These are terrain sections, not prescribed walking days. Where one research section covers a long distance, it is split at useful landmarks so you can shorten a day or rebalance the itinerary around it.
The trail begins on heath and in trees, which is not what anyone expects of Norfolk and is not what the rest of the walk is like. From the Suffolk Wildlife Trust car park at Knettishall Heath the way crosses the Little Ouse by footbridge, leaves Suffolk within the first kilometre, and spends the next few kilometres in the Brecks proper: conifer belts, sandy tracks and open heath at Brettenham. This is the only shade on the whole route and it is all in the first hour and a half. There is a long boardwalk over marshy ground beside the Thet, with a marked diversion signed for when the water comes up, and one walker's account says the ground under it would otherwise be knee deep. Then the trail passes under the Norwich railway line at the Shadwell underpass, and at about km 6.6 it crosses the A11 on the level. After that the Roman line takes over and the trees thin towards Stonebridge and the A1075. Ten kilometres in, the trail has already used up every feature it has; from here to the coast it is a straight road across farmland.
Navigation: Easy, with one thing to watch. The way is waymarked with the National Trail acorn on discs and on wooden fingerposts at junctions, and it is well signed here. The turns are in the woods and around the river crossings rather than on open ground, so keep the map handy between the Little Ouse and the Thet. The A11 and the A1075 are crossings rather than navigation problems, but the A11 is on the line and cannot be designed around.
In poor weather: The one part of the trail with shelter, and the one part where rain changes the line you walk rather than just the surface. The boardwalk beside the Thet crosses ground that floods, and the diversion around it is signed. Otherwise the sand and heath here drain fast. The conifer belts are worth more in a heatwave than in a downpour, and they are the last of them: there is no shade at all after Stonebridge. The A11 crossing is materially worse in rain, spray or low sun than in clear weather.
Escape options: Reasonable at both ends of the section and poor in the middle. Thetford, the railhead and the town with the free car parks, is about 10 km from the trailhead by road and there is no bus to the start, so the beginning of this section is a taxi ride from anywhere. At the far end there are roadside bus stops at Stonebridge on the A1075 at about km 10.5, within a couple of hundred metres of the line. In between, the A11 is a trunk road and not a pick-up point.
Thirty-three kilometres in which the Peddars Way stops being one thing, and the longest section of the walk by half again. Out of Stonebridge the trail runs on farm track with the Stanford Training Area fenced and signed along its western side, wire and warning boards on one hand and firing often audible across the ranges. Thompson Water sits just off the line with a hide, and Thompson Common, 1.6 km east, holds around 400 pingo pools left by the last Ice Age. Past Little Cressingham comes the first of the trail's two long tarmac runs, five kilometres of quiet lane, and those runs are what make this walk feel longer than a flat profile suggests. Below Houghton on the Hill the trail drops into the Wissey valley and becomes, for about two kilometres, a genuine English field path with two flights of steps and a footbridge. It is the only stretch on the whole route that walks like a footpath, and after rain it is the only stretch that goes properly boggy. North Pickenham, the A47 roundabout on the Swaffham bypass, a long straight hard track and the A1065 follow, and the section ends dropping to the footbridge over the Nar below the priory and up into Castle Acre, which is the natural halfway stop and the only village between Thetford and Ringstead with a shop, a chip shop, a cafe and a pub.
East Wretham to Little Cressingham13 km
Little Cressingham to A47 crossed at a roundabout on the Swaffham bypass11 km
A47 crossed at a roundabout on the Swaffham bypass to Castle Acre9 km
171 m total ascent across this broader terrain section
Navigation: The section where the straight line stops helping. Between Little Cressingham and Castle Acre the route turns often as it links lanes, tracks and field paths, and the Wissey valley crossing between Houghton on the Hill and North Pickenham is the one place on this trail that genuinely wants the map out. The turning down to the hide at Thompson Water is easy to walk straight past when the summer foliage is up. Waymarking is to the same standard as the rest, acorn discs and fingerposts.
In poor weather: Two different problems at the two ends. The Wissey valley footpaths are the muddiest ground on the trail, and a walker who found the rest of the route firm reported them boggy. Everywhere else on this section is open arable with no shelter and no shade at all, so heat, a headwind or driving rain get the full run at you. The tarmac stretches are the part that punishes wet feet, because there is nowhere soft to walk for five kilometres at a time.
