North Norfolk - No longer such a special place.
05th October 2021
Susan and I have just returned from two weeks in north Norfolk, staying in our usual place – Thornham. Thornham has become a very upmarket village over the last ten years with a huge amount of house building, unfortunately mainly second homes for presumably rich city dwellers. The scale of house building in north Norfolk in general is massive with every village you drive through exhibiting new builds. These homes are not social housing for local people, (who have been priced out long ago), these are bespoke million pound affairs. I read recently that the village of Blakeney just down the road from Thornham, a hitherto quaint and quintessential old fishing village, has now over eighty percent second homes – absolutely ridiculous!
We walked around the back of the village one evening, on what is called Thornham green, and we were staggered to see the houses that have been built since our last visit, huge glass fronted properties with balconies overlooking the marshes. I can see why people want to live there because you have easy access to wide open spaces, basically out of your front gate and on to lonely marshes and sea sides - it’s beautiful. As we walked along a marsh track we came across a property that has been erected on six huge wooded poles above a flooded area in the middle of a reed bed elevating it to give lovely views over said reed bed. There were canoes stored underneath on a platform with direct access to the water, ready to paddle away. There was also a private drive laid to provide access to what is obviously a weekend getaway – how the other half live!!
The cars that we see on the A149 north Norfolk coast road show how much money has come into the area - top end Range Rovers, BMW’s, Audi’s, Jaguar and Porsche SUV’s, Aston Martins etc. etc. We went to put fuel in the vehicle in a local garage and there were two brand new Ferraris there filling up. This coast road is not a pleasant drive with horrendous traffic clogging up the coastal villages it passes through. Bearing in mind this was the end of September I can't imagine what it was like during the summer months. Many roads leading to the sea from this road were shut because of traffic volumes, with signs saying 'Car park full'.
One day we passed through the ultimate location for the rich and famous in Norfolk – Burnham Market, nicknamed by locals as ‘Chelsea on Sea’. I have never seen this place so bursting with people, it’s always been nice with good shops and quaint pubs but now it seems that everybody wants to be there, it’s like a magnet for people visiting Norfolk. I wouldn’t shop there now because I refuse to pay these inflated prices.
Visiting Cley Next the Sea, the most famous birding destination around was not a pleasant experience, it has totally changed with no parking anywhere. Droves of people walking around and not one of them a bird watcher, not a pair of binoculars in sight! It is obvious that the birdwatcher is slowly but surely being squeezed out and we don’t like what we are seeing at all. We once thought that we would like to live in north Norfolk, but not any longer - it’s not the place we once knew!
We walked around the back of the village one evening, on what is called Thornham green, and we were staggered to see the houses that have been built since our last visit, huge glass fronted properties with balconies overlooking the marshes. I can see why people want to live there because you have easy access to wide open spaces, basically out of your front gate and on to lonely marshes and sea sides - it’s beautiful. As we walked along a marsh track we came across a property that has been erected on six huge wooded poles above a flooded area in the middle of a reed bed elevating it to give lovely views over said reed bed. There were canoes stored underneath on a platform with direct access to the water, ready to paddle away. There was also a private drive laid to provide access to what is obviously a weekend getaway – how the other half live!!
The cars that we see on the A149 north Norfolk coast road show how much money has come into the area - top end Range Rovers, BMW’s, Audi’s, Jaguar and Porsche SUV’s, Aston Martins etc. etc. We went to put fuel in the vehicle in a local garage and there were two brand new Ferraris there filling up. This coast road is not a pleasant drive with horrendous traffic clogging up the coastal villages it passes through. Bearing in mind this was the end of September I can't imagine what it was like during the summer months. Many roads leading to the sea from this road were shut because of traffic volumes, with signs saying 'Car park full'.
One day we passed through the ultimate location for the rich and famous in Norfolk – Burnham Market, nicknamed by locals as ‘Chelsea on Sea’. I have never seen this place so bursting with people, it’s always been nice with good shops and quaint pubs but now it seems that everybody wants to be there, it’s like a magnet for people visiting Norfolk. I wouldn’t shop there now because I refuse to pay these inflated prices.
Visiting Cley Next the Sea, the most famous birding destination around was not a pleasant experience, it has totally changed with no parking anywhere. Droves of people walking around and not one of them a bird watcher, not a pair of binoculars in sight! It is obvious that the birdwatcher is slowly but surely being squeezed out and we don’t like what we are seeing at all. We once thought that we would like to live in north Norfolk, but not any longer - it’s not the place we once knew!