Upton

The pub the village saved

The White Horse has served Upton since 1798, and since 2012 the community has owned it through White Horse Development Trust CIC. When the landlord neared retirement in 2011/12 and closure threatened the only pub, residents formed a community company and subscribed £120,000 in shares. It is now the longest-established community-owned pub in Norfolk, and was named Broadland Pub of the Year in 2025.

Inside there is an open fire, darts, and a conservatory. Fridays are fish-and-chip nights, with takeaway available, and Sundays bring roasts. Woodforde's Wherry and Nelson's Revenge are the regular ales, alongside four rotating beers and real ciders. The garden is large, and dogs are welcome in it and in the bar. Through the year there are quizzes, folk nights, live music, and an early-July festival of beer, cider and perry. Steven and his team are praised for their service.

The shop and walks from the door

Next door, in a converted stable block, is the community shop, which opened in 2015 and runs largely on volunteers—they cover about four-fifths of its staffed hours. It carries bakery deliveries, fresh and frozen food, newspapers, stamps and household basics, and will deliver within the village. Prince Charles, now King Charles III, called in during 2016 as the pub's patron.

The pub sits five to ten minutes' walk from the Upton Dyke moorings, where the water leads out to the River Bure. Five walks start from its door. The shortest, In Step With the Bure, is 2.5 miles along grazing marshes and dykes; the longest runs eight miles to St Benet's Abbey, whose ruined gatehouse stands partly hidden inside a later windmill, and where the Bishop of Norwich still holds a service each year as Abbot.

Fen wildlife and medieval craft

A major walking attraction is Upton Broad and Marshes, a 318-hectare reserve of wet alder carr, fen, reedbed and grazing marsh. The grass paths are waymarked and often very muddy, and you may share them with cattle. Swallowtail butterflies and Norfolk hawker dragonflies are here, along with otters, water voles and harvest mice. Fen orchid grows in the fen—found in the UK only in the Norfolk Broads—and clearing the scrub has taken it from a few dozen plants to more than a thousand. The broad itself is thought to be a flooded medieval peat digging; the discovery that the whole Broads landscape is flooded medieval peat diggings is credited to Dr Joyce Lambert and Professor C. T. Smith.

St Margaret's Church is mostly 14th and 15th century and Grade I listed. Its tower fell in 1587, and the present one was rebuilt in 1928–29. The octagonal font is 14th century, carved with lions, angels, eight figures and the symbols of the Evangelists, and a late-medieval screen base keeps eight painted figure panels.

Drainage mills and getting here

Two drainage mills remain. Black Mill, built around 1800 in red brick under a coat of black tar, no longer drains anything; its engine house holds the outline of a vanished scoopwheel and a Ruston diesel from about 1930. Palmer's Mill, beside the dyke, is one of only a handful of hollow-post drainage mills left in the country.

A car is likely to be the easiest option, though a limited weekday bus also serves Upton. Acle, three kilometres south, has the nearest station and the shops, and the A47 runs on to Norwich and Great Yarmouth. A limited weekday bus, the 71A, stops on Cargate Lane and Church Road.

A visitor's favourite

One recent visitor to the White Horse put it plainly: it quickly became their favourite place in the area.