Norfolk is steeped in Norman history, with traces of many medieval castles dotted around the county. It’s also where the British royals chill out at their Sandringham estate, and was a base for thousands of American airmen during World War Two. Within easy reach of London, there is lots to see along the way – as shown in this itinerary from guest writer, Jane Lonsdale.

Cromer -- a family favourite

Day 1. Depart: London O/night: Bury St Edmunds  Approx: 110 kms
A small fishing port and seaside resort on the Norfolk coast, Cromer was where four generations of my family spent their summer holidays. In my mother’s childhood days, and her mother’s before her, Cromer was the terminus of the grand-sounding Great Eastern Railway, a fairly arduous journey from London by steam train: today, it’s an easy two-and-a-half-hour drive.

Having promised myself for years that I would one day keep up the family tradition and take a Norfolk break, I recently got around to it. I made the journey with a girl friend and we decided that rather than drive direct to Norfolk we would explore some interesting places along the way. Getting there was to be half the fun: it was to be more than a nostalgia trip.

Our first stop was Audley End House near Saffron Walden; then came the National Stud at Newmarket, followed by a night at a boutique hotel located in a converted brewery in historic Bury St Edmunds. We set off early, leaving London (South Woodford) on the M11, turning off at Bishops Stortford to pick up the A120 and then the B1383 to Audley End.

You could spend the best part of a day at Audley End House, one of England’s grandest stately homes. Although the palatial building was remodelled in the 18th and 19th centuries, its original Jacobean style still dominates the magnificent Great Hall. We were especially impressed at the way exquisite fabrics had been preserved throughout the house: it’s an interior decorator’s fantasy come true.

Two fairly new exhibits focus on the lives of domestic servants in the late 19th century. The service wing gives you a look ‘below stairs’ at the kitchen (fire stove, copper pots and everything pre-Aga), scullery (where fresh, plump chickens were plucked and fish scaled) and game larder (where pheasants and partridges, hare and rabbits were hung). And then there are the stables with a formidable collection of old saddles and Victorian riding costumes. If you enjoyed the Upstairs, Downstairs and Downton Abbey drama series on television, you’ll love Audley End House.

To round it off, there is also Audley’s spectacular parkland, designed by ‘Capability’ Brown, the renowned 18th century landscape gardener. He was responsible for more than 170 gardens surrounding the finest country houses and estates in Britain, and his work at Audley End is a fine example.

Audley -- a memorial to Polish resistance fighters

Here’s a ‘quirky’ fact that military history enthusiasts will enjoy -- Audley End House was taken over for some very hush-hush work during World War Two: the Polish branch of the Special Operations Executive used it for training. There is a memorial in the main drive to 108 Polish members of the SOE who were killed after being parachuted back into their country to carry out sabotage and guerrilla warfare against the Nazi occupiers. It came as quite a surprise for my friend, whose grandfather had served with the Polish Free Army.

If you plan to visit Audley End House, it’s best to give a call to check on any updated visiting hours. + 44 1799522842 And if you are an overseas visitor, you might want to buy an English Heritage Overseas Visitor Pass before you set out — and save money, both at Audley and other fine old buildings around the country.

From Audley End we continued north-east on the A11 until we reached the A1304, which took us to the National Stud in Newmarket. It was about half-an-hour’s drive and we had booked places on the afternoon tour of the stud. The tour, which departs from the stud’s Wavertree Coffee Shop, begins at 14.00 -- you need to be ‘under starter’s orders’ at least fifteen minutes before the ‘off’.

Guided tours of the stud take place daily from February 15 to September 30 at 11.15 and 14.00 and throughout October at 11:15 only. Booking is essential. Contact the tour desk on + 44 1638666789 or email them.

As the National Stud is a vast working stud farm, what you see depends very much on the time of year you visit. The tour lasts around 90 minutes, during which time you visit the foaling unit and nursery paddocks (where in early spring, you’ll see newborn foals), the stallion unit, and various paddocks where the mares and foals graze and enjoy the sunshine (weather permitting). Part of the tour is by coach, the rest on foot (easy walking).

