The River Bure stops here. Horstead sits at the head of navigation, the furthest point a boat can reach upstream from Great Yarmouth, and the marker of that limit is the ruin of Horstead Mill above its mill pool. The water is narrow and tree-lined this far up, fringed with reed, and the meadow paths give the village a greener, more enclosed feel than the open Broads downstream.
The mill stood on what was probably a Saxon site, and for centuries a corn mill and a fulling mill shared it. The last large weatherboarded building was probably built in 1789 and handled wherries on the Aylsham Navigation. It made flour until the First World War and animal feed after that, and it burned down on 23 January 1963. The winter was cold enough that firefighters had to cut through more than a foot of river ice to reach water, and their hose ends froze as they worked. Three appliances came. The building was lost.
For food, the village has the Recruiting Sergeant on Norwich Road, an inn with five double rooms and a kitchen run by Matthew Colchester that leans on fresh fish and seafood. The menus change, but they have carried crispy Cromer crab cakes with lemon-and-caper mayonnaise, cheesy Red Storm baked Cromer crab with tempura king prawns, a crackling loin of Swannington pork, roast sirloin of English beef with Yorkshire pudding, and a sweet-potato, coconut and chickpea curry. Well-behaved dogs on leads are welcome in the bar and the beer garden, though not the restaurant, and the ales on the bar change regularly.
Directly opposite, on the B1150, is Farm to Fork & Fish, a combined butchery, fishmonger and deli. The meat comes from its own award-winning farm, there is a wet fish counter, and the counters also carry hot pies, filled rolls, sandwiches, ready meals and oven-ready fish. The staff offer cooking and menu-planning advice.
All Saints, the parish church, is flint with stone dressings and dates to the early fourteenth century, restored by R. M. Phipson in 1879. The south-aisle east window holds Morris glass designed by Burne-Jones. There is an octagonal font, possibly thirteenth-century, standing on five columns, medieval poppyhead bench ends, and a monument by James Barrett to George Warren, who died in 1728, built as a Corinthian column set before a black obelisk. The churchyard sits on the footpath that runs between the mill and Coltishall.
That footpath is the short version of the local walk: a circuit of just under a mile past the mill ruins, the meadow, Coltishall Lock and the riverside, done in about half an hour. The longer loop from Anchor Street runs six miles through Coltishall Common and the river meadows in three to three-and-a-half hours, with kingfishers, grey wagtails and barn owls for company along the way. Coltishall Lock opened in 1779 and was wrecked by a flood in August 1912, which is why navigation ends where it does.
Getting here is straightforward. The village lies on the B1150 north of Norwich, Sanders Coaches stop the X55 and 55B right outside the Recruiting Sergeant, and Hoveton and Wroxham station is about two and a half miles off.
The parish keeps a small play area, and its minutes record, with some care, a toddler slide and a roundabout.