G. R. Sims visits Poppyland

'Dagonet' in Poppyland

Of course it was inevitable. Clement Scott was paid by the Great Eastern Railway to popularise the area around Cromer. He invented Poppyland, and the tourists followed.

George Robert Sims, 'Dagonet' of The Referee magazine, followed in the footsteps of Scott and Swinburne and took himself off to Poppyland in July 1887.

'The Garden of Sleep', Sidestrand
Created from an original image, by Google Gemini

The Referee - Sunday 24 July 1887

Some remarkably sensational reports of the mobbing of the Empress of Austria at Cromer have been "communicated" to the Press. I hope they are not true, as I am just off to Cromer myself in search of perfect rest and quietness.

If I am mobbed and followed I shall be exceedingly annoyed. I have shaved off my beard and my moustache in order to disguise myself; but one is never safe.

The postman who delivers your letters tells the policeman, and the policeman tells the boatman, and the boatman tells the visitors, and so it gets abroad, and you are pointed out and stared at.

I have already written a letter to the local papers requesting that my incognito may be respected, and that there may be no public reception or anything of that sort, and I hope I shall be allowed to go about in my blazer and my bath-chair in peace and quietness.

How I fare in "Poppyland" I will let you know next week. 

 

The Referee - Sunday 7 August 1887

l am still a hermit. I am still utterly without news of the great world, from which I have solemnly separated myself. I have not seen a newspaper or read a single item of news since the 28th of July.

The sensation is delightful—one breathes a purer moral atmosphere at once. I believe that if I could keep my mind innocent of the news of the world for a whole twelvemonth, I should never want to return to it at all. The simple pleasures of the rural recluse would then suffice me.

When one finds oneself in a peaceful and secluded vale, far from the madding crowd, it seems to me sacrilege to drag into it the London police, reports and the Westminster debates. Why sully the purity and peace of the lovely spot with the crime and depravity of the great city, and the envy, hatred, and all uncharitableness of the Westminster war of words?

There is a sweet, poppy-crowned eminence, on which I sit amid the waving corn, my sole companions the butterflies and bees. Above me sings a gentle lark, hovering between earth and heaven.

One day I brought to this sweet solitude my humble luncheon, which the fair daughter of the mill had wrapped up in a sheet of the Daily Telegraph—a sheet which had probably come to the mill from Cromer enveloping some article purchased in the little town upon the cliffs.

When I had finished my luncheon I laid the paper down by my side and went to sleep. When I awoke the scene was changed. The ground near me was seared and blasted, the corn was burnt, the poppies had drooped their heads and died, the bees and the butterflies had flown far away, and the lark, its song hushed and its little eyes filled with tears, sat on a hill afar off, and contemplated its ruined home.

The ruin did not extend far. It was only a square patch of ground that had gone wrong, but that square patch was the one I had covered with a page of a London newspaper.

My fancy tells me that this sheet contained the reports of London crime and vice as told in the police-courts, or the record of bad blood and bad language told at Westminster, and that the grass withered and the ground became desolate, and the butterflies were frightened away, and the lark's nest was ruined by its baleful influence.

People who go ferreting about and finding a reason for everything might have discovered that I had let my lighted pipe fall out of my mouth as I dozed off, and that a spark from the pipe had ignited a box of vesuvians on the ground by my side, and that was the cause of the disaster.

But I insist on believing that the occurrence was a gentle hint to me to respect the virginal innocence of the place, and to abstain from introducing the echoes of the metropolitan inferno into this silent and unsullied paradise.

You can drop off to sleep in Poppyland, I assure you. Poppyland it is called not only because of the red flowers that grow so luxuriantly around. but because the air is an opiate that sends everybody off to sleep, man, woman, and child.

If there were enough inhabitants in the district to make a chorus, the chorus that they would sing would be, "We're all nodding." The animals get drowsy here directly they are born. The inhabitants are never really wide awake, and efforts made by visitors to keep their eyes open are ludicrous in the extreme.

I dare say I shall be doubted if I try to convey to the reader the things that I have seen with my own eyes in this great garden of sleep. The strong air affects all who come within its influence. Nature is perpetually waving a chloroformed handkerchief in the faces of the Poppylanders, and there are few who fight off the drowsiness which steals over them.

At a little church on the coast a few Sundays ago a London clergyman came down to officiate for the regular pastor, who was taking a holiday in town. During the evening service many of the visitors succumbed to the atmospheric influence and slumbered placidly in their pews.

The clergyman himself was observed to be making violent efforts to keep himself awake. Every now and then his eyelids would droop and his head would nod and his utterances became confused and spasmodic. At last he fell off sound asleep, and when it was time for him to go on with the service again, the clerk had to walk across and give him a gentle nudge. 

At any time that you walk along the cliff or shore you will find ladies and gentlemen fast asleep. At the hotels in Cromer, when the places at table d'hôte are vacant, the waiters generally guess what the matter, and the boots is sent off to walk along the beach and wake the visitors up and tell them that it is time for dinner.

The principal draper told me that ladies frequently drop asleep in his shop while the assistants are looking for some articles to show them.

I myself can personally testify to the soporific influence of the air. I drop off to sleep a dozen times a day, and after nightfall it is impossible for me to keep my eyes open.

The other evening, walking from Cromer to Side Strand, I sat down on a bank to tie the string of my shoe, which had come undone. I fell asleep before I could get up again, and when I awoke it was broad daylight.

When I reached the mill I found the miller and his daughter in a state of great anxiety about me. The miller had been out all night with a lantern looking for me, and when I got home he was just going to drag the pond at the bottom of the garden with a shrimping net.

In my playful way I had, previous to starting for a walk, told the miller's daughter that I thought it was just the evening to commit suicide in a nice romantic pond. When I didn't return my words were remembered, and the worst fears were entertained.

Since that evening I have been careful not to go too far from home of an evening, and directly I find myself dropping off out of doors I stick a pin in my arm as far as it will go. That keeps me awake long enough to enable me to get home and tumble into bed.

Sweet as my hermitage is, I have now and again been tempted to make excursions beyond it. I have been as far as Wroxham, the great starting point for excursions to the famous Norfolk Broads, and on board a little steam launch I have for the first time in my life made the acquaintance of the picturesque lakes and rivers, which have only of late years begun to receive the attention they deserve.

There are plenty of yachts and boats for hire at various points of the route, and I can conceive no pleasanter way of spending a fortnight than on the Broads.

You can lie on your boat and have all the pleasure of yachting without the perils of the ocean or the pains of sea sickness. It is better to hire a yacht that you can live on, for the hotel accommodation along the banks leaves much to be desired.

The rough element has not as yet introduced Its "broad" fun on these pleasant waterways, and "riparian outrages" are as yet almost unknown.

But owners of property along the banks are beginning to get a little anxious. Year by year the number of yachts and boats, and house-boats and steam launches increases, and parties have taken to landing on private grounds, and lighting fires, and picnicking, and camping for the night in other people's gardens.