A few ‘vital stats’ about Newmarket and its surrounds: the town boasts two famous racecourses, more than 50 stud farms, an equine hospital (complete with two horse ambulances) and endless horse-walks (complete with dedicated horsewalk crossings).

We did not have time to visit Newmarket’s National Horseracing Museum, which was a pity as it traces the story of the sport, its people and events (and even its several juicy scandals). Nevertheless, here’s a tip: the museum can arrange stud farm tours and also runs a bright-and-early morning tour to see tomorrow’s champions and hopefuls being put through their paces on the galloping tracks. You need to call ahead to see which stud farms are being visited at the time you plan to be in town. + 44 1638 667333

Training on the Newmarket Limekilns

Horseracing enthusiasts who prefer to do their own thing will want to check out the peat moss gallops on the Limekilns. But don’t forget – you need to be at the gallops at the crack of dawn to watch the horses get their morning work-out, so it would mean spending the night in Newmarket.

From Newmarket it’s just a twenty-five minute drive east to Bury St Edmunds.

Accommodation choice: We stayed at The Old Cannon, a delightful converted brewery in a quiet residential area of Bury St Edmunds that still brews its own beer, and were pleased to find it had a decent restaurant (think beer-battered fish and beef-and-ale pie).

Day 2. Depart: Bury St Edmunds O/night: Cromer  Approx: 105 kms
We kicked off the day with a visit to St Edmonsbury Cathedral, which has been a church since the abbey was dedicated to St Edmund. It was built at the time of King Canute in the early 11th Century. Canute, who ruled over England, Denmark, Norway and parts of Sweden, is possibly best remembered as the somewhat eccentric monarch who sat on a throne at the edge of the sea and commanded the tide to halt.

Canute’s father was the Viking leader Forkbeard, the first of the Danish kings of England: a wonderful pirate-sounding name -- the sort of thing that kids enjoy when learning history during a road trip (other relatives included Sigrid the Haughty and Boleslaw the Brave).

The cathedral at Bury St Edmunds

You enter the abbey precinct through the impressive 14th century Great Gate: today it leads to the rambling remains of what was once the wealthiest and most powerful Benedictine abbey in England. It was at a meeting in the abbey in 1214 that a group of barons put together a plan to make King John accept the Magna Carta – the important historic document that led to constitutional law in the English-speaking world.

When Henry VIII later ordered the dissolution of the English monasteries, Bury St Edmunds abbey was sold, and as with so many monasteries around England, its buildings were torn apart by ‘developers’ of that era and the stone reused elsewhere in Bury. We learned all this on a very informative guided tour of the cathedral. The cathedral is open daily from 08.30 to 18.00. There is no charge for admission but donations are always welcome. Guided tours are available daily at 11.30 (except Sundays) from the beginning of April until the end of September.

Leaving Bury St Edmunds we headed for Thetford, a 25-minute drive north on the A134 and our first stop in Norfolk. Somebody once said of Norfolk that it is littered with villages but uncluttered by towns, which is not that far from the truth. The market town of Thetford is one of Norfolk’s oldest settlements. In its heyday, it was the Saxon capital of East Anglia, and in the 10th century Thetford even had its own mint with its coins being used around Europe (the Thetford euro, so to say).

Thomas Paine, one of democracy's greatest early champions (his work was hugely influential in both the American and French revolutions), was born in Thetford: there is a trail for those who want to follow in his early footsteps. Meanwhile, television comedy fans will be interested in the town’s Dad’s Army trail. Although set in Kent, the popular series was filmed in Thetford from the mid-1960s until the mid-1970s. Both Thomas Paine and Captain Mainwaring (the main figure in Dad’s Army) have statues in their honour in Thetford.

