Above: White
Chalk (Upper Cretaceous), Red Chalk (limestone, Lower Cretaceous) and grey/green Carstone form the Brownstone Cliffs at Hunstanton, a Mecca for fossil hunters in Norfolk
conceals plenty of grisly tales in its walls. In 1272 people rioted when a toll was proposed for animal fairs, while another revolt in 1381 saw the city’s mayor killed. Those who wish to take a piece of Norwich’s past home should pay a visit to Elm Hill, where antiques vie for attention in the crooked windows of its timber-framed shops. With so much land available, it was inevitable England’s
finest architects would be set to work on stately homes for the powerful and the wealthy in Norfolk. Houghton Hall was built for England’s first Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole on an estate he inherited in 1700. Among the architects involved were Thomas Kent, James Gibbs and Thomas Ripley. Houghton’s interiors are worthy of note as a reflection of Walpole’s tastes. While its State Floor boasts intricately carved and gilded furniture with elaborate fabrics, Walpole preferred his family rooms to be decorated with benches, chairs and tables of a much simpler design. Blickling Hall, now under the care of the National
Trust, is an imposing Jacobean house with exquisite long gallery, tapestries and rare books. The house’s formal and informal gardens are a treasure to behold, in particular the spectacular spring carpet of bluebells. The house was owned by the Boleyn family and several accounts suggest Henry VIII’s ill-fated second wife Anne Boleyn made Blickling her spectral home. Legend has it that on the anniversary of her death, 17 May, Anne’s ghost returns by carriage, holding her severed head in her lap.
18 BRITAIN
On the north Norfolk coast, Holkham Hall sits in
the 25,000-acre estate. The house, a perfect Palladian style mansion designed by William Kent and Lord Burlington for the first Earl of Leicester, Thomas Coke, is still the home of the Coke family today. Its Marble Hall is stunning and was used as a location in the film The Duchess, while the estate’s sandy beach famously featured actress Gwyneth Paltrow at the end of Shakespeare in Love. The most famous of Norfolk’s stately homes must be
Sandringham House, one of the Queen’s official residences. The estate was purchased in 1862 for the Prince of Wales, later Edward VII, and is an impressive 20,000 acres of luscious, gentle hills, which was popular with royal hunting parties. Like London’s Buckingham Palace, Sandringham is open to the public when the family is not in residence. Visitors can wander around the Edwardian-style ground floor rooms, still used by the royal family and also see their impressive collection of vintage cars. A county with royal seal of approval, Norfolk can glean little higher praise.
8 For details of what to see and do and where to stay in
Norfolk,
www.visitnorfolk.co.uk and
www.visiteastofengland.
com. Tourist Information Centres: The Custom House, Purfleet Quay, King’s Lynn PE30 1HP; tel: (01553) 763044; The Forum, Millennium Plain, Norwich NR2 1TF; tel: (01603) 213999; Maritime House, 25 Marine Parade, Great Yarmouth
NR30 2EN; tel: (01493) 846346.
PHOTO: DAVE PORTER
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