Winterton-on-Sea
| Winterton-on-Sea | |
| Norfolk | |
|---|---|
 The Church of the Holy Trinity & All Saints | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | TG488193 |
| Location: | 52°42’50"N, 1°40’55"E |
| Data | |
| Population: | 1,278 (2011) |
| Post town: | Great Yarmouth |
| Postcode: | NR29 |
| Dialling code: | 01493 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | Great Yarmouth |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
Great Yarmouth |
Winterton-on-Sea is a village on the North Sea coast of Norfolk, eight miles north of Great Yarmouth and 19 miles east of Norwich.
The civil parish had a population of 1,359 in 589 households at the 2001 census. Winterton-on-Sea borders the villages Hemsby, Horsey and Somerton.
Between the village and the North Sea are Winterton Dunes which include a 269-acre National Nature Reserve and are inhabited by several notable species such as the natterjack toad.
Winterton and neighbouring beach Horsey are major wildlife sites, even over the winter. During the months of November to January, a colony of Atlantic grey seals heads on to the beach to give birth to seal pups. This has been described as "one of Britain's greatest wildlife spectacles" and attracts tourists from all over the country.[1]
Winterton as a resort
The village has been described as "a very pleasant place to spend a holiday"[2] and "one of the great natural beauty-spots of Norfolk".[3] The coast near the village has a sandy beach. The village has a mini-market called Loomes Stores, a fish and chip shop, The Hermanus Hotel which contains The Highwayman bar and restaurant, a pub named The Fisherman's Return, a post office with its own tea room, and a café by the beach named Seal View. It has received awards on several occasions in the Anglia in Bloom competition.[4]
History
The parish was created in 967AD, and a church was established here during the Anglo-Saxon period.
The current church, Holy Trinity and All Saints, mostly dates back to the 16th century. Its tower is 132 feet tall.[5] The lean-to chapel north of the chancel is from the 13th century and could have been an anchorite's cell but is more likely to have been an early example of a vestry or sacristy. The porch dates from about 1459.
Some historians believe that the village was the seasonal "tun", meaning settlement, of farmers from East Somerton who were fishermen during the winter. By Norman times it had become a separate village[6] and is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Wintretona or Wintretuna.[7]
The Fisherman's Return, a brick and flint public house, dates from the end of the 17th century.[2] A glossy black erratic boulder "the size of a large pig" is located in The Lane close to the junction with Black Street. The stone was moved in 1931, this led to riots as the move was deemed responsible for poor fishing. In the following year it was moved to its present location.[8]
The hazardous nature of the coastline at Winterton is indicated by Winterton Lighthouse which was established during the 17th century and operated until the early 20th century.[9] In the late 18th century marram grass was planted to stabilise the coastline against sea encroachments, and by the early 19th century there was a barrier of dunes between high water mark and the ridge on which the lighthouse stood, leaving a valley between.[10]
During the Second World War, anti-invasion defences were constructed around Winterton-on-Sea. They included a number of pillboxes. The beaches were protected with unusually extensive barriers of scaffolding and large numbers of anti-tank cubes.[11]
Between 1851 and 1861 a number of Winterton families migrated south to Caister-on-Sea. Many of those families joined the Caister Beachmen and founded arguably the basis of the modern Lifeboat service.
Art and literature
Daniel Defoe mentions the village in Robinson Crusoe and A tour thro' the whole island of Great Britain, published in 1719 and from 1724 respectively. In 1864 the novelist Wilkie Collins visited the village while preparing Armadale, and met nineteen-year-old Martha Rudd who became his unmarried partner. They had three children together.[12][13] He was an admirer of Defoe and in particular of Robinson Crusoe, which is referred to many times in his subsequent novel The Moonstone, and wanted to explore the area where the character was initially shipwrecked.[13]
The author and communist Sylvia Townsend Warner, one of the 'Bright Young Things' of the 1920s, frequently stayed with Valentine Ackland at Hill House and they both wrote poetry inspired by the Winterton beach and dunes.[12] Between the mid-1950s and the early 1970s Leslie Davenport, a member of the Norwich Twenty Group of painters, led up to 200 artists, writers and musicians living on the beach and dunes for six weeks every summer.[3]
In 1956, at 78 years old, the fisherman Sam Larner was discovered as a folk singer in the village. His performances were often broadcast, he performed at music venues in London, and a record was published. There is a blue plaque on his cottage.[14] The 1977 film Julia includes scenes filmed in the village.[15]
See also
Outside links
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("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Winterton-on-Sea) |
References
- ↑ "Friends of Horsey Seals | Helping Seals Thrive" (in en-GB). https://www.friendsofhorseyseals.co.uk/.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 David, Joy (1990). The Hidden Places Of Norfolk and Suffolk. Plymouth: M&M Publishing. ISBN 1-871815-10-X.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Nobbs, George (1973). Pubs To Visit In East Anglia. Norwich: Wensum Books. ISBN 0-903619-03-2.
- ↑ "Winterton in Bloom". winterton-on-sea.net. 2015. http://www.winterton-on-sea.net/winterton_in_bloom.html.
- ↑ "Lots going on at the Church". winterton-on-sea.net. 2015. http://www.winterton-on-sea.net/new_church_page.html.
- ↑ "Winterton Norfolk Genealogy". familysearch.org. 2016. https://familysearch.org/wiki/en/Winterton,_Norfolk_Genealogy.
- ↑ "Domesday Book". domesdaybook.co.uk. 1086. http://www.domesdaybook.co.uk/norfolk6.html.
- ↑ "The Stone, Winterton-on-Sea". http://www.heritage.norfolk.gov.uk/record-details?MNF57256-The-Stone&Index=3&RecordCount=2&SessionID=bd922ff9-70f1-4cfd-9839-1e41f6d5db1b.
- ↑ "Winterton on Sea". norfolkcoast.co.uk. 2013. http://www.norfolkcoast.co.uk/location_norfolk/vp_wintertononsea.htm.
- ↑ Long, Neville (1983). Lights of East Anglia. Lavenham: T. Dalton. ISBN 9780861380282.
- ↑ Foot, William (2006). Beaches, fields, streets, and hills ... the anti-invasion landscapes of England, 1940. Council for British Archaeology. ISBN 1-902771-53-2.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 "Literary Norfolk". literarynorfolk.co.uk. 2016. http://www.literarynorfolk.co.uk/winterton.htm.
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 Clarke, William (1991). The Secret Life Of Wilkie Collins. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee. ISBN 978-1-56663-582-0.
- ↑ "SamFest". samfest.co.uk. 2015. http://www.samfest.co.uk/.
- ↑ "Norfolk (and some Suffolk) film and TV location". https://www.literarynorfolk.co.uk/Norfolk%20Film%20Locations.htm.