The practice of shooting from the decks of the yachts is also coming into vogue, and this is causing serious uneasiness. It is bad enough for a riverside landowner to have his fowls shot at as "wild game," but when the shots whistle through the trees and lodge in the owner's leg or in his wife's back, the annoyance is considerably increased.

Gentlemen who come from London with the intention of taking a sporting tour on the Norfolk and Suffolk rivers and broads are earnestly entreated not to "pot" the inoffensive people who are quietly strolling about the gardens of their own villa residences.

It does not follow because a man lives upon the banks of a river that he is "game." There are plenty of drives in the vicinity of Cromer, but the Norfolk roads are very heavy going just at present, and there is a woful [sic] lack of sign-posts for the benefit of the strange traveller.

My bump of locality is not largely developed, and if it were the strong similarity of the winding lanes which cross and intersect each other would easily nonplus me.

Driving home from Wroxham to Side Strand—some seventeen miles—the other evening, I lost myself five times, and it was long after midnight that I eventually reached my hermitage. And then I only got there after being lost in a wood and taken in hand by a gamekeeper, who kindly got up beside me and told me when to tarn to the right and when to the left.

It was after leaving North Walsham that I got wrong, and it was entirely owing to the sibilance of sign-posts. The road for the last five miles was utterly deserted, and after nightfall we did not meet a living soul, so that to ask our way was impossible.

My little mare would have taken me all right if she had done the journey before, but she had come straight from London, and knew nothing of Norfolk lanes. So we turned and twisted about, vainly endeavouring to see some indication of the mill or the lighthouse on Cromer cliff to guide us.

The few sign-posts that there were were straight poles set well back in the hedge, with the indications painted straight downwards from top to bottom of the post. The writing was in many instances almost obliterated, and we had to spend a quarter of an hour at a sign-post, and use up a whole box of vestas before we could make out anything at all.

We got at last in such a hopeless muddle that we had to pull up at lonely cottages and shout. Then nightcapped heads would be thrust from the windows, and we would be told in a strong Norfolk dialect that we were five miles, or seven miles, or ten miles—as the case might be—out of the road.

When midnight boomed out from a far off church clock, and the moon had retired behind a cloud, I pulled up in hopeless despair at four cross roads. Suddenly far away in the distanoe we saw a glimmering light. "It's a house," I exclaimed. "We'll drive to it, and ask the inhabitants the way."

That house proved to be a mile off, but at last we got to it. It was a cottage, and the light was in the upper window. " Hi! hi hi!" I shouted." Within there! House! What ho!"

At last the inhabitants must have come to the conclusion that my remarks were intended for them, for the window slowly opened, and a male head came out.  What is it?" said the male head. "I beg your pardon for disturbing you," I replied, "but we are travellers, and we have lost our way. Can you tell me which road to take for Side Strand?" "Very sorry, sir," said the male head, " but I can't; we're strangers to these parts, and only came from London this week." Picture!

And I had driven a whole mile to ask that man the way. The situation was agonising, but it was ludicrous, and I laughed aloud and drove on: drove right into a thick plantation where I might have stopped all night but for the friendly gamekeeper formerly alluded to.

I have not taken any country drives late at night since. But I have taken  long country walks late at night, and have even managed to get myself lost on foot. As I frequently lose myself in trying to get from the Strand to Tottenham Court-road, this is not to be wondered at.

But it is not to advertise my want of "locality" that I am writing this paragraph. It is to relate another curious adventure which befell me in the Norfolk lanes. I was lost—lost near a lonely churchyard, late at night.

I sang snatches of song to make myself feel brave, but an uncanny feeling would creep over me. I hate to be lost in a deserted and lonely part late at night. And this time I had no one with me.

While I was getting creepier and creepier, I heard in the distance the steady scrunch of a human footstep coming nearer and nearer. "Saved! Saved!" I cried aloud, in my joy, and I puffed at my pipe with newborn confidence and hope.

At last the man came in sight. I strode forward to greet him. Before I could address him, he addressed me. "Please, sir," he said, "could you tell me if I be a-goin' right for Side Strand?"

The blow was sudden, but supreme. I reeled two paces back. Then, recovering myself, I replied, "I don't know, but if you come with me I'll ask the first person we meet."

We wandered along, looking for somebody, and at last we came to a white gate with a figure leaning over it. "Can you tell me it I am going right for the mill house at Side Strand?" I asked the figure. "Why, this is the mill at Side Strand," was the reply.

"A white gate with a figure leaning over it"
Restored and colourised using ChatGPT

And then the moon came out, and I saw that the figure leaning over the gate was the miller's, and that I was home.

These, indulgent and long-suffering reader, are some of the adventures which have befallen me during my temporary absence from the world on a "midsummer holiday."

I quote the words "A Midsummer Holiday" became it was in my hermitage that Mr. Algernon Charles Swinburne wrote the poems with that title. It was also in my hermitage that the Poppy Land Papers were written by Mr. Clement Scott, and it is in my hermitage that I am writing—

Wait! you shall know in due time. At present a disclosure would be premature; but the thought that a great poet once wrote, sitting in this very room, writing on this very table, fills me with emulation. I must write some poetry, too, but I have to pump up my poetry now. The old inspiration comes not. There is too much prose in my daily life for poetry to have much chance.

Still, it is very quiet here, and perhaps if I sit and stare out of window at the poppies and the corn an idea will come. Let me at least make the attempt.

THE GARDEN OF SLEEP

In the garden of sleep, on the crown of the cliff, 

Where the breezes blow in with an opiate whiff,

I lazily lie on my side in the inn

From the dawn of the day till the daylight is done.

A somnolent silence my soul stealeth o'er

As the wanton waves whispering woo the shy shore.

And the slumber of sleep of the stillness is born,

Where the pretty pink poppies camp out in the corn.

The buzz of the bee as he hums in the hush,

The glow of the gold and the purple and plush,

The rose in its riot of rapturous rest,

All sing me to sleep as a babe at the breast.

Then, wafted and winged on the ambient air,

Through the ivory gate float the phantasies fair,

The dreams of delight of the drowsiness born

Where the pod of the poppy is crashed in the corn.

From the dawn and the day to the dusk and the dark,

To the hoot of the owl from the lay of the lark.

I have slumbered supine on this Lethe-laved land

Where the succulent seaweed sings songs to the sand.

And now, as the midnight moans out on the mere,

It seems in my dreams that a murmur I hear;

'Tis a bibulous boatman, who says with a sniff,

"O Crimes, and O crikey! a corpse on the cliff!"

He labours to lift me—a stagger, a screech—

And two bodies lie battered and bruised on the beach

The rude rocks re-echo the thunderous thud,

And the boulders and billows are blotted with blood.

I chide not the churl lying flaccid and fat,

But I dreamingly, dozily say, "Who was that?"

Then I pule, in a pang of papaverous pain,"

You have waked me too soon, I must slumber again."

That is my Poppy Land—my garden of sleep. I have treated it perhaps with a little poetic licence, but it is better to be too poetical than too prosy.

