All Saints' Church has a thatched roof on its tower, a detail you register before anything else about Chedgrave. Inside, the east window is filled with 16th-century glass said to have been brought from Rouen by Lady Beauchamp Proctor around 1797, though the parish's own account traces it to a German monastery instead. Two Norman doorways survive, the southern one carved with rope moulding and intersecting zigzags, and there is a 15th-century octagonal font ringed with winged angels. A memorial slab records Robert Gilbert, who died in 1671. The church is open during daylight hours; visitors can make tea or coffee and use the loo.
From the churchyard the paths lead down toward the water. Chedgrave sits on the north bank of the tidal River Chet, the smallest of the seven Broads rivers and navigable for a little over five kilometres. Reed-fringed banks, boatyards and common land give way northward to arable fields that rise gently away from the marsh.
The White Horse stands about 150 yards from Loddon Staithe, with a separate bar and restaurant and a large garden that hosts the East Coast Sinfonietta every other year and a free fireworks display. Yash Korat took the pub on in early 2025. The kitchen runs from king prawns with chorizo to a tomahawk pork chop in Aspall cider-and-cream sauce, lamb chops with mint gravy, chicken gyro, a homemade pie of the day and vegetable lasagne, with sticky-toffee sponge and pistachio ice cream to finish. Four cask ales are the regulars, though availability can vary: Adnams Southwold Bitter and Ghost Ship, Timothy Taylor Landlord and Young's London Original. Dogs are welcome in the bar, though not the restaurant, and there is water and a biscuit for them; a regular called Charlie has the run of the place. Children get highchairs, games and toys. The bowls club, more than fifty members strong, plays out the back under its chairman, Mike Jones.
For a shop, Chet Stores on Hardley Road is a convenience shop that has run a Post Office Drop and Collect counter since 2024. For meat, cross into Loddon to A J Ward, a butcher the Ward family opened in 1881 and now run by Chris Turner, who took over from his father Eric in 2007. The counter carries East Anglian beef and lamb, Blythburgh free-range pork, Suffolk chicken and seasonal game, house-made sausages and hand-raised pork pies, alongside Baron Bigod and Binham Blue cheeses and bread from Stradbroke Bakery.
The walking starts at the church door. Wherryman's Way Walk 7 leads through the Pits play area and the boatyards, then follows the Chet to Chedgrave Common, a bird hide and the open water of Hardley Flood, either four and a half miles in about two hours or a longer seven and a quarter in about three and a half hours. A stretch beside Hardley Flood has been closed and diverted in recent seasons, so check current rights-of-way notices before setting out. Footbridges near Hardley Flood have been closed for repairs, so check the current path status before you set off. It is flat to gently graded, half of it soft underfoot, and there are no stiles.
The village grew in the 17th century as weavers left Norwich for the riverside, and again after Woods, Sadd, Moore and Co opened their wherry yards in 1884 and Cannell's seed merchants arrived in 1906. The Domesday surveyors valued the whole place at four pounds, twelve shillings and sevenpence, with two mills and a church. A wartime pillbox still guards the bridge over the Chet, the last major chokepoint on the road into Norwich.
Loddon lies directly across the river, close enough that the two places share a playing field and tennis courts. Trains run from Cantley, under three miles off, though it's worth checking the timetable before you go, and the X21 and X22 buses stop outside the White Horse on their way between Norwich and the coast. In the evening the moored boats knock quietly against the staithe, and the light goes out of the reeds last of all.