Blakeney

Inns by the water

The roof of the King's Arms has a date picked out in its tiles: 1760, when three fishermen's cottages just off the quay were re-roofed into a single inn. It is the oldest pub in Blakeney, a Grade II listed Georgian building on Westgate Street, yards from the water. Before Blakeney, landlady Marjorie Davies was a West End dancer and singer; Olivia Colman later waited tables here as a schoolgirl during the holidays.

The King's Arms has survived the floods of 1978 and 2014 and shows no particular sign of being impressed by either. Its place beside the quay still makes the bar part of Blakeney's everyday conversation.

A little further up the High Street, the White Horse is a former coaching inn. It leans cosier and more indulgent, with a courtyard behind and rooms above, some looking out to sea.

The quay and the Point

The quay is where Blakeney spends its time. Behind the shingle ridge of Blakeney Point lies a maze of saltmarsh, tidal creeks and mudflats, and the flint cottages sit just inland where the land gives way to water. The creek is prime ground for crabbing, the single most reliable way to occupy a child beside the harbour.

Boats leave the harbour for Blakeney Point and the common and grey seals hauled out on its sandbanks. The Point went to the National Trust in 1912 after a public appeal initiated by Charles Rothschild and organised by Professor Francis Wall Oliver and Dr Sidney Long. It became the oldest nature reserve in Norfolk.

The Norfolk Coast Path runs through the village along the quay before heading east towards Cley-next-the-Sea or west towards Morston, past reed beds, saltmarsh and tidal creeks under the famously big North Norfolk sky.

Two towers, one harbour

Above the port stands the Church of St Nicholas, its tower a landmark for miles. The chancel core dates from around 1296 and most of the rest was rebuilt in the fifteenth century when Blakeney was a working seaport. Inside, the chancel keeps one of only about six surviving Early English vaulted chancels in England, while the nave has a hammerbeam roof of oak and chestnut with carved angels.

The church has two towers. The big west tower is crenellated and pinnacled, while the slender polygonal tower at the north-east corner most likely served as a leading light for mariners, the pair lining up to guide ships through the channels between the sandbanks.

In the Domesday survey of 1086 the settlement appears as Esnuterle. The name Blakeney, meaning “black island”, emerged later for the haven behind the shingle.

Merchants, smugglers and silence

A Carmelite friary was founded here in 1296 and dissolved in 1538. A length of medieval flint wall with a gateway survives north of Friary Farmhouse. Between those dates came Blakeney's least reputable period: for years from 1328 its men were notorious for boarding Flemish vessels and taking the cargo.

By the fifteenth century Blakeney was Norfolk's third most important port, and the Guildhall was built to match. What survives is the brick-vaulted undercroft of a wealthy merchant's house, with ribbed brick vaulting over a cobbled floor. It housed the fish merchants' guild, granted a charter by Henry VIII in 1516, and is cared for by English Heritage.

The port did not last. Cley and Wiveton silted up first; Blakeney's channel was deepened in 1817 and packet ships ran to Hull and London from 1840, before larger ships and more silt ended the trade. What remains is the marsh, the birds, the seals and the quiet.

Arrive slowly

The A149 coast road is the main approach, while Sheringham is the nearest rail town. Whichever way you come, the last stretch is part of the experience: flint villages, sudden marsh views and the horizon opening towards the sea.

As the light softens, the halyards go on clinking and somewhere along the quay a child is still crouched over a bucket, checking a line for one more crab before tea.