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