I have made much of the solitude and silence while I could get it, for I fear the future hermit will find both solitude and silence gone. It has got about that I have been staying in the quiet spot, and already a daily performance of The Birthplace of Podgers¹ is taking place.

Carriages draw up in front of my little white gate, and the occupants put up their opera. glasses and watch my gambols on the lawn with a tame crocodile which a friend of mine in Egypt has just sent me as a present.

Special omnibuses now run from Cromer past the mill, and draw up in the lane to let the passengers have a good look at me as I sit at the window, in a beautiful blazer and a priceless Panama hat, and smoke the short clay dear to my heart for the sake of the old Bohemian days that will come again no more. O, beautiful city of Prague! What would I give—

Really these interruptions are too bad. Here is an excursion party arrived in a waggonette at the mill, and they are wrangling with the conductor because I am not outside, and the fare was two shillings and sixpence, including a full view of DAGONET.

The conductor has come to say that if I would be so kind as to step outside and lean against the door in an easy attitude it would save him much unpleasantness with his fares. I oblige the conductor, bow to the ladies and gentlemen, and then come in and slam the door to.

But I have no sooner begun to write again than a lady in blue spectacles and a green veil comes right into the garden in a donkey-chaise, and taps at my window with her parasol. I start up indignantly. "Really, madam!" I say. Then she smiles, and hands me an Album of Confessions through the window. "Will I fill in my confession, and she'll call for it to-morrow."

Farewell peace and quietness—I am "Podgers." Last week's Referee has revealed my whereabouts, and I have become a natural curiosity of the district. They tell me that next Sunday three excursions will be run from Norwich to Cromer, and four horse vans will bring the excursionists up to the mill to see me.

I shall leave. If there is one thing I hate it is extreme publicity. The Empress of Austria has fled, and I shall fly too. Next week I shall seek another hermitage. I shall go to a lonely spot from which adventurous travellers now and again return to tell strange tales. I shall—

The miller's fair daughter is knocking at my door. "What is it, Louie?" "Please, sir, the grocer's young man's called, and he says his master's compliments, and what would be your price to write him some poetry to put on his paper bags?" "What—!"

All that was left of that grocer's young man was taken back to Cromer late at night in the miller's pony-cart. And now the Cromer police are scouring the cliffs in all directions, and asking the fishermen and the Coastguard, if they have seen anything of a person answering the description of

DAGONET

¹ Hollingshead, John: The birthplace of Podgers: an original domestic sketch in one act (London : T.H. Lacy, [1858?])

Railway, Rail or Train Station?

Whenever the UK media use the expression "train station" these days, it is greeted with a torrent of comments that "railway station" is the correct UK usage. So where has this change come from?

This graph uses a count, per decade, from 1830 to 2000, of usage from the English newspapers of the British Newspaper Archive.

The raw data shows the adoption of "train station" from 1980 onwards, and particularly from 1990. It seems likely that people born between 1930 and 1980 are going to be the most resistant to "train station".

The Oxford English Dictionary has an intriguing quotation from The New York Times Magazine of 21 June 1981:

When was the last time you heard a young, rich-affluent-wealthy type use the phrase railroad station? Upper-class use is now train station.

Is this the reason that "train station" began to be used in England as well?

What happened in the 1980s?

The steep increase in references to "railway station" in 1986 is curious. Deeper research seems to indicate it's because of duplication within the British Newspaper Archive. The sudden drop in 2000 is either due to the removal of duplication or, more likely, the fact that many newspapers are not included after 1999.

Clement Scott in Poppyland : 5

CROMER & MUNDESLEY RAILWAY. 

Through Poppyland by train! Why, the very idea is enough to make Clement Scott start in his grave. It was he who found out Poppyland and gave it its name. Cromer has been known long time, and Mundesley had some repute bathing-place. Some few people were aware that whelks and lobsters were caught Sheringham, and smaller number still, and those given to tho study old-time lore, had idea that if another Bonaparte were attempt the invasion England he would make straightway for Weybourne Hoop, wherever that might be. 

POPPYLAND DISCOVERED. 

Clement Scott was a man of courage. turned his back on Cromer, and would have nothing of its giddy delights. He set his face at the great barrier of the Lighthouse Hills, and, threading their passes in safety, discovered Beck Hithe, and the ruined church where lie the Buxtons, the Mill House on the height beyond, and the Garden of Sleep on the windy cliff next the sea.

"The Garden of Sleep on the windy cliff next the sea"
Restored, adapted and colourised using Google Gemini

He went, saw, and he was conquered. He spent such a holiday as a weary man of letters had never enjoyed before, he put it all into a book, some of it in poetic prose, and some in mysterious verse, and set everyone who read what had written a longing to and do likewise, not witting that what had charmed one weary man would appear somewhat differently to a crowd. 

But they went, nevertheless, found out the "dews by the deep," they stood by the "green graves of dear women asleep," in land where "regal red poppies are born," and if they were not equal to revelling in "music of distance with eyes that are wet," "the hush of the corn," they admitted the discoverer told true, and forthwith the charms of were sounded to the four winds and from north, south, east, and west, from every corner of these blessed islands, and from many land beyond the sea, came the pilgrims, to see the poppies and to revel in the purest air that ever gentlest gales over green fields and blue ocean. 

THE NEW LINE.

The luxury Norfolk Coast Express took advantage of the new line

From that very day this latest railway was a foregone certainty. First, the Great Eastern ran to Cromer; then the predecessors of the Midland and Great Northern Joint Committee got thither by another route, which linked tho once-dreaded "shires" well as "Lunnon Town." Then the two joined forces and ran out a branch to Mundesley a kind of flank attack on the lovely district of which all the world and his wife were singing the praises. 

When this feat was accomplished and people to went the quaint old-world village, even then developing aspirations for the dignity of a township, one of the first things they noticed was that, although to all intents and purposes Mundesley was a terminus, the station was of the pattern, and the track ran on past it and disappeared round a corner. Some made it their business to see whither it went, and came back as if they had been "sold," as the vulgar people put it. If they look again when they come this summer they will find out that there is no sell about it. That way runs the new railway through Poppyland! Through Poppyland, sir!

The new line is to be opened, according to present anticipations, on July 23rd, and the effect of the event will be that the Great Eastern Railway Company will obtain access to Sheringham, and all the North Norfolk beauty spots, from Mundesley and the Beacon Hill to the Skelding Hills and Weybourne Heath, will be looped up on to one string.

 Railway Clearing House map showing the North Walsham to West Runton section of the
Norfolk and Suffolk Joint Railway, 1907

From Mundesley the new line runs more less parallel the coast, and in N.W. by W. direction. Then it bears still further to the west, and passes under the existing G.E.R. on the Norwich side of Cromer Station, and from that point curves away towards the north until it reaches the M. and G.N. line at Runton, where one curve takes it to that line and so to Sheringham, and another directly opposite leads on to the same line and so into Cromer Beach Station. Looked at on the map, would appear that Cromer Beach Station been made a kind of backwater, but there is small need for any apprehensions of that kind. Cromer, the metropolis of the district, and from whichever way the crowd comes the main host will make that pleasant town their headquarters. 

