The history of Hunstanton 3

BED & BREAKFAST ACCOMMODATION IN HUNSTANTON

Hunstanton Bed and Breakfast - Eton Lodge B&B in Hunstanton Norfolk

BED & BREAKFAST HUNSTANTON

Hunstanton Bed and Breakfast - Bed and Breakfast in Hunstanton - B&B Hunstanton Bed and Breakfast

Bed and breakfast accommodation, Hunstanton, Norfolk

BED & BREAKFAST ACCOMMODATION IN HUNSTANTON

    oon several trains a day were arriving at Hunstanton’s station, crowded with day trippers and the town quickly grew to meet their needs.The station became overwhelmed and longer platforms had to be built. With the introduction of a weeks paid holiday for most workers, more and more people flocked to the seaside and Hunstanton became widely referred to as the ‘railway resort’.

Things were further boosted from an unlikely source. With the line still under construction, Queen Victoria had purchased the nearby Sandringham Estate for her son Edward, the Prince of Wales. In return for allowing the railway to pass through the estate, Prince Edward had asked that a station be constructed at Wolferton to serve the house. It was agreed and within a short time the future King had transformed Sandringham into the largest shooting estate

in Europe with the Lynn Hunstanton Railway delivering the world’s crowned heads to the tiny Wolferton Station . The presence of a Royal Station on the line added to the excitement of a rail excursion to Hunstanton and to this day the close proximity of the royal estate attracts visitors to Hunstanton all the year round.

    he resort continued to develop and in 1869 a pier was built. Measuring some 800 feet long and 18 feet wide, made of solid iron girders and wooden planking, it was an immediate hit with visitors. So much so that a tollkeeper was promptly introduced to extract twopence from anyone wishing to stroll along it’s length. The pier

was many visitor’s first view of Hunstanton as they emerged excitedly from the railway station and it remained the focal point of Hunstanton until it was finally swept away in a severe storm in 1978.

Ten years after the building of the pier, the first stretch of

promenade was built and in 1891 a golf course opened in Old
Hunstanton, bringing to the area more of the well to do visitors already attracted by Hunstanton’s image, which was that of a refined and elegant resort. At around this time the ‘St Edmunds’ was dropped from the town’s name. It very nearly became known as Hunstanton-on-Sea but finally, to distinguish it from the original village of Hunstanton, it was called New Hunstanton and soon after simply as Hunstanton, with the village assuming the name of Old Hunstanton.



   he railway continued to bring hordes of happy holidaymakers to ‘Sunny Hunny’ for many years but, despite surviving the Beeching cuts of the early sixties, it was finally closed by British Rail in 1969. Without the railway it is unlikely that Hunstanton would have existed at all and this tiny branch line had delivered an enormous weight of traffic in it’s 107 year history. At times the excursion trains queued nose to tail waiting to enter Hunstanton. Incredibly, there was only ever one serious accident when, in 1863, a train was derailed having hit a bullock which had strayed on to the line.

Today the site of the railway station is a car park and now it is cars and coaches that deliver the many visitors to Hunstanton. But the sight that greets those visitors as they emerge is still largely the scene envisaged by Henry Le Strange 170 years earlier. The green is still there, as are the imposing Gothic revival style terraces. And on the clifftop is the building recently voted overwhelmingly by Hunstanton’s residents as their favourite building in the town. The William Butterfield designed Golden Lion hotel, still looking out over the Green and the calm waters of the Wash beyond, as it has done for the last 166 years.

In compiling these pages I have relied heavily on the magnificent research carried out by Mary Rhodes. Born in Hunstanton in 1925, her book ‘The Hunstanton Story’ is a must read for anyone wishing to find out more about Hunstanton and it’s birth and development. I am also very grateful to Ken Arnot and his book ‘Hunstanton-the story of a small Norfolk seaside resort’. Both books