North Norfolk Railway

Never pass up the opportunity for a ride on a heritage railway line. Especially when they have the sort of train that you used to travel to college on. I took a trip on the North Norfolk Railway from Holt to Sheringham and back on a hot sunny day in June and it’s a great ride.

 

 

 

Oh, they run steam trains too.

 

 

 

Flickr Album is here.

 

and there’s a video (16m) below.

 

East Anglia Transport Museum

When I was a small child we used to pass through Carlton Colville on the way home from visiting grandparents in Oulton Broad. I would see the buses at the museum and ask whether we could stop to visit. The answer was always that we "didn't have time". Well after over half a century I decided that I certainly did have time so paid a visit on my way home from Happisburgh to the now much bigger East Anglia Transport Museum.

The site is now like a little village with a tram track and a circular trolleybus route plus a railway and various sheds and buildings with displays of vehicles etc. There is also a myriad of street furniture in place around the site road system. Your entry fee includes unlimited travel on whichever trams, trolleybuses, and trains are running that day (or indeed the next 12 months).

I particularly enjoyed the 1959 Bournemouth Corporation Sunbeam trolleybus, much more civilized than the rattly trams. So I rode it twice. 

There's a lot to see here and I spent over two hours - including a stop for tea and cake in the cafe. They have obtained a large plot of adjacent land into which they will be expanding so there will be even more in the future.

There are sheds full of trams, trolleybuses, and buses in various states of repair and/or restoration.

The East Anglia Transport Museum web site is here.

My Flickr Album is here.

And here's a short (3m 26s) video about the trams and trolleybuses.

And although unusually you can get in and out without going through the gift shop I took the opportunity to replace the mug that hit the kitchen floor terminally the previous week for just a fiver.

Happisburgh

I  have known the village of Happisburgh (pronounced Hays-bruh) in Northeast Norfolk since I was a child and we used to holiday in nearby Eccles-on-Sea but it must be about 10 years since I have visited. It’s famous for its lighthouse, once repainted by Anneka Rice (with a bit of help).

 

 

 

Happisburgh is also (in)famous for coastal erosion. Even so it was striking how much of the place had disappeared since I was last here. At the end of Beach Road there were a few buildings and a metal stairway from the clifftop to the beach below. This is the end of the road now.

 

 

 

To get to the beach now there is a steep earthen ramp from the Community Carpark leading down to a long shallow bay beneath the cliffs.

 

 

 

 There never used to be a bay here. When I was a child there was a road, or at least the remains of a road along the clifftops from Happisburgh to Cart Gap near Eccles-on-Sea. This would have bee some way to the left in the following photo. Those posts in the sea are the remains of sea defences that were once on the beach at the foot of the cliffs.

 

 

 

 The lifeboat station that was at the end of Beach Rd. has had to be relocated to the car park at Cart Gap and many clifftop properties along here have been lost to the sea. From Cart Gap south the land is protected by a strong concrete sea wall backed by sand dunes constructed after the North Sea flood of 1953.

 

 

 

On the other side of Happisburgh village there used to be a large static caravan park. This has moved inland now that a large part of it fell in the sea and the rest was no longer safe to use. The roadway that ran around the site now stops rather abruptly.

 

 

 

At the time of writing this Google Maps still shows where the road went even though the satellite image shows the caravan site has gone. 

 

 

 

I was surprised by how much Happisburgh has changed since I first came here. The coastal erosion isn’t likely to stop any time soon, so enjoy a visit while it’s still there.