CROMER BEACH TO CROMER G.E.R. 

The new line will known as the Cromer and Mundesley, and will be controlled by the Norfolk and Suffolk Joint Railways Committee, the body already responsible for the North Walsham and Mundesley line and the new coast line from Yarmouth to Lowestoft via Gorleston. The Cromer and Mundesley line leaves that of the M. and G.N.R., as we have already stated, at Runton, by what will be known the Runton West Curve—the Runton East Curve runs into the Beach Station. 

Halfway of the curve, the line is carried on a fine five-arch viaduct, 38 feet in height. Then it comes to higher ground, and passes under the Holt road in a cutting 38 feet below. At its deepest this cutting is 42 feet below the surface, and is believed be the deepest in Norfolk. Very soon, however, it is out on a high embankment, which, according to agreement with owners of the Cromer-hall estate, over which the line has been so far carried, is to be planted with trees. 

The Roughton road crossed by bridge of 36 feet span, a structure which was the subject of much negotiation between town authorities and the promoting companies. The railway people would have made it 26 feet, and of brick. The townspeople desired it wider, and this necessitated a girder bridge, which, again, the urban council insisted should have ornamentation sufficient disguise the very prosaic outlines of that class of structure. 

A tunnel carries the line under that running into Cromer G.E.R. Station; a quarter-mile on the Sheringham side a loop comes down from the G.E.R., over which trains coming over that system and bound for Sheringham will run. The tunnel is 184 feet long, and its construction was one of the chief difficulties attending the work, owing to the small space between the rails above and the arch top of the new work. That everything was done and cleared away without delay of any kind in the G.E.R. train service, owing to the building of the tunnel underneath, was a feat which the may well proud.

OVERSTRAND STATION. 

Now we are out of Cromer, and heading for the coast road, leaving Northrepps on the right. In three and a-half miles from the starting-point, and a little more than four from Cromer Beach, we reach Overstrand Station, which has an island platform 500 feet long by 40 feet broad, approached from the village new road, the head of which a subway leads under the embankment, and by a rising ramp to the platform level. station buildings are smart and well-appointed, of red Leicestershire brick, with buff and blue facing, and the woodwork varnished pitchpine. Overstrand will be the principal station on the line. 

Overstrand Station soon after opening
Restored and colourised using Google Gemini

What was once a mere fishing village is now an aristocratic retreat, and no one remembers, when gazing at the half-Moorish tower and cloisters of the Pleasaunce, Lord Battersea's beautiful place, the picturesque villages, around and beyond it, that here, or close by, was old Beck Hithe, famous for little else but smuggling and daring tricks on angry revenue men. Even Old Shuck, the great hairy hound of the night with his noiseless tread and his blazing eyes, has gone clean away, and no fiend in these days haunts the trim churchyard, where, amid roofless walls, lies the Buxton who did so much towards the freedom of the slave and the Anna Gurney who first translated the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle into decent English. 

Sidestrand is passed in a cutting, but the town church by the roadside and the grey tower on the cliff are not far away. The idea, as originally designed, was to have gone nearer the sea. but Sir Samuel Hoare had restored and almost rebuilt Sidestrand-hall, and, deference to his wishes, the line was taken further inland, and out of sight of his house. A bridge of three arches takes us over the Southrepps road, and by an embankment we are carried into Trimingham Station, six miles from the starting point. 

TRIMINGHAM. 

Trimingham Station in Edwardian days
Restored and colourised using ChatGPT

The station buildings follow the design of those at Overstrand, the main difference being that the level of the line is reached by a staircase leading down from the road, instead of by incline from the lower road level as at Overstrand. There was some trouble here with the roads, one of which was stopped, another diverted, and four crossings were provided with a bridge. Trimingham will have many visitors for the sake of the Beacon Hill, eastward of the village, from the summit which smart-sighted people have descried as many as sixty churches on a clear day, and for the charm of the cliffs next the sea, hereabouts at the highest of the whole Norfolk coast. 

There are stories about pilgrims going to Trimingham see the head of St. John the Baptist but there is  little enough foundation for them when they come to examined. For certain, Trimingham never had so many pilgrims in all its history as have been thither since Clement Scott wrote Poppyland. A glimpse of the Beacon Hill is obtainable on the Cromer side of the village, but from that point onward, and for three-fourths of the remaining distance to Mundesley, the line runs in cutting. At Mundesley station we are eight and a-half miles from Cromer. 

MUNDESLEY.

It would out of place here to describe such an old-established and fashionable resort as Mundesley, which is rapidly growing into a pretty town. We might say much about the old half-ruined church, which has been so prettily restored, of the tiny river which crosses the lovely beach, of the wooded halls and verdant meadows around, of the beauty of the old mill stream, and the picturesque design of the station, and of the hotels and chapels. 

We might even enlarge the district round about, and tell of the Paston tombs at the church in the village of that name, of Bacton and its abbey, of Knapton church and its gorgeous roof, of—all the rest. But we are dealing with the new line, which, we must add, was built to the designs Mr. W. Marriott, M.Inst.C.E., engineer to the Midland and Great Northern Joint Railways, and constructed by Mr. Robert Finnigan, Northampton. Mr. C. A Sadler, Sheringham, erected the stations, Mr. A. Ross, M.Inst.C.E., was chief engineer, and Mr. Grote Stirling, M.Inst.C.E., is resident engineer. 

Those desiring a more technical account of the undertaking will find what they require in an interesting in article the Railway Gazette (May 11th), by Mr. Charles S. Lake, illustrated from a number of photographs taken by Mr. Grote Stirling, and to which we are indebted for some of the information given above. 

Source: Norfolk Chronicle - Saturday 19 May 1906

Clement Scott in Poppyland : 4

 "POPPYLAND."

"What a fool you were ever to let a human being into the secret of your beloved Cromer. Why could you not let it alone? Why on earth did you not keep it to yourself?"

These are the jeering and taunting remarks that are hurled every summer at my offending head. Instead of being a benefactor to the human race, instead of being allowed to pride myself on my own unselfishness, I am, I regret to say, looked upon as a tainted or suspected person.

"Look here, old fellow, I have a delightful little place of my own down in the country," observed a friend the other day, "and I should like to ask you down very much to stay with me as long as you like, but—well—will you promise me on your oath you will not write about it? for, honestly, I do want to keep it to myself, and to give the slip to the tripper."

Quite ten long years ago I first made the acquaintance of Cromer, and it was then the quietest and, I believe, the most romantic seaside nook in England. It had no great hotels, no piers, no bathing machines, and no bands. Sands were good enough for us then: our bathing machines were the clefts in the cliffs, our music came from wandering musicians. I walked out before dinner, and saw the sun sink Runton way a solitary pilgrim.

