NorfolkWild guides are provided for general information only. You are solely responsible for your own safety and the safety of anyone in your group. Always carry out your own research before setting off on any route described on this site.
Norfolk lost a remarkable amount of its railway network in the mid-20th century, much of it in the Beeching cuts of the 1960s. What's left behind is a gift for walkers: mile after mile of flat, quiet, well-drained trackbed, repurposed as footpaths and cycleways through some of the county's prettiest countryside. No stiles, no steep hills — just the gentle gradient of a railway line, now shared by walkers, cyclists and wildlife instead of trains.
A Line Through History
This corner of Norfolk was once criss-crossed by branch lines connecting market towns and villages that had no other fast link to Norwich or the coast. The Midland & Great Northern Joint Railway (the "M&GN", nicknamed the "Muddle & Get Nowhere" by locals) ran services through much of this area, alongside other branch lines serving the Bure Valley and the villages around North Walsham. Passenger services and, eventually, the lines themselves were withdrawn through the 1950s to 1980s as road transport took over — a story repeated across the country following the 1963 Beeching Report.
Rather than disappearing under the plough, many of these trackbeds survive as public paths today — most notably the Weavers' Way, a 61-mile long-distance trail between Cromer and Great Yarmouth that follows old railway alignments for long stretches, and the Bure Valley Path, which runs alongside the heritage Bure Valley Railway between Wroxham and Aylsham. Both feature in the walks below.
If the history interests you as much as the walking, The Midland & Great Northern Joint Railway Through Time by Steph Gillett is a photographic record of the whole network, and The M&GN Joint Railway to Poppyland by Rob Shorland-Ball covers the coastal branch to Cromer and Overstrand specifically.
The 4 Railway Walks
Each walk below follows, or passes close to, a stretch of disused railway trackbed. All are flat, well-surfaced, and suitable for most fitness levels — genuinely some of the easiest walking on the whole site.
All four walks are flat and easy enough to combine into a longer weekend if you're staying nearby — Coltishall and Wroxham sit either end of the Bure Valley Path, so a keen walker could link the two, while North Walsham and Worstead share a stretch of the Weavers' Way and are only a few miles apart by road.