Hunstanton: A Victorian Seaside Resort
Introduction
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| Norfolk |
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| Kings Lynn & W Norfolk |
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| Norfolk - and (inset) the county's position within England The many pins are the work of Tour Norfolk from whom I have borrowed the map |
The village of Old Hunstanton is of prehistoric origin and the Le Strange family were the local gentry from the early 12th century until 1949.
In 1846, Henry L'Estrange Styleman Le Strange (great name!) decided to develop the area south of the village as one of those a new-fangled bathing resorts. Development started, then stalled, but in 1861 he formed a group of investors to build a railway line from King's Lynn. Completed in 1862
the line allowed rapid expansion of the new Hunstanton. Unfortunately, Henry
died the same year, leaving his son Hamon (another good name) to reap the
rewards of his efforts.
Today Henry stands, rather besmirched with guano, outside the old town hall, now an art gallery and event venue.
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| Henry Le Strange, Hunstanton |
Hunstanton Beaches
07-Apr-2025
North Beach
Having unpacked, we made the short walk to the south end of the north beach. After long drives, legs needed stretching.
It is not a classic lazing and bathing beach, but the striped cliff is unusual. At the base is a dark red layer of Carrstone mostly hidden by the rockfalls, an unusual red limestone occupies the middle with white limestone at the top.
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| North Beach, Hunstanton |
It also has unusual rough, rounded rocks for jumping on and off.
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| North Beach, Hunstanton |
08-Apr-2025
North Beach Again
The next morning at low tide we left our vehicles in the north end car park. Here the white limestone band appears
thicker and cliff-fall rubble is all around.
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| Hunstanton North Beach |
Leaving the others looking for fossils I set out across the rocks and the sand beyond. There were waders in the shallow water
and I wanted Merlin to identify them (Merlin is a free app from Cornell University
which does just that, I recommend it). Unfortunately, I had underestimated the stream flowing
across the beach. The people with wellies, walking on my right simply splashed
through, but I was underequipped.
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| Hunstanton north beach |
I returned to the others who had found several devil's toenails (an extinct oyster) and belemnites by the dozen. These were a small variation
on squid with a bullet-shaped internal skeleton which became fossilised wholesale.
They were tiny, several being described as 'underwhelming'.
Further on, geography brought us nearer the waders. Herring and black-headed gulls are ubiquitous, and oystercatchers common but I also
recorded whimbrels and curlews and, perhaps surprisingly, an osprey. Birdsongs
can be similar, and picking individual birds from the avian babble is
difficult. Despite its name Merlin is not a magician, and inevitably throws up
the occasional false positive, but it insisted there was at least one osprey
out there.
We soon reached the wreck of the Sheraton. Shipwrecks are often stories of disaster, lost lives, and heroics, but not this one.
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| The wreck of the Sheraton |
Constructed in 1907 in Beverley as a trawler, the Sheraton was requisitioned by the Royal Navy 1915-18 and again in 1939 when she was armed with a gun and patrolled the coast. Post-war she was painted
bright yellow as a Royal Air Force target ship. By 1947 they had still not
hit the target but she broke free of her moorings in an April gale and ran
aground here. Re-floatation attempts failed, her superstructure was salvaged and
the rest left to rot.
After pausing for a thermos of coffee and a snack, James, Lynne and the youngsters headed back to the cars while Siân and I continued
towards the southern access we used yesterday. We were closer than we thought,
but were delayed by a large bird standing on a rock. We approached carefully along the sandy channels in the grid-like rock formation, repeatedly creeping then photographing until we crept too close and he flew off.
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| Great cormorant, Hunstanton beach (with an oystercatcher down to his right) |
The final photo will not win prizes, but is sufficient to identify the bird as a great cormorant. Ordinary cormorants are common, but
this was our first great cormorant.
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| Grid-like rock formations, Hunstanton north beach |
The rock formations are best seen from steps at the southern access. The pattern is caused by jointing in the bedrock, the lines of
weakness being expanded by the sea..
South Beach
After lunch we strolled through the small town centre and across the sloping green below the statue of Henry Le Strange to the south
beach.
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| Mr Le Strange's slopping sward, Hunstanton |
This is a sandy beach with bathing opportunities, but not so much in April, the sun shone but with little warmth. Following the
younger members of the party we headed for the amusement arcade - Pier Family
Amusements according to the sign, though there is no pier.
