North Norfolk

 

                                                                    North Norfolk (photos to be added)

Norfolk is a county that up to now has largely passed me by. It’s part of that bit of the UK that sticks out into the North Sea known as East Anglia, a land of flat if not gently rolling countryside, rather exposed to the sea, the Norfolk Broads and wide windswept beaches. In the past I’ve made limited forays into the area, Woodbridge, Southwold, Norwich, Constable country but never thought of it as prime holiday territory.

I had read about North Norfolk being a rather select area, of places like Blakeney and Wells next the Sea being inhabited by posh types from London, a stretch of coast that was a birdwatcher’s paradise, full of nature reserves and blessed with great beaches and cosy little resorts. Maybe a bit of a hidden gem, off the beaten track for those with a bit of discernment.

A word about getting there. North Norfolk is slightly more difficult to get to, which is maybe a good thing. There is no motorway that ploughs up from London straight to the coast, and beyond Norwich it’s a bit more of a struggle to get to places in double quick time, and you still have quite a way to go even if you’ve got to Norwich. You can of course get the train from London to Norwich, but then it’s a bit more tricky (you can get another train to Sheringham). Having said this, the road from London to Norwich is basically M11 and then onto A11 dual carriageway all the way so perfectly adequate. There is the option of going from London King’s Cross to King’s Lynn, but bear in mind you are right over to the western end of the North Norfolk coast.

July 2021 was a great month for weather, and I took myself plus camping gear to North Norfolk to discover its delights for myself. It proved to be a stroke of genius, just before the school holidays and the inevitable rush of people desperate to get away somewhere in the UK with the normal foreign travel somewhat curtailed. I found a new campsite, Barley Fields, just a few miles from the coast near the village of Binham with just enough facilities to make for a great camping holiday. Here at my base deep in the Norfolk countryside I could plot my daily excursions on a whim. Barley Fields was literally a couple of big fields with the most basic but adequate facilities. There is a wooden structure housing a couple of loos and sinks, a kitchen area and a couple of showers, one of which was a gas shower which I made my own in the evening with its consistent hot blast of water. Having arrived well before the school break I had the campsite almost to myself with just one or two others for most of the time thus avoiding the inevitable queues. At weekends the numbers mushroomed to a full house but then by Monday morning most had disappeared, it’s amazing how so many camp even for just one night even with all the hassle of erecting a big tent.

As regards supplies, you’ve got a Morrisons just a few miles down the road on the edge of town in Fakenham, and further towards the centre quite a big Tescos. Fakenham is actually a perfectly pleasant place to spend a half day and has a nice centre, although I think the guy in the mobile phone shop alluded to it being one of the most boring places in the country! Watch it with petrol and don’t leave it too late in the evening to refuel. There was a big BP garage on the main road near my campsite but it closed quite early in the evening, congested south east it is not.

Binham is within ideal striking distance of all the main attractions. Binham itself has a 12^th century priory (The Priory Church of St Mary and the Holy Cross) with substantial ruins strewn around the main building, which still appears to be a functioning church. There is a self-service café there with outside benches for a welcome cup of coffee. The village has the Chequers pub where you can eat in the evening, and a useful tiny petrol station and village shop on the edge of the picturesque green with its medieval Wayside Cross.

 

North Norfolk proved to be a revelation with rolling countryside, certainly not the stereotypical flat landscape you find in much of eastern England, and lots of houses with red tiled roofs which funnily enough reminded me of Italy. There was a real Mediterranean feel about Cley next the Sea with its panoply of roofs jumbled together on the edge of town.