If ever wakeful at three o'clock in the morning, I could have seen the sun rise over by the Lighthouse Cliff, standing on the turf that I suggested—entirely to myself—would be admirable for golf.

The green landscape was not then starred with red-brick villas. The poppies had it all their own way. One morning, I wandered aimlessly over this soft, turfy cliff, and found myself in the most romantic of Norfolk villages. I leaned over a white gate, and looked enviously into a rose garden.

I broke one of the Commandments. I envied my neighbour's house, and he, the miller of Sidestrand, repaid my ingratitude by making me his friend for life. And here I dwelt, under the shadow of the old mill, and here I discovered the Garden of Sleep, and here I became acquainted with the fishermen and the villagers, and here I have lived on and off, spring, summer, autumn, and winter, up to this very hour.

For l am writing these lines in the very room, at the same table, and sitting on the same chair, as when, in that rash but generous moment, I despatched the first of the Poppyland Papers.

But there are other sinners besides myself. It is not fair to make me alone bear the burden of this crime of publicity. Scarcely was the ink dry that printed Poppyland in the largest circulation in the world, ere George R. Sims arrived to advertise the glories of the Cromer district.

Here, at the table where I write, sitting in my chair, and dipping his pen into the inkstand presented to me one Christmas by the villagers of Sidestrand, the excellent "Dagonet" exchanged sentiment for his own delightful humour. He laughed, he chaffed, and made the place notorious. He opened the stage door and lit the theatre at Poppyland.

Here he brought Wilson Barrett to write plays; here he conducted poor Robert Reece to breathe some fresh air once more when he was in extremis; here came Henry Pettitt to collaborate with George Sims in the old mill garden.

The profession, once tempted, poured into Poppyland. Beerbohm Tree dreamed of Hamlet in the Old Mill House, and actually studied the Prince of Denmark in a secluded arbour at Northrepps. George Alexander is well-known at Runton and Sheringham. Hermann Vezin loves to bathe off Overstrand beach.

Ah! me, but I forget. This old table at which I write is far more famous than any of you imagine. Here, Algernon Charles Swinburne wrote A Midsummer Holiday, whilst his friend, Theodore Watts, composed sonnets in the blue china dining-room.

Plays, poems, essays, stories, leaders, descriptive papers, have all been written in this sunny little room, dear to me by many a delightful memory.

And it is ten years ago since Louie opened the white gate to me, and said that the traveller might rest. Only two seconds ago the faithful Louie opened the door to just such another traveller, and assured him that there was not a bed to be had for love or money between Sheringham and Mundesley.

Well, what do you think! They have built a Grand Hotel, and are designing a new and splendid Pier that is to have kiosques and shops, and a theatre and dancing platform at the end. There are bands of music all over the place. There are as many donkeys and donkey-chaises at modern Cromer as at Scarborough. The primitive little Cromer of old is fringed round with scarlet houses.

Poets, like Mr. Sampson-Locker, and politicians, such as Mr. Broadhurst, Mr. Cyril Flower, and Mr. John Morley, make Poppyland their home.

The golf links that I dreamed about on the Lighthouse Cliff are an accomplished fact. The sands swarm with tents and tennis nets.

Overstrand, that was once a hamlet of humble fishermen's cottages, is a red townlet of bungalows and villas.

The silent lanes, trodden so few years ago alone by the husbandman, fishier, and postman, echo with the shouts of excursionists and holiday-makers. Omnibuses, char-à-bancs, waggonettes, donkey-chaises, go in one continual stream all day between Cromer and Trimingham.

Sidestrand Mill having lost its sails
Restored and colourised using Google Gemini

The old mill opposite my cottage has dropped its arms in horror at the change. It has tumbled down and given up the ghost. The Garden of Sleep has been so trampled upon by visitors that it has fallen half-down into the sea.

The tower and gravestones of old Sidestrand church - 'The Garden of Sleep'
Restored, adapted and colourised using Google Gemini

From morning until night the excursionists gaze into our rose garden, lean over my white gate, and babble continuously, "Poppyland! Poppyland!"

Nay, they do more—they enter laughingly, and demand relics of Dagonet, Swinburne, Pettitt, Beerbohm Tree, and Wilson Barrett. They offer bribes for Swinburne's stick and Dagonet's pipe. They have been known—enthusiastic ladies these—to ask if they might sit in the chair of the author of Poppyland Papers, and to handle his pen.

Pretty dears! So, after all, was it wholly wrong to open to the world the gates that lead to Poppyland ?Someone else must decide that question. May they all be as happy there as I have been. Deo Gratias!

First published in The Idler, vol.2, August 1892-January 1892

Clement Scott in Poppyland : 3

 The Garden of Sleep

Clement Scott

The tower and churchyard of the old Sidestrand church, c. 1901
Google Gemini recreation using an original postcard

On the grass of the cliff, at the edge of the steep,

    God planted a garden - a garden of sleep!

'Neath the blue of sky, in the green of the corn,

    It is there that the regal red poppies are born!

Brief days of desire, and long dreams of delight,

    They are mine when Poppy-Land cometh in sight.

In music of distance, with eyes that are wet,

    It is there I remember, and there I forget!

O! heart of my heart! where the poppies are born,

    I am waiting for thee, in the hush of the corn.

     Sleep! Sleep!

                   From the Cliff to the Deep!

                                 Sleep, my Poppy-Land,

                                                Sleep!

In my garden of sleep, where red poppies are spread,

    I wait for the living, alone with the dead!

For a tower in ruins stands guard o'er the deep,

    At whose feet are green graves of dear women asleep!

Did they love as I love, when they lived by the sea?

    Did they wait as I wait, for the days that may be?

Was it hope or fulfilling that entered each breast,

    Ere death gave release, and the poppies gave rest?

O! life of my life! on the cliffs by the sea,

    By the graves in the grass, I am waiting for thee!

     Sleep! Sleep!

                   In the Dews of the Deep!

                                Sleep, my Poppy-Land,

                                               Sleep!

Clement Scott in Poppyland : 2

A DAY IN POPPY-LAND.

[BY A HOLIDAY-MAKER.]

Alfred Jermy, miller, at the gate of his home., c.1910
Restored and colourised using Google Gemini

The honest miller who lived in the farm by the sea was as good as his word. The wind was slack, and the corn around his little homestead scarcely cut, so he duly presented himself with the basket-carriage and the fast-trotting pony to fetch me away from the monotonous existence of a seaside resort to the more simple pleasures of a sunny country life. 

We can do original things in these primitive parts, and so it did not seem at all odd to the inhabitants of the seaside village pretending to be fashionable to see a dusty miller conveying his guest to his distant home. It was just the evening for a drive in the country; the sun had set, the bright clear flame of the lighthouse flashed now to sea and now across the the peaceful country, the yellow evening primrose  was closed in the cottage gardens, and the last wagons laden with sheaves were coming home to the barns from the fields.