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| Pier Family Amusements, Hunstanton |
It is a long time since I have visited such a place and I could rant at length, but suffice it to say:-
I was distressed by the penny falls. The elegant simplicity of shuffling shelves and falling coins has been replace by a festoon
of dolls and fake flowers, which conspire to keep the coins in place.
I was amazed when Siân beat her son at air-hockey and proudly announced her highest ever score. That a woman with her intellect and responsibilities keeps a corner of her brain labelled ‘air-hockey
scores’ baffles me.
I smiled sadly as our grand-daughter amassed over 70 tickets spinning coins across a moving surface to hit targets. She proudly took
her tickets to the booth and swapped them for a miniscule lollipop. She could
have bought one four times the size for half the money she sent spinning.
Of course, I thought all this but said nothing. It is one thing being a miserable old git, but entirely another to announce it.
James kindly bought everyone a sugary doughnut, warm from the fryer. We ate them sitting on the prom and then continued, sticky-fingered, in the direction
of the funfair. Passing the mini-golf the youngest member of the party loudly informed us she wanted to play mini-golf, so we did.
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| Watching James for tips |
It was a great success…but…years ago I played golf regularly. I was not good, but with the ball on the green and I could manage a clean
contact between ball and putter - because any fool could. Not anymore. I toe-ended,
I shanked and I hit the ground so the club bounced and clipped the top of the
ball. Age has brought me to this!
09-Apr-2025
Felbrigg Hall
Many years ago, we acquired a National Trust matching game. Half the cards depicted NT properties, the other half the ghosts that haunted them. The young Siân liked this game and read the cards assiduously. As Felbrigg Hall in Norfolk was one of those properties, a visit was inevitable.
The Hall is less than 40 miles from Hunstanton, but we let the satnav chose the scenic route and it took some 90 minutes rambling through the lanes of north Norfolk to get there.
The grounds around the hall are vast and landscaped, but the hall itself is relatively modest.
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| Felbrigg Hall |
Felbrigg was the home of landed gentry, not aristocrats. Though owning the hall for over 400 years the Wyndham family held no titles, though one of them was knighted, and two were admirals.
The original medieval building had been much modified before it passed by marriage from the Felbrigg family to John Wyndham in 1450.
From then until to 1866 the hall was owned by 11 Wyndhams (or Windhams) 6 Williams, 2 Johns, 2 Thomases and an Ashe. It mostly passed
from father to son, but there were the occasional hiccups that occur in every
dynasty.
Sir John Windham, the second John, was responsible for the Jacobean core of the building around 1620. The current building is still
largely Jacobean, thought with many later modifications. The interior is
decorated in more 19th century style.
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| Morning room, Felbrigg Hall |
William Windham I (d. 1689) commissioned architect William Samwell to extend the Jacobean house in 1674.
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| Great Hall, Felbrigg Hall |
His son Ashe Windham, owned Felbrigg for 60 years until his death in 1749. He built the orangery and a service courtyard.
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| Dining room, Felbrigg Hall |
His son, William Windham II hired architect James Paine to remodel the Hall and the formal landscape. There is a portrait of him
in the uniform of a Hungarian Hussar, probably from his Grand Tour.
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| William Windham II as a Hungarian Hussar |
William Windham III (1750-1810) was a bibliophile and collector and is largely responsible for the library. While staying at his
London home he noticed a friend’s house was on fire and dashed in to save
valuable manuscripts. He fell during the rescue and later died from his
injuries. He is Felbrigg’s best known apparition, allegedly appearing in the library whenever his favourite books are laid out.
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| Library, Felbrigg Hall |
Felbrigg Hall’s last Windham, was William Frederick (1840–1866) whose father died when he was young. He was sent to Eton but left at 16 and had
failed careers in law and the military before inheriting the hall and an annual
income of £3,100 (c£250,000 today) on his 21st birthday. He then
announced his desire to marry Anne Agnes Willoughby. She may have been the
innocent daughter of a vicar, and thus slightly below the Windham’s social
standing, or a high-class courtesan, or something in between, different sources
tell very different stories. Whatever the truth, his scandalised uncle went to
court to have William declared a ‘lunatic.’ The long and dramatic case was followed closely by the press before eventually the judge opined that William was eccentric,
but nor mad. Almost ruined by legal expense, he now set about dissipating the
remainder of his inheritance and by 1863, the hall was sold and William was
destitute.
He allegedly eked out an existence driving coaches, but died in 1866 aged 26. A ghostly coachman is sometimes seen diving furiously
through the estate. It may be William.