Blakeney and Cley make a nice pair of twins to ding dong between on this expansive marsh filled coast with its Sahara sized sandy beaches. The coastal road through Blakeney stays clear of the shorefront and has a nice big car park alongside on the edge of town that you can’t miss, with toilets as well. Then a shortish walk takes you down through the village to the harbour where you see why it’s such a popular spot, must be one of the quaintest and most picturesque harbours in the UK. In fact it recently got a spot in a Daily Telegraph article ‘The most beautiful seaside villages in the UK.’ On a grassy knoll you can look out over the waterfront with its customary old hotel, cafes and ice cream kiosk, children messing about in the water, signs advertising seal watching trips, and a huge area of marsh and rivulets that takes you out to the sea. I walked out from here all the way to Cley next the Sea through the marshland on winding raised pathway. But be careful, I took one or two wrong turnings and if you want to get to the beach you could be stumped by a large water channel blocking your path unless you’re prepared to get very wet. Check paths if you want to reach the beach or just follow the coast to Cley. Anyway it’s a great walk and you’re rewarded with lovely views of the emerald coastline with Cley windmill punctuating the skyline. Cley itself is a cute cottage filled village with a few watering holes where you can quench your thirst. You can actually rent the windmill for a vacation stay, although I would expect through the roof prices. At the eastern edge of town as said, red topped residential stock makes your think you’re in the Italian Rivera on a sunny day. From Cley I traced the main road back to Blakeney car park.

Holkham Hall was just down the road from my abode, a Premier League sized stately home with skirts that virtually roll down to the sea at Holkham Beach. Never have I seen a stately home so pushed up against the seashore but what a setting, acres of rolling parkland and lake, fronted by a wonderful dune filled beach edging your classic sandy pine woodland. Holkham seems to swallow up the local economy and is a nice contrast from the holiday resort attractions of Wells next the Sea which sits next to Holkham just to the east. You can see the attractions of Wells for the masses. The main drag stuffed with shops and cafes and a pleasing waterfront. Parking seems to be a bit of an issue. I managed ok in July but you could feel the summer rush coming on. At least two people since have said to me they had trouble trying to park in Wells.

Hunstanton is perched on the west coast of North Norfolk overlooking the Wash, resting atop a line of cliffs which disappear to the north into a flat coastal plain. Imagine a lovely rolling green plain swishing down to the sea and then plonk a town on it, that’s Hunstanton for you. ‘Sunny Hunny’ as they call it proved to be a very pleasant visit with a prom stacked with eateries and entertainment, the standard bikers’ patch on the seafront, backed by well-tended swathes of flower bed strewn green sloping down from the town centre. Fish and chips and a coke went down very well watching the sun set over the Wash at the end of a blistering day. You can follow the Norfolk coastal path out of town along the edge of the vast sandy beach, which I did for a while.

If you’ve done Holkham you have to do Sandringham as well, which can be booked online through the website to get a house and garden ticket. Well known as Her Majesty’s Christmas destination, although she arrives straight from Kings Lynn station after a train from Kings Cross, it’s another worthwhile visit to a forested oasis splashed with swathes of greensward and centred on the house itself and nearby tourist centre. Here you are in the Norfolk Coastal Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. You park up and a short walk takes you to expansive tree strewn lawns where you can take a picnic before or after your royal visit. Here in the Courtyard there is the ticket office, a restaurant where you can enjoy high tea, a café, with limited seating it has to be said, toilets and of course a shop filled with Sandringham branded goodies.

From this spot you can take a walk to see inside the St Mary Magdalen church where we see the Queen visit every year for the Christmas service, and even before that you can go through the entrance to Sandringham House itself. A winding walk for ten minutes or so takes you through the gardens and right up to the house itself, a fine Edwardian pile. Well worth a visit, I was surprised at how accessible the house was, with an audio guide giving intimate details of a royal Christmas at Sandringham as you wander the very rooms where they play games, open presents and eat, etc. A comprehensive tour of the ground floor, with views out onto the royal lawns, is an experience I can highly recommend. The gardens are worth a wander as well, with a picturesque lake plus pagoda type building and a coach house/stables area with another café and toilets, although when I got there it was all winding down for the day. There’s also a walled garden which has private pre booked tours only. Surrounding all these attractions is the Royal Park, nearly 243 hectares, with swathes of woodland and grassy avenue to wander.

You can have a real blowout in Norfolk by visiting the main town, Norwich, which together with Sheringham did very well in a ‘Best Places to Live’ survey. The centre is a delightful concoction of large market square with imposing town hall, winding medieval streets, a prominent castle, an attractive river scene and fab cathedral precinct. There are in fact two cathedrals, the Roman Catholic one sits like an ageing matriarch in the middle of a traffic gyratory high up looking out over the city centre. Meanwhile the Anglican cathedral sits in an extensive precinct filled with a jumble of ancient buildings and grassy lawns, well worth a wander which stretches from the city centre right down to towards the River Wensum with its riverside parkland. There’s also a fine modern upstairs café tagged onto the edge of the cathedral itself.

