As the sun rises over Sheringham beach, lifeboat man Chris Taylor dons his flippers and heads into an almost unknown world just feet from the land. An incredible 22-mile-long chalk ridge, nicknamed Norfolk's Great Barrier Reef. It's the reef that makes the North Norfolk Coast one of the best places for sea food in the country, and one of the best places to eat it is Wells-next-the-Sea, where we meet chef Scott Dougal as he picks up fresh crab for the lunch time rush.
Moored in the harbour, just outside the restaurant, is the boat Lucy Lavers. She now takes tourists on trips around the harbour but this lifeboat, built in the 1930s, can justly claim to have saved more people than any other as she is one of the last of the little ships that in 1940 helped rescue troops from the beaches of Dunkirk.
Away from the sea, we head to Suffolk to meet Poppy Drury and Joe Hanks, shepherds at Shimpling Farm, as they do their morning rounds checking on lambs born overnight. Just down the road at St Peter and St Pauls in Lavenham we join the bell ringers for their morning practice. The seven great bells were first installed 700 years ago, paid for with money from the wool trade that still goes on at farms like Shimpling.
Back in Norfolk we tee off at Gorleston Golf Club for the first big meeting of the season, the Lady's Open, before heading inland to Wroxham. Here we board the trial run for the greenest steam train in the world, the first to be powered not by coal but by one of Norfolk's great crops: oil seed rape.
Sept. 13, 2023
