Physical Character
The footpath starts from opposite the ancient entrance to the churchyard. It goes between the walls of the gardens of adjacent properties. The width at the start is about six feet but it soon narrows and becomes only about three feet wide and about six feet above the level of the adjoining road; this is because it passes through an area which was redeveloped into a housing estate in the 1990s. On the north side is the boundary fence of the old Baptist Graveyard. After that the path follows the pavement fronting the bungalows along Oak Tree Close until at the western end of the estate it goes round some garages to the adjoining field. There it goes along the north edge of the cropped field with a mixed hedge on the north side. This mixed hedge is along the boundary edge of the adjoining school field where new species have been planted among older ones.
At TG453183 the path goes steeply down a bank to join Sandy Lane which at this point is about three feet below the level of the adjoining fields and is about six feet wide. The track (Sandy Lane), which is shown as 'Private Road' No. 9 on the Enclosure Map of 1812, continues south west from this point between sloping banks until it reaches buildings where it becomes about 15 feet wide as it reaches Cess Road.
The path continues by dog-legging left & right across Cess Road from a point almost opposite the end of Sandy Lane, heading westwards past the front wall of a 19th century house across a field to a gap in a hedge. From there the path goes diagonally north-west across the next field to the boundaries of the gardens of the houses which were, before the Enclosure, on the edge of The Common. This narrow field path – about three feet wide would have been the route to the Church for the residents of these houses. Along this path for centuries they would have carried their babies for Baptism and their dead to the churchyard for burial and couples would also have walked along here to be married at the Parish Church.
This narrow path continues straight along between fences and through the premises of what is now a Strawberry farm and skirts the garden of a house until it reaches a crossing track at TG439178.
Historical Ecology
There is no indication either on the ground or on old maps that it was a wider track than the footpath seen today, yet this would also have been the route to the Tithe Barn which at one time existed at about TG440178, where Rectory Farm is now situated. The Tithe Barn would have been where the produce given as tithes would have been stored. The Rectorial Tithes were from the 12th century due to the Monastery and Priory of Norwich Cathedral, when in 1160 Roger de Gunton gave the advowson of Martham to Norwich Cathedral. After the dissolution of the monasteries, permission to receive the tithes was granted by lease to various local landowners until the Martham tithes were commuted to a money payment in 1842. At some time after that the Tithe Barn fell into ruin and was demolished in the 20th century.
