Weybourne

Two Tables in Brick and Flint

The Ship Inn stands across from the priory church, an 18th-century brick freehouse with flint walls, a real fireplace and a pool table. The food arrives from a list of named suppliers: H.V. Graves for meat, Wightman's of Lowestoft for fish, Krusty Loaf for bread, and Johnny Seago, a local fisherman, for lobsters and crabs. The ice cream is Dann's of Norfolk. It is Cask Marque certified, pours Woodforde's Wherry and Moon Gazer Pintail alongside a rotating guest, and keeps dog treats behind the bar. CAMRA records "a large sunny garden at the rear, plus a few tables immediately outside."

Up towards the beach, The Maltings occupies a former malt house of brick and flint. Its restaurant, the Grain Store, is a vaulted flint barn over two storeys — open kitchen, iron girders, a raftered ceiling — doing modern British small plates: fermented barley risotto, miso-glazed pork chop, Lobster Wellington, cod loin with pea purée. The set menu runs around £23 for two courses; the à la carte closer to £50.

The Village Shop and Shingle Shore

Between the two is Weybourne Stores, which is the village shop, and about the extent of the village's commercial life.

The beach is steep shingle and can be tough going. The water is unusually deep close inshore, which is good for beach fishing and, over the centuries, has made a lot of people nervous. The Norfolk Coast Path passes through, and the cliff section east to Sheringham is 3.7 miles. A circular from the beach car park follows the shingle to Kelling Hard, then climbs inland through Kelling Heath, which is considered the best example of a glacial outwash plain in England.

Steam Trains and Priory Stone

Weybourne sits on the A149, three miles west of Sheringham, and has its own station — the only intermediate stop on the North Norfolk Railway, the heritage Poppy Line between Sheringham and Holt. The station has a second career as a film set: it played Walmington-on-Sea in the Dad's Army episode "The Royal Train" and Crimpton-on-Sea in "Hi-de-Hi!." Sanders Coaches route CH1 handles the buses.

All Saints has a Saxon tower dated to roughly 950–1066, which now survives as a ruin to the north of the present building. That building grew out of a 13th-century Augustinian priory, which was never large; by the 14th century it could barely support one prior and one canon, and it was among the first houses Henry VIII dissolved, surrendering in 1536. The cloister footings and a monastic fishpond remain in the garden alongside.

Weybourne Hope and Wartime Defences

The deep water made Weybourne a feared landing point. It was fortified against the Spanish Armada in 1588, and an old rhyme warns: "He who would old England win, must at Weybourne Hoop begin." The camp northwest of the village later became the secret live-firing range of Anti-Aircraft Command. Churchill visited twice in 1941; on the second visit every demonstration failed until a pilotless target aircraft was finally shot down and crashed near the VIP enclosure, after which he gave the commandant seven days to improve.

The Windmill and Smuggling Signal

The windmill still stands, five storeys of red brick, a private house now and visible for miles. Local memory has it that the miller would stop the sails in the shape of a cross when the coastguards were about, and set them turning again once the coast was clear.