Slack Jawed Babbling

Sheringham sets a solid standard when it comes to attractive seaside towns seeking to push back at the 21 st century. Norfolk as a whole does a fine job of preserving its heritage. But Suffolk may put its northern neighbour in the shade The most impassioned and entrenched zeal for preservation is surely in Southwold. A couple of years ago, East Suffolk Council published a Conservation Area Character Appraisal for Southwold which described ‘one of the most picturesque seaside towns in England’ in 67 glossy, detailed pages, rich in photos of architectural merit; and at pains to re-affirm the Council’s commitment to ‘pay special attention to the preservation and enhancement of the conservation area’. The Southwold and Reydon Society, dedicated to protecting the character and amenities of the community, has 400 fully paid up members. Particularly healthy when you consider that the town’s population at the 2011 Census was only 1,098. Top recruiting. Reports on its work are published ea

If I’m not careful, the theme of caravan parks and holiday villages will end up dominating these posts. Because here I go again. Only this time, I stayed on one. How’s that for irony? As England staggered along a chilly lockdown road map in April and May 2021, I realised that there was a sizeable space in the material I’ve begun to publish. The shape of the interval aproximated to that of the south Norfolk coastline. Norfolk as a whole has one of the longer arcing coastlines of all English counties. Stopping the narrative at Cromer in the previous post seemed a bit half-hearted. I engineered a small gap of my own in the working week to steal a visit eastwards. Though having left the planning of the jaunt late, and needing an overnight stop, I found myself accommodationally challenged. Not much was available, and I guessed that easing hospitality restrictions had prompted a rash of bookings as Britons quite rightly sought freedom and sea air. Or that the hospitality sector was not y