MOUNT EPHRAIM

There are many ways to describe the Walsingham Way, and many Walsingham Ways to describe. The problem was once put to me like this: there is no one Yarmouth Road because almost every village in the east of Norfolk has a road leading, eventually, to Yarmouth. So it is with the Walsingham pilgrim trail.
Just within Norfolk, for example, there were routes from King's Lynn, one of them leading through Castle Rising and North Creake; another (including, no doubt, variations and deviations) from London (via Barkway, Brandon and Pickenham); one branch which utilised a short section of the Peddars Way; and no doubt others, too, some from the south, and some possibly from the Blakeney/Cley estuary and even from Great Yarmouth itself.
I took an interest in the subject because of Mount Ephraim, a stone cross - or more recently, a stump cross - which stood beside a green lane, sometimes called Pilgrims' Walk, emanating a short distance north away from Weeting. A church brochure from Weeting All Saints' church described the green lane as a part of Walsingham Way and the stone cross as an ancient guide to pilgrims. But it spoke of it in the past tense, which may or may not have been significant.
According to Whatmore, Camden's Brittania (published 1695) said the greenway was called Walsingham Way even then, being a road for pilgrims, while a second green lane from Hockwold to Wilton, which crossed it, once had two stump stone crosses. Faden's map (1797) also marked a Pilgrims' Path. And in 1934 a Mr Cozens-Hardy recorded that the remains of one cross was in a wood at Mount Ephraim, but by then it consisted of little more than a stone base.
Several decades ago a colleague and I parked our car in Weeting and walked this tree-lined green lane north of the village, and after a search - memory suggests - we found it. A low, stone stump cross a little distant from a crossroads of tracks. But alas, I did not have a camera with me at the time, and the recollection has faded. All I know is that a year or so later I did the walk again, this time with a camera, and this time was completely unable to find any trace of the stump cross. It was as though the pilgrims had entirely faded away. 
There seems little doubt that the green lane had some sort of relationship with a former 13th century priory at Bromehill, where pilgrims may have rested on their journey. But the matter is less than certain, and Chris Barringer makes plain that the layout of paths and tracks around Weeting is complicated and that the outline has changed many times. For example, in the 19th century a 'new' estate landscape was superimposed on the 'ancient' landscape.
It is unlikely that, in Norfolk at least, any lanes or tracks came into being solely and simply to satisfy a pilgrim demand. Mostly, it would appear, pilgrims and other travellers used what suitable lanes and tracks were already in being, including that section of the Peddars Way near North Pickenham. But the Pilgrims' Path near Weeting, the river ferry crossing at King's Lynn, and several of the lanes around the Walsingham villages, do seem to be remembered in the main for their association with these travellers.
(Highway to Walsingham, by Rev Leonard E Whatmore, The Pilgrim Bureau, 1973. Weeting All Saints with S. Mary, church brochure, undated. Norfolk Origins 8, Exploring the Norfolk Village, Christopher Barringer, Poppyland Publishing, 2005)