Captain Mainwaring of the 'Dad's Army' television comedy series

From Thetford we wound our way along the A1705 north-east to Dereham East (just Dereham to the locals), where we made a slight detour to visit Gressenhall Farm & Workhouse. You could also make a short side trip from Thetford to Roudham and take a tour of St.George's Distillery, home to the English Whisky Company. The drive is less than ten minutes.  St George’s opened at the end of 2006, the first whisky distillery in England for more than 120 years. Tours, which cost £5 per person, run every hour on the hour (usually) from 10.00 to 16.00, seven days week. The tour includes coffee or tea and, naturally a wee taste of the finest malt whisky (make sure you have a dedicated driver). Book ahead by calling + 44 1953 717 939.

Gressenhall Farm & Workhouse. had just launched a permanent exhibition dedicated to ‘land girls and lumber Jills’. Land girls were members of the Women's Land Army, a British civilian organisation set up during World War Two to work in agriculture, replacing men called up for military service: ‘lumber Jills’ was the nickname given to forestry industry workers in the Women's Timber Corps during the war.

Lumber Jills during World War Two

Gressenhall Farm, which dates back to Georgian days, became a workhouse for the poor in the early 1800s. The aim of workhouses in those days was to make life for their impoverished residents so unpleasant that people would do their utmost to avoid having to live there; though life in the rural poorhouse in Gressenhall was far removed from the doom and gloom of its counterparts in Dickensian London. The museum not only illustrates life in the days of the Victorian workhouses, but also features a traditional farm where you can get up close to rare breed animals, watch plough horses at work and have a go at milking. It’s the sort of place that kids really enjoy, though few will understand the workhouse concept, or even the war related exhibition: for them it’s the farm fun. Gressenhall Farm & Workhouse is open from February to the end of October.

Plough horses working at Gressenhall

While at Gressenhall we met an American couple who were tracking down family history from World War Two – a relative who had served with the ‘Mighty Eighth’ (the nickname of the United States Army Eighth Air Force), which arrived in Norfolk in 1942. The majority of the eighteen USAAF airfields in Norfolk were in the southern half of the county; the wartime home for some 3,000 USAAF airmen and their aircraft -- the B-17 Flying Fortress and the B-24 Liberator.

Some of the sites remain unchanged, others have disappeared completely. Most abandoned sites have little to show other than maybe a rusting Nissen hut, a control tower or a weeded runway. It may not be much to look at, but many Americans still enjoy the drive around Norfolk to connect with places where family members or relatives were once based.

For the record, the USAAF airfields in Norfolk were: Attlebridge, Bodney, Deopham Green, East Wretham, Fersfield, Hardwick, Hethel, Horsham St Faith (which was to become Norwich International Airport), North Pickenham, Old Buckenham, Rackheath, Seething, Shipdham, Snetterton Heath, Thorpe Abbots, Tibenham, Watton, Wendling and Ketteringham Hall.

Before attempting to find any of these old airfields, it’s worth contacting the 2nd Air Division Memorial Library in Norwich + 44 1603 774 747 to check whether access is allowed.

From Gressenhall we drove north-east to the old market town of Aylsham, where we took the B1354 to nearby Blickling Hall, an imposing Jacobean house with magnificent gardens. The house itself is a true historic gem with an array of antiques and paintings.

Each room in the house has an information sheet, so you don't need to buy an expensive guidebook to explain the displays of tapestries and furniture. One of the rooms has a large tapestry depicting czar Peter the Great at the Battle of Poltawa: there is a similar tapestry at The Hermitage in St Petersburg.

The Cliftonville at Cromer

From Blickling Hall it was about a thirty minute drive to Cromer.

Accommodation choice: We stayed at the very Edwardian, and rather Miss Marples, Cliftonville Hotel. The rooms were by no means luxurious, but they had character. Apart from the plumbing, I doubt whether much has changed since the hotel’s heydays, when my grandmother stayed there as a young girl.

Day 3. Excursion: Depart and arrive Cromer  Approx: 140 kms
After an early breakfast we set off to explore some of the old seaside resort towns strung along the coast of North Norfolk before visiting the royal estate at Sandringham. There was also another highlight – a boat trip from Morston to see the resident seal colony at Blakeney Point.

