The crab, the pier, the fishermen’s cottages… but it’s a long way from anywhere but Norfolk
What’s going for it? Cromer is a very 1902 kind of place. One half expects to see a non-ironic mutton-chop or a waxed moustache in the queue at Morrisons, or Arthur Conan Doyle (awfully keen on Cromer) filling up his Prius at the petrol station. By the late 19th century, Cromer and its neighbours Overstrand and East Runton were hot, hot, hot, baby. Overstrand was called “village of millionaires”, and the landscape hereabouts is to this day dotted with large piles done out in the style of the day – (pleasantly) watered-down arts and crafts.
Last time I came, maybe a decade ago, the place was, shall we say, a little faded from its heyday. It’s certainly got the Pledge out since. The municipal gardens sparkle. The streets busy themselves with independent shops. It’s not without a bit of shabbiness, but all that was once great about Cromer remains: the crabs (obvs); the tower of St Peter and St Paul; the boarding houses clinging to the cliffs; those sweet lanes of fishermen’s houses; and the fin-de-siècle pier, oh, the pier, the most end-of-the-pier pier in the country, at the extremity of Norfolk, with nothing but fishing boats, nor’easterlies and herring between the stage of its Pavilion theatre and Norway.
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