfolk Churches, The Lutterworth Press, 2017
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