Morston is about a thirty-minute drive west of Cromer along the coastal A149, passing the small resort town of Sheringham and the pretty village of Weybourne along the way. Sheringham is the starting point of the North Norfolk Railway, popular with steam train enthusiasts.

The North Norfolk Railway is also known as the Poppy Line and offers a short round trip through a really delightful area of North Norfolk known for its outstanding natural beauty. Although no longer so common in Norfolk, large fields carpeted with crimson-coloured poppies are a stunning sight.

Golfers will want to play a round at the picturesque yet challenging Sheringham Golf Club, which welcomes visitors and is open year round (with some interesting off-season rates). Call them for information on + 44 1263823488. Some holes have excellent views out over the North Sea, while the steam railway cuts across the sixteenth.

Steam train crosses the golf course at Sheringham

Weybourne is nestled below Kelling Heath and is one of the stops on the North Norfolk Railway. The ruins of an Augustinian priory stand in the grounds of the village’s 15th century church. The pebbly beach at Weybourne marks the start of the Norfolk coast’s rugged cliffs.

There are several small family firms running boast trips out to the seal colony from Morston and Blakeney, with departures at various times of the day, depending on tides. We went out on one of the traditional clinker- built wooden boats owned by Bishop’s Boats, who run daily seal-watching trips from April to the end of October -- departing from the Blakeney harbour or Morston quay. Bookings have to be made in advance +44 1263740753. Our trip lasted about an hour.

The seal colony is made up of common and grey seals and numbers around five hundred. It’s worth remembering that common seals have their young between June and August, the greys between November and January – if you plan your trip in these times it’s a bonus.

The seals of North Norfolk

After our seal trip we drove on to Wells-next-the-Sea, the terminus for the Wells and Walsingham Light Railway: train lovers will enjoy the narrow gauge steam railway trip through the countryside of the North Norfolk coast. It would have made a nice excursion, but we were on our way to Holkham Hall, just a five minute-drive west of Wells – and one of Britain's most majestic stately homes (it’s a member of the Treasure Houses of England group, which is made up of ten of the most magnificent palaces, houses and castles in England today).

Full of artistic and architectural history, Holkham Hall is still the residence of Viscount Coke and his young family. The estate has been in the same family hands since the 1750s, when Thomas Coke, the first Earl of Leicester, conceived the house as his vision of a Palladian Italian villa on the Norfolk coast following a Grand Tour of Europe (a pilgrimage made by most English aristocrats of the day).

Holkham Hall’s Palladian splendour

Holkham Hall’s magnificent, sweeping park is home to a large herd of fallow deer and a small herd of red deer. Children would really enjoy the experience. The tour leaves from the courtyard at 10.30 and 14.30 during the season and takes about half-an-hour.

Holkham Hall is open to the public on Sundays, Mondays and Thursdays from April 1 to October 31 (12.00 to 16.00). The park is open daily in the same months.

Burnham Thorpe, the birthplace of Lord Nelson (think Battle of Trafalgar, and the statue in the middle of London’s Trafalgar Square) is not far away, and the village pub, called, of course, The Lord Nelson, is one of the attractions of this part of the world. Built in 1637 as an alehouse, The Lord Nelson was called The Plough until 1798 when its name was changed to honour Nelson’s victory over the French at The Battle of the Nile. The pub has no bar and your drinks are served from a taproom with a range of real ales served straight from the cask. The pub also offers guided Nelson tours of the village.

The historic Lord Nelson at Burnham Thorpe

From Holkham Hall we continued on along the A149 to Old Hunstanton and followed it south to Snettisham, where we turned on to the B1440, which would take us to Sandringham.