Then there’s the Holt connection. Holt is a very pleasant Georgian style town which sits a few miles inland and would be a good base for hitting all the main local sites. The centre is worth loitering around for an afternoon and has a super shop called Bakers and Larners, I was really impressed. I’m no shopaholic but wandered into this pristine emporium to buy some gas cylinders for my camping. It’s like a department store on one floor which unfolds into different tempting sections as you go front to back. and being an older building has bags of character. Great place for an unhurried browse. If you fancy a nice Indian, I ate at the Taste of India, 31 Bull St.

A short drive east out to the edge of town brings you to the rail station, no, not the Network rail to Norwich but the North Norfolk heritage railway on which you can enjoy a bit of magic rolling back the years by taking a steam or diesel train to Sheringham via a bit of good old English coastal scenery. The route takes you through heathland and rolling countryside via Weybourne, where John Major has a home, down to the very English holiday resort of Sheringham. Here you can alight and visit the rail heritage shop on the platform before walking down to the seafront for a jolly bucket and spade day. The town tumbles down to a rocky seafront with sandy beach, well populated with tourists on the very fine day that I visited.

Rent a bike from ‘On Yer Bike Cycle Hire’ (01328 820719) for a couple of days as I did to explore quiet Norfolk country lanes and villages. They give you maps of different local routes to follow. You can strike for the sea at Holkham or hit the Catholic shrine village of Walsingham. Actually there’s Great Walsingham and Little Walsingham, one of Norfolk’s finest medieval villages and the premier pilgrimage site of medieval England, both well within biking distance of Binham, although I parked my car up at the rental centre and went from there. Little Walsingham actually has the main attractions and is the obvious hub, with Walsingham Abbey being one of the main magnets (‘Living history since 1061’). Entrance to the abbey grounds are at the Shirehall, Walsingham’s original Georgian courtroom. The site is mainly ruins, although there is a crypt that still stands, and it’s a very pleasant green space with paths leading out into woodland (the Dell) and the quaintly named River Stiffkey running through the middle. There’s also the Wells – Walsingham Light Railway, the world’s longest 10 and a quarter inch narrow guage railway which I didn’t go on! Also there is the St Seraphim’s Pilgrim Chapel, Icon and Railway Heritage Museum, an orthodox chapel within the former railway station. Another route I did took in Burnham Market, another cosy village to tick off the list, which is a bit of a centre for the ‘Chelsea up from London crowd.’ You also ride past the birthplace nearby of none other than Lord Nelson. There’s always a decent pub not too far ahead for lunch or dinner.

A further attraction on my biking travels was Langham Dome, literally a concrete dome just outside the village of Langham which was used to train anti-aircraft gunners in the Second World War. Here on the edge of an RAF airfield moving images projected onto the inside of the Dome were used to teach trainees how to shoot down enemy aircraft. There is a picnic and exhibition area outside, with a suspended Spitfire on a plinth, and inside you can have a coffee and wander the shop after having a go at the simulation gunnery exercise. Down the road nestles the village of Langham with a very fine pub, the Blue Bell where I ate one evening. The church is also worth a visit and with its memorials reminds you of the connections with so many servicemen who were stationed in this area in the war.

Wanting the full flush of North Norfolk sights and sounds, I stopped off at Blickling Hall on the way home. There’s a bit of an ‘awe and wonder’ moment as a sweeping driveway up to the splendid mansion itself almost falls onto the main road with an absence of high wall and tree filled parkland to hide the big house itself from the ‘hoi polloi.’ You can park up in the usual National Trust carpark and a short walk takes you to the big Jacobean house and extensive formal gardens and parkland with lake. All well worth a day out and I was especially interested in its role in the Second World War when RAF aircrew were billeted here. Its story goes back a lot further. The original Tudor house was believed to have been the birthplace of Anne Boleyn!