Thursday is our last full day in Cromer. The weather is overcast but dry. We took a ride east through Overstrand and then stopped at the beach in Mundesley for a look and a short walk. Pretty quiet with the clouds but it looks like it would be very busy on nice day.
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Then it was back in Hi Ho for another 20 miles to our destination for the day, Caister-on-Sea, where we visited Caister Castle. There is indeed a ruined castle here dating back to 1432, one of the first important buildings in England to be built of brick. But the real attraction here is the antique car collection of the owner of the castle, Dr. Peter Rowland Hill. Dr Hill, now deceased, was an avid antique car collector and he took the avocation seriously. He bought Caister Castle in 1966 with the sole intent of making it the home for his car collection. His son now administers the charitable trust that runs the site.
I have been to auto museums before and didn’t have high expectations of this being anything special.. But I have to say it the biggest and most interesting collections of automobiles that I have ever seen. Plus there are buses, fire engines, motorcycles, bicycles, toy cars, and even a large collection of porcelain. Hi Ho Peugeot was very impressed as well. Russ Rhoades would be here all day!
There’s a lot of history here too. For example:
The American Cadillac owned by London slum lord Peter Rachman who was friends with Christine Keeler (who recently passed away) and Mandy Rice-Davies, the two women involved in the infamous John Profumo affair in British politics in 1961.
A Lotus Formula One car driven by Jimmy Clark who died in a Formula Two race in a different Lotus at Hockenheim, Germany in 1968. Oddly enough, I was at that race with some friends while I was stationed in Schwetzingen, just ten kilometers from Hockenheim.
An 1893 Panhard et Levassor from France that some people consider the first real car in the world. This picture is one of their later cars from 1902. Pretty snazzy for its day.
Lots of Bentleys and Rolls Royces. Did you know in the 1930’s that Rolls acquired Bentley? They still marketed both cars, essentially the same car with different nameplates on the front. Eventually the Bentley division of Rolls Royce produced their own models. In a messy breakup in 1998 Rolls Royce became a division of BMW and Bentley became a division of Volkswagen.
And so much more:
We also walked around the castle ruins. The tower is intact and you can walk to the top. We didn’t. We ate our picnic lunch on the grounds before heading home to Cromer Light. Stupidly, I circled Cromer for an extra 20 miles or so looking for a particular gas (oops, petrol, I mean) station that was not where I thought it was. My bad! We did finally get filled up so Hi Ho is ready for the five hour journey tomorrow from Cromer to Whitby in North Yorkshire.
Dinner tonight was a return visit to the Grove Restaurant, postponed from last night. Once again the food and service were outstanding. No post tomorrow, mainly a repositioning day. Bye bye Cromer!
It really does look like Revere Beach back in the day. Did you know that whenever Paul and Tandy come east, they take a long walk on Revere Beach? I love how the Brits have those little shanties to rent or own at some of their beaches.
The car collection looks very interesting, but I think after an hour, I’d be wanting to head to The Little Lobster Truck. Loved Cromer. Safe trip to Whitby.
Kris and I don’t have your official itinerary but we were sitting together and said, shouldn’t they be on the move soon? YEP, safe travels, 5 hours must be a long drive given the size of some of the roads. Your pix are delightful, keeping us cool. 😎😎
Bill loves the cars. He would have really enjoyed seeing them in person. I hope Hi-Ho was not jealous. I agree with Sue, I would definitely be at the lobster truck. Take care you two. All are fine…..Cindy