Our last Norfolk holiday, shortly before the next one

Yes, doing it again. After our pleasant-but-not-quite-cutting-it stay in King’s Lynn in May 2022, we were keen to return to the north Norfolk coast proper (interesting though the KL area is) and booked ourselves a coastal stay for the following year.

12-19 May 2023

Where we stayed

'Lazy Days', Gong Lane, Burnham Overy Staithe

Booked through Barefoot Retreats. Burnham Overy Staithe is a village we’d paid a brief visit to on our 2022 trip. Actually it’s probably a hamlet rather than a village – there’s a pub there (or there was when we were there) but no shops. It's a pretty little place with a harbour and boats moored along the tidal creeks. It's about a mile's walk to actual beach.

It wasn't a long walk down the lane to BOS's harbour, though “barely a pebble’s throw from the iconic salt marshes” is a bit of a stretch; you’d have to have one hell of a throwing arm.

The harbour at Burnham Overy Staithe

'Lazy Days' is described as a “luxury bolthole”. It’s an annexe to a larger house, separated from it by a (locked) door. The owners of the house were not in residence the week we were there, which made it a pleasanter and more peaceful stay. The road it’s on, Gong Lane, is a turn off the main A149, the opposite side from the harbour. There was plenty of evidence of newish luxury second homes: the house that the annexe forms part of looked to be fairly recently built, and the one next to it was even newer and bigger. The annexe itself is lovely, if bijou (it’s only designed for 2) and I think I’d happily stay there again.

'Lazy Days'. The holiday rental was the bit on the left behind the hedge

Our welcome pack

Day 1: walk to Burnham Market, via the Carmelite Friary of St Mary

We walked to Burnham Market along footpaths and country lanes, with a detour to see the ruins of this Carmelite friary, also known as Burnham Norton Friary. This was a short walk of only a couple of miles.

The gatehouse of Burnham Norton Friary

Tne River Burn at Burnham Overy Town

Burnham Market is an upmarket little town (or possibly large village) that's apparently nicknamed 'Chelsea-on-Sea'. We had quite a posh lunch there on our King's Lynn trip at 'No Twenty9' (pictured in the linked Express article), but this time had a lower key lunch at a café whose name I've forgotten, but it was about the least posh-looking establishment we could see.

Burnham Market

Before heading back, I made us locate what can be seen of the route of the former West Norfolk Junction Railway, which used to run between Heacham and Wells-next-the-Sea.

Part of the route of the West Norfolk Junction Railway

Day 2: walk from Burnham Overy Staithe to Brancaster

This was a walk of just under seven miles. Most of this walk is on the coastal path through marshlands – it’s not until you reach Brancaster beach that you actually see the sea.

The route

Setting out

Marshland scenery

Boats at Brancaster Staithe

We walked from the beach to Brancaster village and caught the Lynx Coastliner 36 (a fantastic service, this) back to BOS.

Day 3: bus ride to Sheringham

Ruth had suggested going over to Sheringham, I think to take in a more traditional seaside town. Apparently, as a Guide, she and a couple of other Guides once helped out at a Brownie Pack Holiday there, along with her mother who was the Pack’s Tawny Owl. I thought this might have been the motivation but she doesn’t seem to have retained much memory of what they actually did, so it wasn’t as though we could revisit anywhere.

Sheringham’s OK. Traditional seaside towns are not my favourite but it could have been a lot worse (see: Great Yarmouth). I much prefer Wells – although its harbourside does have fish and chip, ice cream places etc and at least one arcade, the sandy beach is a little way out of the town along Beach Road, while it’s the pretty harbour that’s actually in the town.

We got the Coastliner 36 service again for the c. 15 minute ride to Wells-next-the-Sea, and then had to change to pick up the Sanders Coaches CH1 Coasthopper service to take us on to Sheringham, a journey of about 50 minutes. We could of course have gone by car, but I managed to successfully persuade Ruth that going by public transport would be more relaxing for me. The coastal villages along the A149 are pretty but several of them (notably Cley) don’t look a lot of fun to negotiate a car through. The bus drivers do it with aplomb.

This was a cooler day. We had a short blustery walk and lunch at The Lobster.

My previous visit to Sheringham had been in 2001, when Ray and I had visited Ray's friend Dave and his wife Carol, who at the time lived there as Dave was for a good many years head greenkeeper at Sheringham Golf Club. Here I am by the golf course.

It was a slightly odd visit, as in addition to the four of us, Ray and Dave's friend Richard was also there, together with Richard's then-girlfriend, whom none of us had met previously but who turned out to be a girl I had been at St Barts with in the 1980s and hadn't liked. In fairness, I doubt I had been alone in that; she was objectively not very nice. As the only thing that I could think of to say on meeting her was "Oh yes, I remember you, you were a bitch", I thought it best to keep schtum and pretend I didn't remember her. She also claimed not to remember me, so we were set.

Day 4: walk to Wells via Holkham

Our longest walk of the week, at 7.6 miles. I assume the Strava image reflects high tide; we were not actually walking in the sea at any point.

Setting out from Burnham Overy Staithe

The route map shows the length of walk from BOS village to actually reach the beach, where we turned eastwards towards Holkham and from there on to Wells.

Dunes

Magnificent Holkham beach

We lingered in Holkham Meals (the scrubby woodland at the top of the beach) to recreate the atmosphere from the 1972 film A Warning to the Curious. I'm not sure I succeeded in being as scary as the ghost of William Ager.

At Wells, we paused to have a look at the new lifeboat station. Sadly the visitor centre and shop were closed.

New lifeboat station at Wells

Approaching Wells

We browsed around a few shops and then got the bus back to Burnham Overy Staithe.

Day 5: Felbrigg Hall

We visited Felbrigg Hall , about an hour's drive east from Burnham Overy Staithe. We didn’t actually go into the house, despite the entry fee covering this, as after a few hours walking around the gardens and parkland we’d run out of stamina.

Day 6: walk from the harbour at BOS to the beach, along a bit and back

For our last day, we spent a bit of time on Burnham Overy Staithe beach. Walking from the village, the Norfolk Coast Path follows the Overy Creek for a while then leads up over dunes to the beach. Looking at the map, there’s a whole network of tidal creeks here.

Path through the dunes

The beach is gorgeous, and very quiet, probably helped by its inaccessibility. There's no car park and no road there - the only access is the mile or so's walk along the footpath from the village.

The beach

Our route (about six miles in total):

We had a "last night" dinner at the village pub.

We're off to north Norfolk again tomorrow, returning to Wells-next-the-Sea for a week. It'll be nice to be there again.