Burnham Overy Staithe

At the working Quay

At the Quay, a coffee stand called the Norfolk Coffee Pedler sells coffee and homemade cake to people in various states of dampness — sailors, kayakers, paddleboarders, and in summer, children who have just spent an hour crabbing over the edge with a bucket. In the warmer months a traditional Norfolk ice cream van parks up at the Staithe. This is the working heart of the village: the River Burn fans out into tidal creeks through open salt marsh, and everything here happens at the water's pace and the tide's.

The Hero, on Wells Road, is the pub. It's named after Nelson, who was born a mile south at Burnham Thorpe, and it has quietly become first and foremost a restaurant these days — bookings taken in the restaurant only. The menu is seasonal and locally sourced; reviewers keep coming back to the burgers, the fish and chips, and the steaks. One called it "inventive, varied and easily as good as many of the London restaurants," which is a lot to ask of a village pub. Woodforde's Wherry and Norfolk Topper are the regular ales, with Norfolk gin behind the bar and a wood burner going inside. Dogs are welcome throughout, and get a towel, and biscuits after long beach walks. There are three rooms upstairs if you want to stay.

Village provisions and coast walks

For a proper food shop you go 1.5 miles south to Burnham Market, which the second-home crowd have nicknamed Chelsea-on-Sea, and which has Gurney's Fish Shop and a run of delis.

The walk everyone does starts at the Staithe and runs a mile and a half along the crest of a raised sea wall, out across reclaimed marsh that is now freshwater meadow, through the dunes to Gun Hill and the long, empty sweep of Holkham beach. The Norfolk Coast Path passes through, linking Burnham Deepdale to the west and Wells to the east. A National Trust circular loops inland past St Clement's church and the Tower Windmill.

The windmill and When Marnie Was There

The windmill is worth knowing about. Built in 1816, six brick storeys with an ogee cap, it was a holiday let sleeping up to twenty until 2018. Joan G. Robinson set her 1967 novel When Marnie Was There here, basing "Little Overton" on the staithe and the windmill; Studio Ghibli turned it into a film in 2014, and Robinson herself is buried in the churchyard.

St Clement's central tower

St Clement's church, half a mile inland at Burnham Overy Town, is one of only about fourteen medieval Norfolk churches built with a central tower. Around 1200 the tower was starting to collapse, so they demolished the transepts and lowered it, which left the odd narrow corridor between nave and chancel that's still there.

Lives shaped by the creeks

Nelson learned to row and sail a dinghy in these creeks at the age of ten, two years before he joined the Navy. Later, Richard Woodget — the master who ran the Cutty Sark on her record wool runs to Australia — retired to a farm here and lived out his days by the same water. From the Boathouse Quay, Peter Bickle has been running the Island Ferry across to Scolt Head for over twenty years.