Norfolk health, heritage and biodiversity walks - Enjoying the Norfolk ...

Walk
6
Ashill
Panworth
Start point Community Centre (Hale Road, Ashill)
Grid reference TF886048 • Postcode IP25 7BL
Parking Community Centre car park – free
Distance 2.2 miles or short walk 1.4 miles
Details Minor gradients, 50% soft
Walk instructions
1. Starting at the Community Centre, cross over Hale Road to Dunnetts
Close opposite. Walk along Dunnetts Close for almost half a mile.
2. Turn right on to a public footpath along the drive to Panworth Hall.
3. Follow the drive left at Panworth Cottages and then immediately after
passing the cottages turn right, climbing a stile, onto a public footpath.
See map for short walk: After climbing the stile, do not cross the field
diagonally but instead, follow the hedge on your right and then bear right
over to another stile. Follow the public footpath and turn right onto a
grassy track. Now follow instruction no. 8 below.
4. Walk diagonally across this field to the far left hand corner. Turn right on
to the lane.
5. At Panworth Hall Farm Cottages, turn right, still following the public
footpath (this is a wide farm track).
6. At the corner, continue to walk straight on following the grassy footpath
along the field edge, keeping the hedge on your right.
7. At the end, cross the drain via the footbridge and turn right along a
wide grassy field margin. Follow this until you reach Green Farm.
8. Follow the farm track straight on past the pond on your right and then
bear left past the farm buildings.
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(Village shop
on Hale Road)
9. Keep walking straight on to The Green. Pass the playing field (Goose
Green) on your right.
10. Turn right on to Hale Road and continue until you arrive back at the
community centre on your left.
Deserted medieval settlement of Panworth
The route takes you through the site of the medieval deserted settlement
of Panworth, mentioned in the Domesday Book, but which does not
appear on a map of 1581. The earthworks of the former manor, moat and
houses are visible on the ground. Part of the moat appears to have been
made out of the Panworth Ditch. The field crossed diagonally by the public
footpath is protected by Scheduled Monument status.
Panworth Ditch/Devil’s Dyke
The Panworth Ditch or Devil’s Dyke is one of only four similar linear
earthworks in western Norfolk. The surviving section is a Scheduled
Monument, about 300m long and comprises a ditch and bank. Its date is
uncertain, although it could be Iron Age or Early Anglo-Saxon. The existing
gap in the earthwork is original and may have been where a Roman
road crossed. If Early Anglo-Saxon, it probably served as a tribal or estate
boundary or allowed travel and the transport of goods to be controlled and
tolls to be levied.
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