Old Hunstanton to Snettisham 16th September 2020
Trips to the western end of the Norfolk Coast are less attractive, since we have elected to set up our caravan near Wroxham in the East. We could of course move it half way through the week, but this will involve sacrificing half a day packing, moving and unpacking. Instead we have agreed to drive an extra 90 minutes each day that we ‘go west’.
Since our friend Beryl is to join us next week, we’ve decided to save the nearest bit of coast for her, thus reducing the driving time for all concerned. Deciding to get the longest drive over with first, we set off for Old Hunstanton. The coast here is largely accessible by bike, something the Norfolk Coast Path mandarins are a bit sniffy about. Fortunately it stops at Hunstanton, so we have no such restrictions on the section beyond.
With the bikes still loaded up we arrive at Old Hunstanton and find a suitable parking space in a small suburban road. A short cycle along the back-streets brings us to a car park, where I ask the man selling tickets where the Norfolk Coast Path is. He indicates a gap at the bottom of the car park, which we use to access the narrow sandy path beyond. This is obviously not going to be easy cycling, so we dismount and push our bikes until we come to a steep ramp leading down to the beach where the sand dunes that dominate the north coast give way to some impressive chalk cliffs.
Old Hunstanton – where sand dunes gives way to chalk cliffs
Most people think of Norfolk as being low-lying, covered in boulder clay or glacial sands. That’s what my school geography books told me. In actual fact you don’t find that many boulders – with the name probably deriving from the origins of the clay – created from the finer particles of rock flour made by lumps of rock held by ice sheets, as they dragged them across the bedrock below – like the teeth of a file. Beneath the ice sheets huge sub-glacial streams would have reworked the particles during the warmer months, separating the courser sand from the finer clay particles and dumping them on different parts of the bleak landscape that was revealed as the ice sheets retreated. Later reworking of the sand by the wind would have created the many miles of dune-endowed Norfolk coastline that we see today. A process that is still active.
The chalk cliffs must be in excess of 100 feet (30 metres) in height. The top beds are white chalk, below which is a further red chalk bed. In fact, much to many people’s surprise, most of North Norfolk is underlain by chalk, but it doesn’t surface at the coast, other than at Hunstanton.
Below the chalk is a sandstone bed which makes up the wave-cut platform stretching out to sea from the base of the cliffs. This rock is known as carstone and was laid down in shallow marine conditions; during the Cretaceous period. Interestingly, the Earth was experiencing greenhouse conditions back then, with sea levels possibly higher than today.
The red chalk above was laid down in deeper waters. The red colour comes from iron pigments, with the rocks rich in fossils (including ammonites and belemnites). The white chalk was also laid down in deep marine conditions.
The beach sand further out is damp and hard enough to cycle on but we decide it would be more sensible to return to the cliff top. Of course we may have missed-out on something of real interest on the beach, but we are well satisfied with the human artefacts on the cliff top. These include the old Coastguard Lookout Tower, which is now available for holiday hire; the Old Hunstanton Lighthouse; and Saint Edmunds Chapel.
This arch is all that is left of St Edmunds Chapel
Old Hunstanton is recorded in Domesday Book as Hunestanestada. St Edmunds Chapel in was built to commemorate King Edmund of East Anglia in 1272. Little is known of this Saxon King, other than he had a bit of a dust-up with the Vikings at the time and was thought so highly of by the church that they promoted him to sainthood.
The lighthouse is no longer functional, but like its neighbour the Coastguard Lookout Tower, it is available as a holiday let. Neither would appeal to me considering the masses of tourists who must wander around them in the summer saying “I wonder who lives here?” I reckon I’d be forever telling them all to “bugger-off”.
Old Hunstanton Lighthouse
Coastguard Lookout Tower and – both now holiday lets
Old Hunstanton only has a few hundred residents, being dwarfed by its newer neighbour ‘New’ Hunstanton, a holiday resort built in 1846 by Henry Styleman Le Strange. The beach here is a mix of wave-cut platform and pebbles, with some interesting zig-zag shaped groynes designed to trap sand, but obviously no-longer proving successful at this.
Zig-zag groynes and wave cut platform
We blithely cycle along Hunstanton prom until we see a sign saying “no cycling”, but not before some disconsolate individual mutters those exact same words as we cycle past. Suitably chastened we walk for a few hundred metres before deciding that the ‘prom’ has little of interest to offer and cycle the road behind the amusements gathered on the sea-front.
Hunstanton promenade with a belligerent cyclist!
Our road soon degenerates into a rough road running parallel to the sea. Between us and the ‘deep blue’ is a line of fairly ramshackle dwellings and static caravans known as North Beach, which are hidden behind a low shingle ridge. The ridge is under threat from rising sea levels, having been breached several times in its history. To our left, some 200 metres inland is an impressive grass-covered embankment. This will have been put in place by the Environment Agency and represents what is term ‘Managed Retreat’. This involves giving up threatened coastal lands which would otherwise require excessive expenditure to protect them, and creating a several metre high embankment further inland.
Heacham Beach and its extensive caravan park
n time it is expected that the sea will reclaim the North Beach area to form salt marsh in front of the newly constructed embankment which will prevent further advance by the sea. I suspect the Environment Agency decided that the rag-tag of dwellings adjacent to the coast had little of value, leaving them at the mercy of the rising sea levels expected over the coming century.
An interpretative board advises us that this area is known as “The Saltings” and is being reclaimed for nature. This whole area is subject to a range of sea defences from the embankment, to concrete revetments and beach nourishment. Perhaps they should employ latter day Canutes to instruct the waves to halt. I would not be surprised to find some crank one day convinced that this is a reasonable approach!
Heacham Beach is a mass of static caravans which are doing a roaring trade, since significantly less people are prepared to holiday abroad during the pandemic.
Concrete revetment-one of many sea defences on The Wash coast.
A concrete sea wall close to the beach gives easy cycling until we stop for lunch at South Beach.
And an Ice-cream!
South of here the footpath disappears. So, realising that the embankment might be an easier ride than the beach option, we decide to follow the path along its top. It actually gives better views of the area, including across the Wash to Lincolnshire. The biggest problem is negotiating a few steps and kissing gates. After a mile or two along the embankment we decide to return to the sea, where the concrete revetment gives good cycling, before turning to gravel.
Betty prepares to cycle the earth embankment
Our bikes are no match for gravel, so we walk the next half mile to Snettisham enjoying the varied flora growing out of the pebbles and observing where a number of marine incursions have delivered great sheets of quite large pebbles several metres inland.
The whole of the sea to the west of here is the Wash, a relatively shallow area of salt water, much of which disappears at low tide to leave exposed expanses of sand and mud. We spot a large flock of waders wheeling offshore over the sands, one of many that frequent the area which is managed as a nature reserve by the RSPB.
Shingle and saltmarsh plants at Snettisham Scalp –
Sea Aster, storksbill, long-horned poppy,
At Snettisham Scalp a minor road enables us to turn inland towards Snettisham. This makes sense since the coastal footpath is a bit uncertain from here on. It looks as though walking is possible as far as Dersingham, but what happens beyond that is anyone’s guess. Hopefully the England Coast Path will be extended shortly to permit access along the sea wall. We’ll wait until they do.
All that remains is for us to return to Old Hunstanton by way of Snettisham, Sedgeford and Ringstead. The hills hereabouts can be quite challenging, with passing cars gunning past us along the straight roads.
St Mary’s Church, Snettisham–
described by Pevsner as “The most exciting C14th Decorated church in Norfolk” with its 175 foot tall spire.