John Ketton bought the hall in 1863. In 1969 his great-grandson Robert Wyndham Ketton-Cremer died unmarried and without an heir, bequeathing Felbrigg
Hall to the National Trust.
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| Robert Wyndham Ketton-Cremer by Allan Gwynne-Jones, Felbrigg Hall |
Finally, we descended to the servant’s realm. I love these huge old kitchens…
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| Kitchen, Felbrigg Hall |
...but I am grateful it is not my job to make the copper gleam.
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| Copper pots, Felbrigg Hall kitchen |
Outside it was exceedingly cold. After a week or two of pleasant sunshine, the clouds had reasserted themselves and with them the famously
biting east wind. However, we had to spend some time exploring the grounds as
the youngest member of the family had to complete the easter egg challenge.
That done, she insisted on visiting the walled garden. It is large as walled gardens go, but not at its best in early April.
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| Walled garden, Felbrigg Hall |
As is traditional, espaliered fruit trees lined the walls, many of them varieties that have all but disappeared. This is an apple
called D’Arcy Spice.
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| D'Arcy Spice apple tree, Felbrigg Hall |
We then left and took the quicker ‘recommended route’ back to Hunstanton
The Food we Ate
Inevitably... here is a section on the culinary delights and specialities that can be found almost everywhere by a diligent traveller. Happily I was surrounded by diligent travellers on this trip - and two more whose palates will mature soon enough.
Curating the Cheeseboard
Curating the cheeseboard is Siân’s self-imposed task. Nobody else, as far as I know, ‘curates’ a cheeseboard, but she takes it
seriously, knows what she is doing and her cheeseboard expects the best.
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| A place for a curation |
And this is how it looks when a curation has occurred. Three of these cheeses are from Norfolk, the fourth, at my request, is Baron
Bigod, made just over the border in Suffolk.
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| A beautiful curation |
Clockwise from 6 o’clock, the temporary residents are:-
Fen Fossey
Fen Fossey is made by Norfolk and Better, who are based in a farm in Thetford. A small tomme-style cheese classed by the makers as semi-hard, though I would call it ‘hard.’ Smooth and herby with fruity and blue notes it offers a rich and complex flavour that develops on the palate.
Norfolk White Lady
Norfolk white lady was first produced in 1999 by Jane Murray at Whitewood Dairy, near Norwich, using the milk of her own flock
of Friesland ewes. She was the first women in modern times to produce artisan cheeses in
Norfolk and her Brie-style recipe produces a soft bloomy rind as snowy white as
the ewes, hence the name. Jane Murray retired and Becky Enefer now makes White Lady at Wilton Farm, Hockwold.
It is not a strong cheese, but enjoyably subtle, buttery and sheep-y. With longer maturation, I read, it becomes richer and oozier.
Jiffler Blue
Blue Jiffler is a new cheese this year from Norfolk and Better. It is a semi-hard cheese, brined and aged to develop a natural
rind and enhanced with a blue vein. It is mild and creamy with subtle hints of salt and herbs, but for me the 'blue' flavour is not strong enough. To ‘Jiffle’ is Norfolk dialect for ‘to fiddle or mess around,’ a reference to the constant movement of the cheese during
maturation.
And finally, the sublime
Baron Bigod
Made at Fen Farm near Bungay, in Suffolk, Baron Bigod might be the best soft cheese in the world (see Eating Aldeburgh). This example
was fully ripe, almost flowing and with a beguiling tang of the farmyard. Loved it.
Cromer Crab
The brown crab, Cancer pagurus
is widely fished around the UK and Irish coasts. Those from the nutrient-rich
waters of the chalk reef stretching along the Norfolk coast either side of Cromer
(see map) are sold as Cromer crabs and are particularly sweet, delicate, and
flavourful.
We bought ours from Gurney’s
Fish Shop in Thornham, just outside Hunstanton. As we learned in Aldeburgh last
year, the more derelict the shack, the better (and more expensive) their fish. (Siân’s
view: artfully distressed, not derelict).
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| Gurney's Fish Shop, Thornham |
We bought two dressed Cromer
crabs, smoked prawns and some tiny brown shrimps. This, along with salad
and crackers, and followed by the excellent cheeseboard provided the four
adults with a first-class dinner without needing to cook. The grandchildren picked a bit, but unsurprisingly preferred more familiar offerings.
