North Norfolk - Is There Anywhere Nicer For A Holiday In England?

Just returned from a few days away in Norfolk. Staying near Holt. Lovely countryside, friendly people and a sunny coast. Even the sea was lovely.

As a child my parents flogged themselves silly taking us to Cornwall. Dad desperate to be on the Exeter by pass before dawn on Saturday morning. Why we never saveD half the time and headed to sunny Norfolk I have no idea.

Straight up the A1M, A505 to Duxford and onward via Swaffham and Thetford; even the drive was fun.

I feel a bit foolish not discovering the delights of north Norfolk before.

 

I’d just like to fly a helicopter all around Norfolk. You know, swoop down over a field. Scare a donkey so that it falls into a river. Hover over one of those annoying families that go on holidays on bikes. And shout at them “get out of the area!” and watch them panic!

 

It’s easy to fall into the habit of going abroad for hols year after year, but there are many great places for hols in the UK

 

Yep been going to North Norfolk every year for the last 10 years. Have relatives in Holt, and really like it there. My favourite places are the smaller villages like Thornham, Brancaster and Burnham Overy. What amazes me is the beaches there are exceptional but often not very busy, probably because they require a walk to get there ( people too feckin lazy). Less keen on the busier Hunstanton and Cromer.
Also like parts of North Devon, Cornwall and the Lakes.

 

Ah the plump peninsula, Albion's hindquarters, the Wales of the East!

 

The rump of Britain, it looks like a boob

 

Norfolk is fab. Even the tackier places like Great Yarmouth are fun. You could give kids holidays in the Maldives, Costa Brava, Machu Picchu, anywhere and they’d tell you they had most fun in Norfolk. Beaches with pools to go crabbing in, amusement arcades, bingo, whippy ice cream and hot donots. Hire a cheap day boat on the broads. Your five year old can steer it. Pointless, but lovely narrow gauge railway. Mundesley a small seaside village as nice as it comes.

The A11 is now a proper dual carriageway and it’s the driest, sunniest part of the UK.

 

Regularly go there for a weekend as my sister had a cottage there. Great for birds and coastal walks but a bit short on the dramatic coastal scenery that D&C give you. Remember just one family holiday there as a teenager after my parents decided to head for "the driest part of the UK" after years of being drenched in the west country. Cue the wettest Norfolk summer for decades and many days of long drives in the rain, featuring numerous cases of reversing back miles along flooded single track country lanes.

 

And the ring road is the areola.

 

Gon 2 West Ham m8.

 

@HighStreetHorn may have a view on this.

 

Does he have a view on the pedestrianisation of High Streets?

 

Cromer Crabs.

The seafood is decent as well.

 

I worked in Norwich for 8 years. It is a pleasant place to live, with some very good pubs, but feels a bit “end of the line” (which it is, of course).

North Norfolk is lovely but I gather it is now full of posh London second-homers.

 

I'd be delighted to tell my sister she qualifies as "posh" but she lives in Gloucester and doesn't own the vicarage she lives in, so sadly misses out.

 

My best mate’s parents (******* minted) have a cottage and a massive bungalow in Old Hunstanton so we get to go up there once or twice a year with them. Just lovely, favourite place in the UK.

 

Not given to sharing your millions around the family, then?

 

No, were not that close .

 

Please bring back the politics section!

 

North Yorkshire Moors for me, as much as I like Norfolk and Southwold just below. Steam engines chuffing through the valley just shade it. Shropshire very nice as well.

 

Agree about Shropshire, Shropshire Hills are lovely and very untouristy.

Northumberland is worth a shout. Brilliant beaches, castles, and not too expensive.

 

Indeed he does. But that's for another thread surely

 

Sort of alternative behaviour we've come to expect really ...

 

Entirely agree.

 

Surely you understand that it's perfectly possible to bend a thread to your will a bit and discuss politics without there actually being an official politics section? Can get a bit tasty though!

 

True.

 

Fairly sure I saw George Osbourne in Thornham Deli once.

 

OK then. Seeing as I've been fingered. No idea why really

Yep, North Norfolk is absolutely one of my favourite places on the face of this planet. Misspent my yoof there. I'd regard 'North Norfolk' as the coastal stretch from Cromer west to Hunstanton. 40 miles east to west (or vice versa surprisingly). Cromer and Hunstanton at each end are both 'small towns' with only Sheringham (just west of Cromer) and Wells-next-the-Sea (in the middle) being the same. Wells is the only one of them I 'like'. After all this time.

