A Seaside Town in North Norfolk
"You should have gone to Cromer, my dear, if you went anywhere. Perry was a week at Cromer once, and he holds it to be the best of all the seabathing places"
— Jane Austen in Emma
Cromer is exactly the sort of a place that you've maybe heard about but never visited. If you're a Brit of my generation, and you were asked about seaside resorts, you'd maybe think of the likes of Skegness or Blackpool, and the next thing you'd imagine would be tourists jostling to buy ice cream, fish'n'chips, seaside rock or Kiss Me Quick hats. Then there's a pier, a floral clock along the promenade, penny arcades and some terrible pubs with fishing nets strung up alongside those glass floats. That's Cromer. I loved here for about a year, and it was (with a couple of exceptional events) quite the dullest place I've lived.
It's origins are vague. It's not old enough to be in the Domesday Book and it's not mentioned in print until quite late (by which I mean the early 1400s). The name is possibly derived from crow mere, "crow lake", or a Northern word for "a gap in the cliffs", possibly even having a Viking origin. The place itself was almost certainly originally known as Shipden-juxta-Felbrigg (you can see how that would have been popular!), a name mentioned in 1337.
There was certainly a good fishing industry in the area (the whole stretch of the coast is riddled with fishing villages) and a local fair and market (by a Royal decree in 1285). Cromer was involved in trading not just fish, but wool, and was an important jumping-off point for local trade with Europe. By 1585 there was a pier supporting the town of 177 householders, but that might have been all Cromer ever was until the growth of a tourist industry. By the late 19th and early 20th century many of the Norwich and London banking families, including Coutts and Baring had built homes in the area, and there was certainly a golf course (at which the future King {Edward VII) played.
The coming of the railway in 1877 marked a turning point for the town connecting to Norwich, and now visitors were not restricted to the wealthy. A little later, a second railway station was built to connect to the East Midlands. Thus it was made accessible to the hoi-polloi, and they came in droves. Much had been written about the area, and the coast is gosh-darned pretty, I have to say. They came for the beaches (there are good beaches), the view over the North Sea and the summer crabs. Cromer crab is particularly tasty, I'm told, and the cod is (or was!) wonderful. All this tourist trade mounted, and many hotels and bed-and-breakfast places sprung up to accommodate the visitors. As the working class became wealthier, trade improved and Cromer became quite fasionable.
So what is there here that still brings the tourists? Well a town like Cromer uses all sorts of levers to bring people in to drop their money,and the tourist sites list quite a few attractions. There's the Henry Blogg Museum, commemorating a famous local lifeboatman and the work of the Royal National Lifeboat Association, the local RNLI station being built in 1804.
Once you're in the town, what else? The church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul is quite magnificent, being built in the 14th century to replace two smaller churches (one of which was in danger of falling into the sea, because cliffs crumble. Like many churches it fell into disrepair (because Cromwell) and was renovated in Victorian times. These days it's a superb example of the flint and sandstone construction you'll see around East Anglia.
The town is quite charming in a rough East Anglian sort of a way. There are plenty of little corners where you'll find pretty examples of flint building, lots of wee pubs hidden around corners, but for me its major charm (and what I really remember the town for) is what's just around and on the outskirts. The cliffs are quite spectacular and there are many little walks around out of town. It's also a good jumping-off point for those interested in birds, given that there's a Site of Special Scientific Interest just up the coast, encompassing Blakeney Point, a well-known gathering point for birders.
The town is also close to the highest point on the county, at Beacon Hill (or as I knew it, Roman Camp). This is about a mile from the town centre, a pretty walk past the railway station, up Sandy Lane (where I used to live), and along the wonderfully-named Calves Well Lane. It's a dizzying 344 feet elevation or 105 metres if you're so inclined. Prettily wooded, it now boasts picnic tables and a nearby campsite. When I lived there it was more discarded knickers, condoms and beer bottles.
According to Wikipedia there are a number of people associated with the town. Those of significance to me are James Dyson of vacuum cleaner fame, was born here, as was the chess grandmaster Jon Speelman. Edward Bach developed his Bach Flower Remedies here, and actor John Hurt had a home here. Of those, the only one I can find with a blue plaque is Bach.
More recently there was a report of a Banksy sighting, or rather a sighting of his work. Later, he owned up to it on YouTube. I've no idea if the work is there still.
Finally, and funniest(?), is a limerick by Edward Lear:
There was an Old Person of Cromer,
Who stood on one leg to read Homer;
When he found he grew stiff,
He jumped over the cliff,
Which concluded that Person of Cromer.
Other than that, the only thing that it's famed for is it's where I died. Yup, Cromer. A great place to go.
Iron Node 4
https://www.cromerdictionary.co.uk/history.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cromer
https://www.greatbritishbucketlist.com/things-to-do-in-cromer/
A great deal of personal experience. Arguably, too much.
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