Downham Market, Denver Sluice, Denver Mills and Denver

From the square, you head west past the front of the town hall, which is built in a mixture of styles. Further down Bridge Street is the public library. At one time, the Friend's Meeting House. The Quaker burial ground lies just behind it.

As Bridge Street changes to Railway Road, it broadens out. On the left is a wide verge, The Green, and on the right is Dial House. This old carrstone house, now a guest house, is named from the sundial on the gable facing the road. This was once the home of the head malster of a nearby Maltings. Later, it was a Quaker School - there was considerable support for the non-conformist tradition in this area.

Beyond the mill, which sports a carved eagle over the doorcase facing the road, you crossed the railway and go over the broad Relief Channel, which flows to Kings Lynn. The walk continues along the Fen Rivers Way which follows the south bank of the River Great Ouse. The river, with its tributaries and associated man-made waterways, drains nearly 1,500 square miles (3,885 square kilometres) of central England.

As you walk up the riverbank, the superstructures of the great steel sluice gates are visible ahead. The gates are a vital part of the drainage and flood prevention system for the wide stretch of low lying fens south of Downham market. At Denver Sluice, three drainage channels meet.

The walk leaves the riverbank and heads up the road to the village of Denver, with the first place of interest in the village being Denver Mills. A lofty tower windmill, with a white ogee cap, a fantail, and a white plastic body girdled by an exterior walkway, rises dramatically from the surrounding flat fens. Denver Windmill is Grade II listed.

In 1816, the mill was the scene of rioting after millers and farmers raised the prices of grain and flour. The increases, a reflection of higher taxes brought in to pay for the Napoleonic Wars and of a poor harvest incensed the population, who attacked several mills throwing flour around and causing havoc.

The route continues up the road, past attractive brick built East Hall Manor. George William Manby was born here in 1765. Naval captain, scientist and Fellow of the Royal Society , Manby invented the rocket apparatus that is still used to fire a line to a ship in distress. He also invented the first modern form of the universal fire extinguisher.

As you leave Denver, you pass St Mary's Church, built of the local stone, whose tower dates from the 13th century. A walk across the fields takes you back into Downham Market, along a leafy chestnut avenue with a very old carrstone and brick wall on your right.

The town sign stands on an island where London Road meets Church Road and the High Street. It was given to the town by the local Women's Institute to mark the Federation's Golden Jubilee in 1965, and shows a small boy sailing a boat. When Horatio Nelson was at school in Downham Market, he supposedly got his fellow pupils to operate the pump so that he could sail paper boats down the gutter in the middle of the market square.

In Howdale Road, you pass some remaining parts of the Old Union Workhouse, built mainly of carrstone using small slabs with deeply recessed pointing. It is reminiscent of Derbyshire dry-stone walling, but of a very different colour.

Number 12 is a Montessori School. Maria Montessori, an Italian doctor born in 1870, developed a child led method of education that built on children's natural curiosity to get the best out of their education.

Further up Howdale Road, you come to a grassy triangle where the town pump now stands. Its usefulness declined over the years, and it was retired from the market square to decorate the green.

You head towards the townh church across an undulating open area known as the Howdale. This was the main source of carrstone until it was overtaken in popularity as a building material by brick.

In the north-west corner, a track called the King's Walk runs beside the cemetery down to Church Road. Opposite is a narrow high walled alley running steeply down to the market place. It is called Sounding Alley after a Georgian bell foundry that was sited nearby.

There has been a church on the ridgetop site of St Edmunds since the days of the Normans, but it has been altered many times since then. Judging from its bricks, the top of the tower was probably rebuilt in Tudor times, while most of the best features of the interior are from the 18th century. The end of the walk is a short way downhill from here.