Escape options: Thin in the first half, decent in the second. Roadside bus stops sit within a couple of hundred metres of the line at Stonebridge at km 10.5, Little Cressingham at km 23.0 and North Pickenham at km 31.0, Watton is about two kilometres east of km 19.8, and Thompson village is 1.3 km off the line at about km 16.2. The A47 roundabout at km 34.4 puts you on the edge of Swaffham, the largest town within reach of the trail, about two kilometres west. The real gap is the 12.5 km between Stonebridge and Little Cressingham, where the walking is farm track with the training area fenced along the west, so every exit on that stretch is east. Range Control at Stanford is on 01842 855367, staffed 24 hours, though nothing about the training area closes the path.
Twenty-three kilometres of Roman road with almost nothing on it, and the stretch that decides whether you get on with this trail. It leaves Castle Acre on five kilometres of straight metalled lane, quiet but hard, and after Heath Lane the surface coarsens to flint and chalk rubble on an unsurfaced lane over the highest ground on the whole route, 92 m, with a Neolithic long barrow on the common beside the track. Beyond the A148 at Harpley Dams it becomes a grass green lane between hedges, dead straight, for something like eleven kilometres, and you can often see an hour of walking laid out in front of you. Villages exist, Great and Little Massingham, Harpley, Anmer and Fring, but they sit between half a kilometre and nearly two kilometres off the line and the trail enters none of them. What you get instead is big cropped fields on ploughed-out heath, marl pits dug by 18th and 19th century improvers, and sky. Most of this is unclassified county road rather than footpath, so 4x4s and trail bikes use it legally and the tracks carry the ruts to prove it; in a dry spell the same ruts break down into loose sand, which a cyclist riding this stretch described as energy-sapping, with the grass at the track edge firmer than the middle.
Navigation: The simplest navigation on the trail. The Roman line is unmistakable and for long stretches the next waymark is visible before you reach it. The A148 at Harpley Dams needs care rather than navigation. The only place worth a glance at the map is the run of three lane crossings in quick succession north-east of the Massinghams, where the trail's own surface changes from unsurfaced lane to grass track and the junctions come close together.
In poor weather: Open from end to end, with no shelter and no shade. Heat, a headwind or driving rain all get the full twenty-three kilometres at you, and the dead-straight line offers nothing to duck behind, which is what makes this stretch slow rather than the ground. Underfoot it copes well, because chalk and sand drain fast and the green lane firms up quickly after rain. What holds water is the vehicle ruts, and what a long dry spell leaves in them is loose sand.
Escape options: Thin, and worth knowing before you commit. There is no bus stop on the line anywhere between Castle Acre and Ringstead. The villages that look close on the map, the two Massinghams and Harpley, sit 1.2 to 1.7 km off it up lanes. The one realistic exit in the middle is the A148 at km 53.9, which is a main road carrying traffic. Either side of that you are walking out, back to Castle Acre or on to Sedgeford.
The only part of the Peddars Way that is not the Roman road, the only part with any shape to it, and the payoff for three days of straight lines. North of Sedgeford the Roman line runs on as a grass track between hedges, then gives out, and the trail spends the better part of two kilometres on village tarmac through Ringstead among carrstone cottages, the most built-up walking anywhere on the route. Beyond the village the ground lifts gently onto chalk, the soil pales and turns flinty, and from the rise the sea shows itself for the first time. Then field paths drop to a lane, the A149 coast road is crossed, and the last kilometre runs out to the dunes at Holme next the Sea, where the Peddars Way ends and the Norfolk Coast Path begins. It carries more turns than the rest of the trail put together, and after sixty kilometres of hedge and field that is the point of it.
Navigation: This is the one section where keeping straight does not work, because the trail is off the Roman line for most of it and threads Ringstead on village lanes. It carries more turns than the rest of the trail put together. Waymarking is the National Trail's two standard types, wooden fingerposts at junctions and acorn discs, and walkers describe this stretch as clearly signed. The mistakes people make here are missed turnings in the village rather than anything on open ground.
In poor weather: Chalk and sandy carrstone ground drain quickly, so this section stays walkable in a wet spell that would churn a clay path. What it lacks is shelter at the coastal end, where the lane runs out to the dunes with nothing beside it, and a wind off the sea is felt for the full length of it. The two kilometres of village lane are also the only place on the trail where you share tarmac with any real traffic, which matters more in murk and low light than in rain.
Escape options: The easiest section on the trail to leave, which is useful because it is the last one. Roadside bus stops sit within fifty metres of the line on Ringstead High Street at about km 70.4, again on the lane at km 71.4, and at the coast road crossing at km 73.6, and the B1454 crossing at km 66.2 is a kilometre from Sedgeford. Nothing on this stretch is more than about two kilometres from a metalled road. Lynx Coastliner 36 runs the coast road through Holme to Hunstanton and King's Lynn.