Being a mountain goat and a lover of rollercoaster rocky cliffs and coves, my brother's choice of a farmhouse in mid-Norfolk for this year's break did not fill me with the immediate enthusiasm my dear brother conveyed on the phone.
For the past couple of years, parents and siblings together with assorted partners and offspring have re-acquainted ourselves with the half-remembered art of the family holiday. With the experience of our 'Somerset Sojourn' in Easter 2000 to inform this year's choice, the remit for Chris in his internet trawl was as follows: somewhere near-ish to London that offered comfortable, child-friendly accommodation with easy access to good pubs, walks, beaches, castles, old and interesting-to-potter-about-in towns and villages, steam railways and other fascinating curiosities with which to while away a wet and windy English June day - quite a tall order for a week's break!
Well, I'm pleased to report that Norfolk turned out to be a pretty near perfect host for the rather exacting and wide-ranging demands of a family with such diverse interests and hopes yet still wanting to "do things together".
Our home for the holiday was an expansive 16th-century farmhouse, lovingly restored from a roofless wreck, with flagstoned floors, ship's timber beams, ox-sized fireplaces, an oversized kitchen table for family feasts and the all-important dishwasher. The sprawling outbuildings included a former microbrewery (now relocated to a local hostelry) plus loads of farmyard and garden space for roaming micro-people to explore. The cost compared extremely favourably with other areas of Britain and included the regular entertainment of Charlie the Cockerel who would, humorously, sound his alarm call at the thoughtful hour of two or three in the morning!
The nearby village of Hingham, with its own grumpy teashop, grand but ordinary inn and 'Harrods of Hingham' provided a morning's meander and the fresh fish van direct from Lowestoft on Thursdays offered excellent value skate wings for the barbie!
Only half an hour's drive to the east lay the attractive and ancient city of Norwich with more pre-Reformation churches than any other in Europe, the Colman's Mustard factory and museum and the rivers Wensum and Yare offering a gateway to the Norfolk Broads. Most of the goodies are contained within the central old city and so allowed us all to wander at will but meet up easily in the cathedral grounds for a picnic and riverside stroll. I did, however, have one extra-curricular visit on my "must" list to make, just outside the inner ring road, the infamous Fat Cat boozer par excellence. This is somewhat of a mecca to real ale enthusiasts, serving 28(!) perfectly kept traditional beers, real ciders and a limited but tasty range of pub grub. We sat outside at 4.30pm on a sunny afternoon and sampled a few halves before wending our merry way marvelling at how such an enterprise could flourish tucked away on a back street corner. In these times of difficulty and closures for the traditional local, the dedication to quality service and atmosphere shone through. The take-away four-pint jug of Norfolk Nog gave a certain luminescence to the evening too!
The inevitable strains of a large family outing with small children of varying ages can often be smoothed somewhat by providing one or two focus points for the day. Wells-next-the-Sea is a traditional English seaside town. Once a busy commercial port, it offers a relaxed charm and plenty of those focal points. We all enjoyed the miniature steam train to the beach and the wide views over the sweep of Holkham Bay, famous for its birdlife, as we constructed odd-shaped sandcastles and I was dragged screaming into the icy water by my insistent three-year-old. The village green behind the winding streets of shops and Georgian/Victorian dwellings was alive with an early Summer Fayre. Throngs of revellers stood around dutifully taking the mickey out of the Morris dancers and there was a bouncy castle to entertain my daughter Bethan while the rest of us enjoyed ice creams, beers from the surrounding hostelries or both. We had considered riding the steam train to the famous remains of Walsingham Abbey but cramming too much into one day just would not have worked!
The pretty village of Castle Acre has much to recommend - two ancient priories and an even more ancient Iron Age hill fort - yes, that's right, hill fort - with excellent views over the gently undulating landscape below.
The Ostrich Pub was shut so for refreshment we turned to an attractive little teashop with tables on the main street. I could have ordered Scone with Jam and Butter but opted for the Full Cream Tea with Earl Grey. My scone was spread with margarine. I pointed this out. "Vitalite actually. We always serve it with the Full Cream Tea". Odd. Health conscious? I got my butter anyway.
No holiday in the area would quite be complete without a trip on the Broads. The Sutton Windmill & Broads Museum is one of those typically British, small-scale museums that one finds advertised in local Things to Do booklets. Nevertheless, it allows an entirely fascinating if somewhat under-labelled look at how the Broads were created and the everyday lives of people who worked on and near them in days gone by. You also get the chance to scale the inside of a 200ft- (60m-) high windmill via a series of wooden ladders and steps emerging on a dodgy-looking platform next to the sails. Bethan demonstrated just how much energy a three-year-old has that we grown-ups like to pretend we have by scooting up and down three times with various adult members of the family, acting as experienced climbing guide by the time I ascended the heights - "Mind that gap, Daddy!" From Wroxham we took an hour's round trip on the large steamboat-style cruiser. There are much quieter and more independent means of travel on the Broads but the cruise suited the family fine for a taster.
And what of my love of walking I hear you ask? Sarah, Bethan and I did break off from the main pack for one more visit to the acclaimed coastline to sample a section of the Norfolk Coast Path National Trail. I had hoped to experience some East Anglian 'Big Sky', as an alternative to my normal desires for pointy, jagged scenery and this is where I got it. The vast expanses of sand, marsh and sea open the mind in an infinite space kind of way. The coastline is one of the most important birdlife sites in Europe and as such is protected and unspoilt in the main.
We started our jaunt from the fine Jolly Sailors pub in Brancaster Staithe. Then we headed up over a gorse-cloaked common, sweet with that wonderful coconut scent, descended with views over the Scolt Head Island Bird Reserve, past the earthworks of the Roman fort of Branodunum and along the duckboards of the marsh behind the sands of Brancaster Bay. We rounded off the afternoon sitting on the harbour wall munching happily on pots of local crayfish and Cromer crab at pleasingly low prices.
We finished our holiday with a superb lunch at the 15th century Chequers at Thompson. Children's meals were wolfed down before the delights of the garden, supplied with bikes, climbing frames, toy lawnmowers and real rabbits took over. The thoughtful approach to the whole family seemed to fit in with our overall experience of Norfolk.
The county offers the visitor a wealth of history, largely unspoilt villages with a touch of the timeless and a real working agricultural community alongside the leisure and tourist industry. Flat landscape, yes, but plenty of relief from stress and the mundane, and plenty to lift the spirit if not the feet.
I took with me the Pathfinder Guide to Norfolk Walks and the relevant OS maps, including the map of The Broads.
Author: Martyn Bearfoot
Date: 1 August 2001
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