I left my seaside friends as I had found them, doing precisely the same thing with monotonous regularity. There was a moon in the heavens, across acres and acres of woodland within an easy walk of the hotels and lodging-houses, cliffs to climb although the day was done, and yet no one ventured to depart from the monotony of the orthodox seaside programme, They had done their sands, done their cliff, called for their letters, read their newspaper, eaten their accustomed meals, and now there was nothing to be accomplished except to walk on a wooden pier and to listen to the music of an active but not very distinguished band. 

"If you are not in a hurry for time, I can take you a pretty drive to the mill," observed my host, as he allowed the old pony clearly to see that he was on his way homeward; and the worthy miller was right. We took a road that led through a wood, not quite deserted yet by the light, and passed one of the show cottages of the district, a gabled pleasaunce with a rustic porch, built in a hollowed clearance of some noble trees, and now showing an added charm owing to the lights in the latticed windows.

If the old mill farm looked homely enough in the full glare of the midday sun, with a bright light upon the flower beds, and the business of the day, such as it was, in full swing, you can imagine the hospitable look of it as we drove up to the white rustic gate and saw through an open window a supper table spread with a fair white linen cloth, candles lighted, and vases of wild flowers for simple decoration. 

It was just the room in which such a table should have been arranged. The furniture was of old solid oak of antique pattern; a combined chest of drawers and escritoire contained the odd books that seemed to have been left by successive reading parties; religion and classics hopelessly mixed, Ovid side by side with Baxter's sermons and theological dissertations in friendly companionship with Todhunter's Algebra.

For pictures there were the coloured illustrations from many a Christmas number of the Illustrated London News and the Graphic, framed by the miller during his winter evenings, some German reproductions of Raffaelle's cartoons, and a wonderful series of coloured plates representing the virtues of a temperate man contrasted with the wretched career of a drunkard, on the true Hogarthian model, 

The little drawing-room on the other side of the entrance-door was an apartment evidently held in greater respect and even reverence. It smelt of lavender, and was spotlessly clean; the horsehair sofa was an imposing piece of furniture, the carpet had evidently been a study in green and gold, flowers had been placed in every corner of the room, photographs of the miller's family and ancestors hung upon the walls with more religious prints, coloured and plain; and on a special table in the corner of the room lay in state the huge family Bible. 

The miller's house, though compact and regular in front, was roomy at the rear, and capable of holding a decent-sized family of children and nurses, if their parents were sensible enough to bring them here instead of into stuffy, unwholesome lodgings. As for my bedroom it was almost wholly occupied by a comfortable old-fashioned tent bedstead, but it looked to the front—a south-west aspect—and the road was lost in the interval between the miller's and the acres of ripe corn on the slope of the mill-hill.

Sidestrand Mill with cornfield and Alfred Jermy's home
Google Gemini recreation of an original photograph

"Could I eat eggs and bacon," was the modest request, as the miller’s daughter uncovered a smoking dish, and pointed to the farmhouse bread and fresh butter. What could I not have eaten here, so admirably contrasted as it all was in its homeliness and comfort with the very undesirable food, the secondhand table d'hôte, the inevitable discomfort of crowded hotels and waiters, which I had exchanged for this elysium. 

And, maybe, I could enjoy also, after this frugal and wholesome supper leaning over the white garden gate and up to the sails of the silent mill, that last evening pipe that always seems sweeter in the country air, and prepares the holiday-maker for a good seven hours of unbroken rest, So grateful was the rest, indeed, that it was soon evident that further sleep was impossible after seven o'clock in the morning. 

The prospect of a good breeze had stirred the miller early to set the sails going and begin on the new corn which had already come up from the fields, The first farm wagons were soon passing the miller's gate, and the pigeons were calling under the eaves of the country cottage. 

But the chance of a bathe in the sea was the first consideration. Two fields led on to the edge of the cliff, and a circuitous path down the sandy face of it took me to the utterly deserted beach. Here there was a chance of a swim such as bathers seldom find. Three miles along the coast it would have been necessary to wait in turn for a bathing machine, to bribe the proprietor for preference, and to be strictly confined to the very proper regulations made at such places. 

But what a change here. Had I been cast on a desert island could not have been more alone. Not a human being on the cliff, not a house or cottage to be seen, not a footfall on the beach, a cave to use as a dressing-room, and mile after mile of virgin sand, unsoiled by stone or pebble, to run upon in the in the sun and in the breeze after coming out of the water. 

At ordinary seaside places a sea-bath cannot be followed by an air-bath, which is just as valuable to the health and constitution; but here, in this deserted nook, I can honestly say that I have never seen a human creature since I changed my quarters. A bath of this pattern naturally leads to a breakfast with an appetite to which most Londoners are strangers, and after breakfast, at the request of miller, I go up to the old mill to be to see a splendid view of sea and cornfield from one of the upper storeys, and to be initiated in the art of making flour under the process that has existed for some hundreds of years, and is now only gradually dying out. 

Sidestrand Mill
Restored and colourised using Google Gemini

For the first time for many weeks the old mill was going, the new corn was pouring in, and my host was anticipating a brisk sale for his flour, his bran, and his pollard, which he sold retail to his country neighbours. Here the good fellow had worked contentedly for many a year, attending to the entire mill himself, and often in the winter-time working morning and night in these whitened chambers and preparing for that rainy day, to him a windless week, when trade must necessarily stop.

Standing, that sunny summer morning, with the blue sea before me and the smiling landscape round about, with the whirling sails rushing through the air, I wondered if these old-fashioned windmills, dotted all over England, could ever be utilised for the collection and storage of one of the forces that are in time to supersede steam. It would be decidedly an original idea to collect force at a country windmill, to pack it up on the spot, and to deliver it, carriage paid, by the parcels post.

The next visit was, of course, to the harvest field, where on all sides they were gathering in the grain with extraordinary rapidity owing to the general use of machinery for cutting and storing. During my visit to these districts I did not see a single farm on which labour was employed for mowing and reaping, and nowadays every farmer with a fair acreage uses his own machinery, and does not share it with his neighbours according to the old plans. I passed an old man, a man of some seventy summers, sitting on a stile as he surveyed the operations, and he was fairly astonished at the rapidity with which the land was cleared as contrasted with his own recollections, but none the less inclined to favour what seemed to him the "new-fangled method". 

I have spoken elsewhere of the courtesy and I might add the reverence of the Norfolk labourer, who seldom announces his determination of visiting any place on the morrow or going anywhere without the addition of "If God spares me, sir." 

And I might here note one of the curious harvest customs that must have come down direct from Norman times, When the reapers are in the field they are allowed, or rather it is the custom, the demand largesse from the passer. Indeed, the very same old French word is used. The phrase goes, "Please da me a largess, sir!" which I made a brown-cheeked labourer translate - "Please give me something to drink your jolly good health with."

Not only the labourers in the field, but the children in the lanes, for ask for largesse at harvest time. The girls and boys with eyes as black as aloes follow the visitor with no cringing importunity, but a laughing downright request, such as "Please da me a copper, sir." The perpetuation to this very day of the Latin da for give me, is as curious as the retention of the largesse.

