Wells-next-the-Sea
Tourist Information Centre, Staithe Street; tel: +44 (0)1328 710885
www.norfolksbest.co.uk
They could stage a light opera in the streets of picturesque Wells-next-the-Sea – and one day the residents probably will, for they’re an individualistic and imaginative lot. A bit eccentric, too.
Take Millennium Eve, for example. While other towns and villages were welcoming AD 2000 with bonfires and fireworks, Wells was re-enacting a battle from the American Civil War, complete with cannonfire. No one quite knows why. But it was – as most things are in Wells – a huge success.
Section Index
North Norfolk Intro
Cromer
Walsingham
Wells-next-the-Sea
Return of the Albatros
It really is a most attractive little seaside town. Only one main shopping street, to be sure – and that so narrow two people could almost shake hands across it – but it also has The Quay, with a few souvenir shops, fish and chip restaurants and a pub or two on one side and moored boats on the other, as well as a maze of winding lanes and alleys leading off.
Old-fashioned – that’s Wells. So steeped in its maritime past that you wouldn’t be too surprised to meet a naval press gang or see a stagecoach rumbling up to the Crown Hotel on The Buttlands, the town green where they re-fought that Civil War battle.
Staithe Street is the name of its main thoroughfare – a pedestrianised street of fascinating shops selling everything from beach balls to sophisticated marine navigational instruments. Here you can buy a pig’s ear for your dog, a watercolour of the nearby saltmarshes or, in the season of the year, a packet of delectable samphire.
The Quay, overlooking the saltmarshes and the creek that winds out eventually to meet the North Sea, still carries the ambience of the working port the town once was. You’ll find fishing vessels moored up here from time to time, though grain and timber are no longer listed as cargoes. Tourists’ cars now park among the bollards and mooring chains along the dockside.
Wells beach, with its colourful huts, can be reached by a mini-train shuttle or by car. More energetic visitors may prefer to get there by taking a mile-long stroll along the sea wall.
A popular outing with many visitors is a trip on the Wells and Walsingham Light Railway to the ancient pilgrimage centre of Little Walsingham. The scenic journey covers a mere four miles, but that is far enough to put the W.W.L.R in the record books as the world’s longest 10¼-inch narrow gauge railway.
Pulled by a unique Garratt steam locomotive built in 1986, the train operates seven days a week from Easter to the end of September. Tel: 01328 710631 to hear the talking timetable.
Majestic Holkham Hall, two and a half miles west of Wells, is a Palladian-style mansion – a treasure house of superb furnishings, paintings and ancient statues – standing in a 3000-acre deer park. Home of the Earls of Leicester, it has magnificent state rooms open to the public, and visitors may wander through the park. The Bygones Museum contains some 4000 items, including vintage cars and traction engines. There are tea rooms, a licensed restaurant, pottery, garden centre and gift shop.
Opposite the public entrance to Holkham Hall, Lady Ann’s Drive leads to the spacious splendour of Holkham Beach, recently listed by a national newspaper as one of the world’s top 50 beaches. Three miles of fine, golden sand are set against a backdrop of dunes and sheltering pine trees.
Holkham Hall and Bygones Museum; tel: 01328 710227. Open end-May-28 September Sun-Thur 13.00-17.00. Admission charges (combined ticket available). Car parking charge at Holkham Beach.