The rest of that coast are small, flint built, villages with disproportionality large, flint built, churches. Plenty of cash from the wool trade involved there. My favourite of those villages are Salthouse, Cley-next-the-Sea, Blakeney and Morston heading west along the Cromer to Wells stretch. But the residents are mostly out-of- towners as you have rightly pointed out. Sad but true. Been going on for half a century.

Anyway, if you were considering a 'family holiday' there be prepared to introduce your kids to the joys of wild, open spaces and big, big skies. Don't expect any stunning cliff scenery. There are 'amusements' and they're somewhat quaint in their 'low-key tackiness'. But Disneyland it ain't.

Two good walks. Around Cley Marsh. Park at the road end of the East Bank of that marsh on the coastal A149 or at Walsey Hills opposite (a loose interpretation of a hill there). Both free (but small and could be full). Than walk around either clockwise or vice-versa. Or park in the Norfolk Wildlife Trust (NWT) half-way along the main road stretch. Bigger. Fee I think. Or drive north along the coast road north at the east end of the village to the coast car park. Fee. The coast bit of the rectangle is shingle and quite tough going. The east bank is easy. There is a narrow footpath adjacent to the A149 road. The road to the coast car park is minor with a bank to the west that you can climb up onto. The rectangle will take you about two hours at a leisurely place. You can also pay a fee at the NWT centre to get onto the reserve proper. Reedbeds and lagoons if you like that sort of stuff.

OR. Drive up the coast road north from Wells with the harbour channel on your right. Big car park at the end with a fee. Bound to be loads of cars. Don't worry about that. Most of the sheep that currently comprise humanity will struggle to get far from their vehicles. From there it's three miles east to Lady Anne's Drive at Holkham with Scot's Pines backing the sand-dunes and extensive inter-tidal sand flats (to your right - north) and a freshwater/ brackish marsh to your left (south) . Be careful with that viz-a-viz tides. I goes a long way out and comes back in again very quickly. Think Morecambe Bay. But wander at you leisure. Great picnic bench overlooking the beach if you head north over the boardwalk from the first (easternmost) bird hide - the Joe Jordan Hide no less - for a view across the beach. I got a few jealous looks last time I was there in May having rocked up at just the right time to be in prime position with an M&S 3 for £7, a bit of crusty bread and a bottle of Chardonnay.

 

Needles to say, I had the last laugh

 

Been there since?

 

I once met John Hulme on Malin Head. A stalwart in the peace protest that morphed into the 'Good Friday Agreement'. And a Nobel Peace Prize winner to boot. The most northerly point in Co.Donegal and thus the most northerly point of the Republic.

I rocked up there with my ex wife. A Scot. And, after a bit of 'looking out to sea' I believe I said something along the lines of "ain't that John Hume over there"? So we sidled down the cliff (they were sat a bit lower than us) and had 'a bit of a blether' with him and his kids. Scots lingo there. Against her 'shrinking violet' better judgement however.

It was magic. The conversation flowing freely and was wide ranging. Looking out across the vastness of the Atlantic to our left and the nearness of Scotland to the right. Moral of this story? Always go for it

 

All true, but far too much driving and not enough walking. Walk from Wells, which is no longer next the sea despite its name, to the beach, and then the North Norfolk Coast Path.

 

Norwich is big enough to have a lot going on and isolated enough to avoid having the life sucked from it by the nearest conurbation. Avoid Burnham Market which used to be lovely but is now a theme park for the Chelsea set. All the real shops have gone.

Norwich also has the only team in the world which is better than Watford and consequently Norwich City is my second favourite club. Disclosure: I grew up there and have loads of in-laws who've moved back there.

 

I've never been to North Norfolk, just been to Norfolk twice on an away trip to Norwich (which is in central Norfolk) and a school trip on the Norfolk Broads decades ago. So while I'm not best placed to judge its merits and will take the OP's words for it, I imagine there are many other places equally good if not better to spend a holiday in the UK in - the Chilterns, the area around the River Avon (Bristol, Bath, cities high on my list to move to if I had to move out of London), the Cotswolds, the North and South Downs, the Surrey Hills, south Wales. Probably the South Downs is the best place for a holiday in the UK, because of the range of options and places to stay at (Chichester, Bognor Regis, Brighton, Eastbourne), with walking, a trip to the Isle of Wight and/or the nearby New Forest, visits to attractions like Beachy Head or the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard and Spinnaker Tower, no shortage of opportunities for swimming which you don't get so much at most of the other places (the North Norfolk sea is pretty chilly even in summer).