A permissive path of pleasure.

Cafes will feature a great deal in this blog. Large and small. From the greasy spoon to the bohemian coffee shop. A cafe that knows what it wants to do and does it well is a place of beauty.

One such is the Art Cafe in Glandford, Norfolk. Part cafe and part jewellery shop, it is sandwiched between an art gallery and a boatbuilding workshop, it serves good coffee, vegetarian food and is the sort of place that you know that all is well with the world when you’re there.

Pub walks are a well established phenomenon. However the Art Cafe has a what you might call a cafe walk. And not just any walk. Probably as fine as inland Norfolk country walk as you could wish for along the Glaven valley.

You set out up the track from the cafe past Cley Spy and bear left along the western side of the valley. Farmland gives way to wooded hills and vales along what is largely a permissive path through the Bayfield estate. Groves of Oaks tower above and provide cooling shade on a hot summer’s day.

The path meanders along and down and crosses the Letheringsett to Wiveton road to make the return journey down the Eastern bank of the river Glaven. As you pass Bayfield Hall, the nursery (with its own cafe) presents itself as a welcome break before your feet take you along the river bank heading North back towards Glandford. Turning left, you cross the bridge (adjacent to the ford) and you are then minutes from your starting point and a cup of Grey Seal coffee.

However, the walker with time might wish to stop at the Shell Museum or perhaps more likely in St Martin’s church to admire one of the finest decorative ecclesiastical interiors in Britain.

If you haven’t visited the Birdscape Gallery before setting out, then it’s worth a look if only to check out Philip Arthur’s exquisite slipware pottery or Karen Fawcett’s beautifully modelled birds. It will take all the self will you can summon not to invest on every visit.

The best is last if you’ve saved relaxing in the Art Cafe for the end of your walk. At which point you’ll doubtless reflect on people who allow permissive paths rather than put up ‘Private’ signs, allowing you or I access to land that has been enclosed for hundreds of years.

That of course as they say is another story...