We take the bus to Norwich and another to Beccles and hop off at Hellington Corner – not a village, more a few houses that straddle the busy main road. Hellington itself is a typical old Norfolk village: the old hall, the church and church farm, perhaps another farm, small holdings, and widely scattered clumps of houses. And a wet common.
The church can be seen from the main road. A rural lane takes us there
13th June 2022
13th June 2022
13th June 2022
I cannot pass this church without I take a peep inside. No longer in use for worship, it is open to the public
13th June 2022
For more on this church, see my post from 2016
Moving on, the lane takes us down, and down into a valley. In days of old a proper river probably ran here. Now it’s more of a winter-burn, a beck
13th June 2022
The lane is mostly traffic-free…
13th June 2022
We turn off before the bridge over the beck (here called the Run) and the rural lane becomes more of a tidy track
13th June 2022
Which serves the manor house before meeting the Common
13th June 2022
The Common is rich with rare flowers…see Tuesday Treats. Small belts of trees and woodland mark the landscape which, away from the Common is mostly arable
Looking back: 13th June 2022
With the neighbouring village of Rockland St Mary quickly skirted, we’re again into arable fields
13th June 2022
I’ve now become obsessed with the varicoloured ripening grains
13th June 2022
The path over fields end in a track that would take us to the next village of Surlingham, if we so wished. I will say, by now that shade is most welcome, the day having grown hot
13th June 2022
I have to stop to admire this tree – though, backlit, I’ve had to work with it to bring out the colour
13th June 2022
And here we are at destination
13th June 2022
Wheatfen Nature Reserve is a wetland, a fen. There are paths, some of them boggy, some merely wet. I’ll show you around next week.
Hope you enjoyed this.
crispina kemp 