North Norfolk is a paradise for bird-watchers, who would want to make the slight detour to Snettisham, to visit the reserve run by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. On the biggest high tides of the month, you can watch tens of thousands of wading birds take to the air as the incoming tide pushes them off the vast mudflats, while at dawn and dusk there is the spectacular sight of pink-footed geese in full flight. . The RSPB organises regular birdwatching walks, including its Big Pink Breakfasts in winter to see the geese on their dawn flights, and Snettisham Wader Spectaculars from August to February.

Sandringham -- the royal getaway

Sandringham has been the private home of four generations of monarchs and is the favourite retreat of Queen Elizabeth II.  Set in 24 hectares of amazing gardens, Sandringham  was once described as ‘the most comfortable house in England’. You can see for yourself as the house, gardens and museum are open to the public from April to November.

Sandringham is a friendly and informal place to visit, with knowledgeable guides in every room of the house. The museum has an eclectic collection that ranges from an old estate fire engine to rare ceramics, photographs and gifts given to the queen during her visits abroad. You really need at least four hours to see everything, and a whole day would be better.

From Sandringham we made our way back towards Cromer, taking the B1440 to East Rudham, which has to be one of the prettiest villages in Norfolk, and then the A148 to the market town of Fakenham, known for its race course, which has been around for more than a hundred years. Pensthorpe Nature Park is located just outside Fakenham, a great attraction for those who enjoy nature trails, birdwatching and stunning gardens – kids would love it.

From Fakenham we drove on to Holt, another market town, and one that foodies would want to visit: Byfords, a local deli stocks around 40 wonderful cheeses. We then made a detour to nearby East Beckham, to check out a couple of cottages we thought we might rent for a week as a base during an extended summer trip to Norfolk (we were already thinking of a return visit). Two holiday cottages called Salthouse and Overstrand (named after nearby beaches) were just what we had in mind.

Returning to Cromer we had dinner at the hotel restaurant, Bolton's Bistro, and enjoyed a local crab. A Cromer crab, freshly caught in the clean waters off the North Norfolk coast, scrubbed, boiled and dressed, is true foodie fare. These days there are only about a dozen boats in Cromer looking after less than a couple of hundred crab pots, so the catch of true Cromer crab is not huge, and that, of course, is reflected in the price – but you don’t go to Cromer without tasting the local crabs.

Seafood -- a big attraction of North Norfolk

We had intended to eat at Cookie’s Crab Shop in Salthouse - half an hour west of Cromer, where dressed crab is the highlight of the menu. But it closes at 19.00 (even earlier some days), which was a pity. Cookie’s, which sells locally caught seafood supplied by a small number of fishermen, comes highly recommended – it’s evidently one of comedian Stephen Fry’s favourite places to eat in the area (he was born and grew up in the region). +44 1263 740352

Accommodation choice Cliftonville Hotel, Cromer.

Day 4. Depart: Cromer O/night: Norwich  Approx: 74 kms
We set out after breakfast on a route that would take us to the Norfolk Broads and Norwich.

Norfolk Broads National Park lies to the east of the cathedral city of Norwich, and boasts no less than thirty willow-fringed lakes. They are interlinked by a series of rivers and man-made dykes, forming a seemingly endless stretch of waterways that offer wonderful boating holiday opportunities.

Because of the unique nature of the area, the Norfolk Broads with its lazy rivers and sprawling, silent marshes is an excellent place to discover native wildlife. At the right time of year, you can also watch the thousands of migrating birds that descend on the region during their annual journey south. And it's not just a bird watching paradise: a recent bit of research by the University of East Anglia says that a quarter of the Britain's rarest plants and animals are found in the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads.

Just east of Potter Heigham, which is about an hour’s drive south east of Cromer on the A149, Hickling Broads is the largest of the region’s freshwater lakes. It is said to date back to medieval times, when the locals dug out the peat from the marshland. Shallow-keeled boats with huge sails once transported local goods from Great Yarmouth to Norwich along the Broads’ rivers: today it is fiefdom of holiday boaters.

