Our Chairman, Ken Hawkins visits the Walkers are Welcome towns and villages in the east.
He says “East Anglia has a ‘feel’ to it which is different from other parts of England.  The pace of life is slower: we have few miles of motorway or dual carriageway and rail connections can be a bit thin, but it is perfectly possible to get here, and, once arrived, that sense of relaxation makes the journey well worthwhile.  The land of the North Folk and the South Folk also encompasses a variety of landscapes – no mountains, it is true, but a wide range of seascapes (cliffs, marshes, dunes, beaches), extensive forests, and the incomparable Brecks.”

For his descriptions and photos of   Cromer,  Aylsham, Dereham,  Clare and  Eye  see the  Autumn Walk this Way Newsletter .

There was no space for  Ken’s full description of  Shotley so here  it is 

” We come to Shotley, a small village located 9 miles from Suffolk’s County Town of Ipswich, at the southernmost tip of the Shotley Peninsula. It is nestled between the River Orwell and the River Stour opposite the UK’s biggest container port, the Port of Felixstowe. The village offers excellent signposted walking trails that vary from just a couple of miles of easy walking up to many miles across beautiful countryside, including riverside walks with views across salt marshes and mudflats. 

Shotley is steeped in Maritime Heritage. The Royal Navy Training Establishment HMS Ganges was established in the village in 1905 until it closed in 1976. Over 160,000 Naval Ratings were trained here during this time. The present HMS Ganges Museum is situated at Shotley Marina and contains lots of information and artefacts from HMS Ganges. All of the walks in the ‘Shotley Explorer Guide’ go past the Ganges Museum, which is open to the public every weekend from 11 am until 5 pm through to the end of October. 

At the end of WWI, the German U Boat fleet surrendered into the Navy Yard at Harwich, directly across the river from Shotley. During 1918/19 there were 168 U Boats moored off the Shotley shoreline in the River Stour. A Maritime Heritage Walk Leaflet guides walkers on a 5-mile circular tour of Shotley from the Ganges Museum up to Shotley Church with its two Commonwealth War Cemeteries and a Submariners Cemetery and Memorial.  “