Sidestrand Mill and the road from Cromer, c.1916
Restored and colourised using Google Gemini

It would be possible to walk for miles around this healthy and hospitable country, without the slightest fatigue, amongst the crops and the corn fields, for here, as in Switzerland, the vigorous and bracing air relieves all sense of weariness. 

All the harvesting I have seen is done in full view of the sea; the crops grow to the very edge of the cliffs which so exercise the inhabitants by crumbling away, making huge gaps and ravines of sandy soil that are soon grown over by the poppy, the thistle, and the sea daisy. And then the landscape is so delightfully varied. Now you come across an old church tower, ivy grown and picturesque, surrounded by forgotten grave stones, and the matrices of old brasses,the last relic of the parish church, removed, like the lighthouse, further back upon the cliff for fear its foundations shall totter and fall.

The ruined tower and graves of old Sidestrand church, 1901
Restored and colourised using Google Gemini

Now you enter a village, and, desperately thirsty after those breakfast shrimps or Yarmouth bloater, beg for a drink of water, not lighting on any inn in this most temperate county, but finding a curious old cottage, with an old lady presiding over it who has passed the last fifty-seven years of her life under the same roof, never stirring far from the village, and living now in simple content on half a crown given her by the parish supplemented by a share of the earnings of her grandson, a farm labourer, who has sworn never to marry whist his old grandmother is alive. 

Of the temperance of these Norfolk labourers I can speak with experience. They do no apparently need blue ribbons or pledges to keep them sober. For the most part they drink water, because they like it and thrive upon it, and their potations even in the harvest field are very moderate. I have not seen a drunken man since I have been in the place, and have never yet passed a labourer at any tune of the day without being saluted by him in a friendly fashion, and as if I a stranger was made welcome the inhabitants. 

And so slip along with pleasant ease the wheels of a country day at harvest time. There is always something to see, ever something to be done. If tired of the farms and the cliffs, you can stroll down to the deserted beach, and obtain the freedom and space necessarily denied elsewhere. If the day is too hot for exercise the nights are at least supremely beautiful, whether viewed from the old mill mound, watching the fields illumined by the lighthouse tower, or from the cliff's edge with what they call here the "fisherman's moon" making a pathway of gold across the waveless sea.

View from Cromer Lighthouse towards Overstrand, c.1928
Restored and colourised using Google Gemini

Such is but a brief outline of existence at a place where there are fields to wander in all untenanted, woods full of wild flowers that bloom unseen by human eye, cliffs that have no wayfarers but the sand marten and the swallow—a sea that I have made my own, and a sand that no one else cares to use as a playground. 

There are no children here, though there are farms in plenty to take them in, milk and butter and eggs to feed them with, gardens full of vegetables and flowers—no, the children are all away in lodgings, that are unwholesome, and are swarming upon sands that are crowded; there are no "sympathies" here, though there are cliffs on which they could rest all day without an interloper near them—no, indeed, the "sympathies" are proclaiming their affection publicly on the pier or esplanade, and dressing for their mutual satisfaction; there are no hard-worked fathers or harassed mothers here—no, they are wheeling perambulators on popular spas, and exposing to an astonished world the pranks of their unruly children. 

Youth and age, married and unmarried, take their holidays elsewhere, and have not yet discovered this Poppyland, which, to state it practically, can be in five hours from Liverpool-street Station. Any one putting himself into a train at 3.30, might be opening the gate of the Old Mill Farm by eight o'clock, and midnight reposing in lavender. 

First published in the Daily Telegraph on Monday 3 September 1883

Clement Scott in Poppyland : 1

POPPY-LAND

[BY A HOLIDAY-MAKER]

AT A FARMHOUSE, NEAR THE SEA

Cromer seafront in Clement Scott's day
Restored and colourised using Google Gemini

It was during my rambles round the East Coast of England that that I chanced to find such an exceptionally-favoured and smiling corner, a village so secluded and at peace, surrounded by fields already ripe for the harvest within full view of the summer sea that it struck me some description of life in and England farmhouse at harvest-time might be sufficiently interesting to many on their rambles, and to many more who by this time have returned to work again.

The experience of a holiday spent amidst the most beautiful scenery of my own country, of walks from village to village, of many wanderings on down and cliff, of life at watering places, both fashionable and dull, leads me to the conclusion that many a traveller in search of health and rest might do worse than change the restlessness and excitement of travel for the seclusion and stillness of an English farm in a village by the sea.

At this time of year people are never tired of recommending to one another some quiet spot where they can live undisturbed by the great procession of tourists, a place where a table d'hôte is unknown, and the front-door is free from the confusion of arriving and departing guests, a clean, quiet homelike dwelling where literally you can take your ease at your inn.

Never a year passes but some discovery is made, only to be communicated to a few confidential friends. The theory is that when a pretty spot becomes known and popular it is spoiled. I must own that many such confidences have been duly communicated to me, but what surprised me most is that the United Kingdom is supposed to be outside the regions of romance and retirement. 

From time to time it has been whispered in my ear that if I really enjoy solitude and fine air, scenery and seclusion, I shall find it at some "pension" on the Jura Mountains remote from the ordinary Swiss route—in the Maderanerthal Valley half-way up the St. Gothard pass, deep in the heart of the Black Forest at Wolfach, where they brew excellent German beer, at Triberg, where they make the cuckoo clocks, or at Rippoldsau, where they take delicious pine baths for chronic or occasional rheumatism.

I have been recommended villages innumerable in many a Swiss canton, inns on the margin of many Swiss lakes. I have been promised rest in the Island of Man and welcome banishment in the Island of Sark. I have no reason whatever to doubt the good faith of any of my informants, but it must never be forgotten that each and all of these enchanted peace-spots can only be arrived at after hours of agony by sea, or nights of dusty torture in a railway train; you have to get there with difficulty and to return with fatigue.

How is it that we so often turn our tired eyes from these green islands of ours, forgetting that we too possess forests and mountains and deep dark valleys, that we have woods full of wild flowers almost untraversed by human foot, and hills of heather left to the birds and bees?

We steam up the Righi by a mountain railway to see the sun rise above the Alps, but never care to see the same sun ascending from the green sea that encircles our islands; we praise waterfalls abroad and leave our own mountain torrents unvisited; we almost persistently forget that with a couple of miles of some of the most fashionable watering-places in England there are villages, old churches, dreamy farms, flowered lanes, coppices, woods and miles of heather land that are as empty and untenanted as if they were far removed from the confines of civilisation.

It was on one of the most beautiful days of this lovely month of August, a summer morning with a cloudless blue sky overhead and a sea without a ripple washing on the yellow sands, that I turned my back on perhaps the prettiest watering-place of the East Coast and walked along the cliffs to get a blow and a look at the harvest that had just begun. 

It was the old story. At a mile removed from the seaside town I had left I did not find a human being. There they were all below me as I rested amongst the fern on the Lighthouse Cliff, digging on the sands, playing lawn tennis, working, reading, flirting, and donkey-riding, in a circle that seemed to me, as I looked at it from this height, ridiculously small.

