Craster to Cromer

First, a gallery of some shots from Elaine’s camera during our stay in Craster:

Friday morning Elaine took her last walk to Dunstanburgh Castle with Dorothy.  Actually, they cut the walk short as it was windy and rainy.  At 8:00 we had Hi Ho all loaded up and Meghan, our SatNav girl, was programmed for the six-hour ride to Cromer in Norfolk.  It was a tough drive, partly on the M1 and partly on county roads.  It rained for about two hours of the drive and traffic was heavy most of the way.  We stopped once at a motorway rest area to use the facilities and for me to get a Diet Coke.  And we stopped again along the road to eat our lunch of sandwiches and chips.  In the next town over from Cromer we visited our favorite grocery chain, Sainsburys, to get supplies for the coming week.

It was still overcast and very foggy when we drove up to Cromer Lighthouse, our home for the next seven nights.  We unloaded and had a look around.  The lighthouse keeper’s cottage is very nice inside, and we will be very comfortable.  Unlike most lighthouse’s, this one is about 200 yards from the North Sea, so there are not great sea views from the house.  But there are great paths along the cliffs, and we are adjacent to the Royal Cromer Golf Course.  The 17th (I’m guessing) green is practically at our doorstep.

Click on the galleries below to bring up a scrollable windows with complete pictures  –  (the gallery previews show just thumbnails of the pictures)

For dinner we had home cooked Indian food – a Sainsbury complete meal in a box complete with naan.  Good eating.

We got up Saturday morning to a clear and bright day.  That’s the forecast for Sunday as well before cloudy skies are predicted to return for most of the week.  Elaine walked along the cliff paths all the way (maybe about a mile) into Cromer town.  I did a shortened version and took some picks from the cliffs.

Our destination for the day was the Blickling Estate, a National Trust property Alysham, about 15 miles away.  Blickling Hall has passed through many hands including the Boleyn family and is noted as the birthplace of Anne Boleyn in 1501 (or maybe 1507 depending on which research you believe).  In 1940 the then current owner, Philip Kerr, 11th Marquess of Lothian, died and bequeathed the estate to the National Trust.

During World War II the estate was requisitioned by the government as billets for RAF personnel who flew from nearby Oulton Air Base.  There is an RAF museum on the estate staffed  by former RAF officers, and we spent an interesting hour there.  RAF Oulton was the home to bombers, including four US B-17’s later in the war, whose main mission was flying with radio jamming equipment to upset German military communications.

Then we had a walk through the beautiful gardens.  What’s a British estate without beautiful gardens!  The house itself is home to the largest collection of books under the care of the National Trust.  There is currently an art exhibition named The Word Defiant throughout the house that highlights the importance of books and the threats posed to them from around the world.  The exhibits were created by the award-winning theater company, Les Enfants Terrible.

The Gardens

The House

After the house we had our lunch at a picnic table on the grounds.

Then we headed back to Cromer, but detoured a bit to visit yet another National Trust property, Felbrigg Hall. home of the Windham/Wyndham family back to the 1600’s.  Robert Wyndham Ketton-Cremer had no heirs and donated the house and gardens to the National Trust in 1969.  We toured the impressive home but skipped the gardens as it was getting late.  One tends always to think, “Oh, another National Trust estate, more of the same”.  But each one tells a unique story and all are quite impressive.

Dinner was at home again.  Sainsbury pies (shepard’s pie for me, leek & chicken for Elaine).  On our way back from Felbrigg we stopped at a roadside stand and bought fresh locally grown asparagus and strawberries.  The asparagus was delicious with the pioes, and the strawberries made a fine desert.