Boating on the Norfolk Broads

I made a note to myself that hiring a boat would be a really good way to explore and experience the natural beauty of the region during the next visit to Norfolk.. Boats can be hired easily in villages such as Potter Heigham: the choices range from family-size cuisers that are ideal for a week-long holiday, to small boats for a day out on the river. There are also guided river trips available during the summer season, offering shorter excursions for those wanting a leisurely afternoon trip.

From Potter Heigham we started to make our way south-west to Norwich, making a slight detour to Stokesby on the River Bure for lunch at the Ferry Inn. Stokesby is the last but one mooring place before Great Yarmouth, so it is popular with boaters. We enjoyed a classic ploughman’s lunch: mature cheddar, apple, relish, celery, pickled onions, salad and bread – other tempting options included a breaded haddock and chunky chips, or a home-made steak and kidney pie (I noticed that the pub also offers a traditional English roast lunch on Sundays).

Acle -- an Elizabethan heritage

From Stokesby we continued on to Acle, an old Saxon village that once sat on the Norfolk coastline. The name means ‘place of oaks’, or something like that, and it was in Acle that hundreds of oak trees were felled during Tudor times to go into the mighty fleet of Elizabethan warships.

After Acle we passed through Brundall on the River Yare, a village famous for its boat building business, before arriving in Norwich for the night. The drive from Cromer to Norwich through the Norfolk Broads is a ‘must’ for nature lovers.

Accommodation choice. We stayed the night at St Giles House Hotel, mainly because it is located in the heart of Norwich and has a free private car park. The hotel also has its own spa with a range of treatments (discounts on Wednesdays)

Day 5. Depart: Norwich  Arrive: London  Approx: 203 kms
There are so many things to see and do in Norwich, but our time was limited -- so as the city is dominated by its magnificent Norman cathedral, we made that our first choice. The cathedral boasts the largest cloisters in England, the second tallest spire in the country and an amazing 1,200 decoratively carved stone roof bosses – recognised by many historians as one of the greatest art treasures of medieval Europe.

Norwich Cathedral -- a wealth of art and crafstmanship

The stone bosses are intriguing, covering a huge variety of subjects, most of them telling a tale -- the lives of the saints, stories from the bible, mysterious green men peeping out of green foliage, and strange half-beast, half-human creatures that would not look out place in a horror movie. A riot of imaginative invention, the roof bosses form a unique source of information on how our ancestors must have viewed the world.

After the cathedral, we made our way to Colman’s Mustard Shop (the cathedral was food for thought, the mustard shop was all about food). Colman’s have been making mustard in Norfolk for more than 180 years. The Mustard Shop, which opened in Norwich in 1973 to commemorate the company’s 150th anniversary, is located in the historic art nouveau Royal Arcade near Norwich Market, and is a careful replica of a Victorian trade premises.

Colman’s Mustard Shop stocks an extensive range of powder and prepared mustards, including a number of specialities made exclusively for the shop. In addition, you’ll find a wide selection of (collectable) mustard pots and spoons and a range of Colman’s memorabilia: it’s more kitchen than kitsch.

Leaving Norwich we drove south on the A140, stopping off at The Crown in Dickleburgh for lunch. American visitors might be interested to know that the 100th Bomb Group Memorial Museum is located in Dickleburgh, a testament to the Americans who were based in this part of Norfolk during World War Two.  If you intend to drop by, give the museum a call in advance.+44 1379 740708

From Dickleburgh we headed in the direction of Ipswich, where we picked up the A12 back to London, passing Colchester and  along the way. It was a brilliant journey – I’m sure my grandmother, and her mother would have enjoyed it too.

Jane Lonsdale, a retired school teacher set off with a friend to relive the North Norfolk coastal holiday experiences of her grandmother and her mother before her – and wonders why she has not made the trip before.  Jane, who has travelled in Australia (the Great Ocean Road) and the north island of New Zealand is always on the lookout for places of interest for children – she is now writing children's adventure books. She says her next road trip is planned to explore the literary attractions of England – which will appear here at Best Self Drive Routes.