In that red-roofed town, the centre of all that was fashionable and select, there was not a bed to be had for love or money; all home comforts, all conveniences to which well-bred people had been inured were deliberately sacrificed for the sake of a lodging amongst a little society that loved its band, its pier, its shingle and its sea.

A mile away there were farmhouses empty, cottages to let, houses to be hired for a song; a mile to the right there were sands with no human being on them, deserted cliffs, empty caves, unfrequented rocks; a mile to the left there was not a footprint on the beach, not a footfall on the grassy cliff. 

Custom had established a certain rule at this pretty little watering-place, and it was religiously obeyed; it was the rule to go on the sands in the morning, to walk on one cliff for a mile in the afternoon, to take another mile in the opposite direction at sunset, and to crowd around the little pier at night. But the limit was a mile either way. No one thought of going beyond the lighthouse; that was the boundary of all investigation. Outside that mark the country, the farms, and the villages were as lonely as the Highlands.

Not desiring to be followed I strolled on, and, attracted by a ruined church tower, took a cut through the cornfields towards a cluster of farms and a distant village. It is difficult to convey an idea of the silence of the fields through which I passed, or the beauty of the prospect that surrounded me—a blue sky without a cloud across it; a sea sparkling under a haze of heat; wild flowers in profusion around me, poppies predominating everywhere, the hedgerows full of blackberry-blossom and fringed with meadow-sweet; the bees busy at their work, the air filled with insect life, the birds startled from the standing corn as I pursued my solitary way.

So great was the change from the bustle of fashion to the unbroken quiet that I could scarcely believe that I was only parted by a dip of coast line from music and laughter and seaside merriment, from bands and bathing machines, from crochet and circulating libraries. Walking to the cliff's edge, I found a deserted sand; looking across the fields there was no sound but the regular click of the reaping machine before which the golden grain was falling.

It was just the time of day when an English farm has such a sleepy look. No one seemed about anywhere as I surveyed the farm buildings, no voice broke the silence. The men and labourers were far afield with the reaping, and the barns were ready for the first loads of harvest. An old horse came to look at me and put his nose over the gate of an adjacent field; the fowls were busy where the barley had just been cut; and on the grass plot in front of the silent farmhouse a deserted tennis net was the only sign of civilisation.

The ruined tower and graves of old Sidestrand church
Restored and colourised using Google Gemini

The contemplation of this homestead, close by a ruined church tower, the solitude of the surroundings, the silence of the scene suggested the charm of such a life. As the old song has it, "I said if there's peace to be found in the world, The heart that is humble might hope for here." But it was no use applying for lodgings or farmhouse accommodation in such a place as this; I was to be housed anywhere it must be in a place of quite another pattern.

So I pursued my journey in a contented frame of mind in the direction of the village. Even the village itself contained few signs of the stir of human life. A small number of children, released from school, were resting from the sun under the shade of the roadside hedge; a cart waited at the door of the village inn; but not a face was to be seen at any cottage window; the fishermen were away trawling in the North Sea, and there was uncommonly little trade at the village shop set back in a garden full of homely cottage flowers.

'Poppyland Cottage' in 1919.
Restored and colourised using Google Gemini

At last my patience was rewarded. Half a mile beyond the deserted village, at a bend of the road under the shadow of a windmill, there was presented to my sight what appeared to be a very cosy spot. It was one of those farmhouses which is an exact reproduction of the cottage that all children are set to draw when they begin their first lesson. A little red-brick house with three white windows on the first floor, a little white door in the middle, a window at either side and a stack of chimneys at each end of the house. The house was divided from the road by a white gate and palings, and in front of it was a garden brilliant with flowers.

I could not resist the temptation to lean over the white gate and contemplate so peaceful a scene. On the right of the gate was a bright bed of yellow evening primrose; on the left was a kitchen garden divided from the circular plot by rose trees, and in the middle was a perfect holiday ground for bees, a brilliant bed made up geranium, calceolaria, phlox, clarksia, and French marigold.

'Poppyland Cottage' and Windmill c. 1890.
Courtesy National Library of Scotland

This was evidently the miller's house, for it was not fifty yards from the slope of cornfield that was topped by the windmill, and here I thought I might venture to suggest the desired accommodation which had everywhere been denied to me at the adjacent seaside town. My question as met with that natural courtesy and cheerfulness that seem to be characteristic of the county of Norfolk.

I may pause here to remark upon a most pleasant feature of country life in this hospitable district. You never pass along the road morning, noon, or night without being treated to a cheery greeting; it is either a good morning or a good night, a chat about the weather or the crops, a bow from the lads or a curtsey from the lasses, as the stranger threads his way among the Norfolk lanes. I never felt more at home or was made more welcome than I have been in East Anglia. 

These things seem small and immaterial, but life goes along somehow pleasanter when the labourer trudging to his toil in the morning can exchange greetings with his neighbour, and when at nightfall a gruff "Good night" comes out of the darkness on the road as people pass on their way homewards.

Louie Jermy at the gate of 'Poppyland Cottage', c.1905
Restored and colourised using Google Gemini

"Could I be allowed a lodging for a few days?" "Indeed you could," was the answer of the miller's daughter, who opened the hospitable doors of the farmhouse that sunny morning. 

The family that had occupied the house all the summer had just gone away, and father would be delighted to have me as a temporary tenant. I was told that father would not quarrel about terms; that the fare at the farm was simple enough, but that every one would do their best for me; that I could come in at once, that very night if I liked, for all the rooms were ready, and that father was the possessor of a fast pony and a basket chaise, quite strong enough to bring me over with my traps whenever I cared to order it.

Need I say 1 closed with the offer at once. A farmhouse within two fields of the sea, a garden full of flowers and fruit, a bed-room spotlessly clean, with a full view of the windmill and the cornfields, a sitting-room full of old oak and old-fashioned furniture, country lanes bright with poppies and the wild Michaelmas daisy, not a sound but the drone of the bees in the flower beds and the busy presence of insect life, a hospitable host glad to welcome me and a civil little daughter determined to make me comfortable, early to bed and early to rise—these were some of the advantages held out in prospect to me. 

Many a time I have crossed the Channel and travelled many a weary mile in search of some such place as was here ready to hand in my native land. How far my ideas were fulfilled, and how pleasant holiday life can become in such a retreat, may more conveniently form the subject of a subsequent letter.

Notes

1. The author and journalist Clement Scott was commissioned by the Great Eastern Railway to write a piece to encourage visitors to the Cromer area. This article, published in the Daily Telegraph on Thursday 30 August 1883, was the result.
2. In it Scott coined the name Poppyland - or Poppy Land or Poppy-Land - for the first time. The expression had been used before to describe opium poppy growing lands in China. This association with opium poppies was followed up by Scott in his poem The Garden of Sleep.
3. The miller's house was occupied by the Jermy family. Alfred, the miller, and 'Louie' (officially Maria Louisa), his daughter.