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| Dressed Cromer crab The claw meat, white meat and dark meat have been extracted, chopped, artfully mixed and returned to the cleaned shell. |
Fish and Chips
Inland fish and chips is almost entirely takeaway food, but the seaside is different. Restaurants attached to fish fryers have
tidied themselves up in recent years, expanded their menus (a little) and some
even have drinks licences.
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| Fish and Chip restaurant, Hunstanton |
Expanded menu or not, Lynne and I chose traditional cod, chips and mushy peas. The cod was very fresh, the batter crisp and there
were more chips than I could eat. Perfect.
Crisps
Having descended from the heights of artisan cheeses and Cromer crab, lets hit rock bottom with crisps. Siân has long collected
(not curated!) unlikely crisp flavours. Four years ago in Ludlow she found
three game flavours. This year the Grouse and Whinberry was back, joined by
Spanish made Cretan Herb flavour and a French Confit d’Ognion avec Vinaigre Balsamique.
We opened the Cretan Herbs. The best part of it was the drawing of a bull
playing a balalaika on the packet.
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| Weird crisps |
11-Apr-2025
Watatunga Safari
On Thursday we were up and packed early and drove 20 miles south, past Kings Lynn, towards the village of Watlington. Near the
village, tucked round the back of an unsightly quarry, is Watatunga wildlife
reserve.
Opened in 2020, Watatunga is 170 acres of diverse habitats, including woodland, grassland, wetlands, and lakes. Siân had hired a
6-seater electric buggy for a tour, allowing us to see as many of the birds
and their 24 species of deer and antelopes as chose to show themselves.
We were a tad early, so had a look at the duckpond outside reception. Among others they have white-faced whistling-ducks,
red-crested pochards and mandarin ducks,
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| A hiding mandarin duck, Watatunga |
A 10 o’clock sharp we were seated in our buggy (James kindly volunteered to take the wheel) setting off in a small convoy behind a cheerful young
woman with a walkie-talkie and a mission to explain.
She was keen to tell us about the reserve’s
conservation work with both ungulates and birds. The first animals we saw (too
distant to photograph) were hog deer, a small deer with an alleged pig-like gate
when alarmed. Once they roamed northern India, Bangladesh, Myanmar and further
south but are now endangered.
The water buffalo were closer. Numerous, they are domesticated throughout south Asia.
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| Water Buffalo, Watatunga |
Next up was a wildebeest, again hardly rare and a herd animal, so one wildebeest is a sad sight.
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| Black Wildebeest, Watatunga |
I am posting pictures of almost every animal we saw well enough to photograph - some stayed too far away while others we never saw (they
are free to roam). Birds present the snapper with more problems
than ungulates, but the green peafowl were very co-operative.
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| Green peafowl, Watatuga |
Indian peafowl have settled in many countries and are common in India. The peacocks carry their enormous tail feathers which become tatty
out of the breeding season and look a burden, presumably making life easy for predators.
The Green peacock’s tail conveniently moults after mating but even so, it is
green peafowl, who once ranged from Myanmar to Java who are endangered, not the
Indian species.
Silver pheasants resemble ordinary pheasants iearing a long white coat. Originally from south east Asia, they have been introduced elsewhere
and are plentiful.
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| Silver pheasant, Watatunga |
Then we met Dave. Dave is a Great Bustard, sent here from Salisbury Plain where efforts are being made to re-establish a British
population. Apparently believing he is an electric buggy, he regularly performs
his courtship display to the convoy leader. Once rejected he walks down the
rest of the line….
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| Dave the Great Bustard looks wistfully at an unresponsive buggy, Watatunga |
…looking for a better offer. I wonder why he was surplus to requirements in Salisbury?
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| Undaunted he carries on down the line |
A little further on were a couple of newly arrived Bongos, spectacularly striped antelopes from central Africa.
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| The mountain bongo, Waratunga |
That ended our ‘safari.’ It had been an enjoyable 90 minutes, with some interesting animals and an informative and amusing guide. I
wish them all the best with their conservation work.
And finally the name. Watatunga, they told us, is a portmanteau word, ‘Wat’ from the nearby village,’atunga’ from sitatunga, a close relative
of the Bongo – and I thought Watatunga was a lake in New Zealand!
Then we said our goodbyes and made our different ways home.
King's Lynn and Around: The Wash & Castle Rising (April 2022)
King's Lynn: The Town (April 2022)
Hunstanton and Around (April 2025)
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