FRITTON ARMS
BIG INTERVIEW
Hugh Somerleyton
HUGH SOMERLEYTON
|
TAKING OWNERSHIP
HUGH SOMERLEYTON IS FORGING AHEAD WITH HIS PLANS TO TRANSFORM FRITTON LAKE, NEAR GREAT YARMOUTH, INTO AN EXCLUSIVE RESORT COMPLETE WITH PRIVATE MEMBERS’ CLUB. EMMA OUTTEN REPORTS
W
ALKING AROUND THE WALLED GARDEN between Fritton Lake and a new 22m heated pool triggers childhood memories for Hugh Somerleyton. Hugh, otherwise known as Lord Somerleyton, was raised at the family home of nearby Somerleyton Hall, near Lowestoft, the fourth child and only son to William Crossley, 3rd Baron Somerleyton, and his wife Belinda. Hugh has fond memories of running around the gardens at Fritton with his four sisters. He admits to growing up far from streetwise (‘I knew my way around bush-craft and farming’). He started school in Somerleyton, followed by Beeston Hall School near Cromer, where he was initially homesick but ultimately happy, followed by Eton, where he was not so happy. As for the year he spent at an agricultural college? He hated it. Thankfully, he transferred to Cambridge College of Arts and Technology (now Anglia Ruskin University), to study history. After graduating with a BA Hons in 1994 he worked for Hat Trick Productions and Savills and also travelled SEPTEMBER 2019
around the Middle East – all-in-all, ‘a very different world to what I was used to.’ Around that time, Wagamama, with its signature seating style, was on the restaurant scene, inspiring Hugh, along with a couple of friends (‘wannabe Arabists on the Edgeware Road’), to launch restaurant business, Dish Dash, in Soho. His second restaurant venture, with businessman Toby Marchant, would be gourmet chip shop, Hot Chip, which opened in Norwich city centre in 2013 and had a two year tenure. He then took the concept on the road, to London. ‘The hardest thing I’ve ever done was getting up at 3am, driving to get to the pitch on time before the traffic, having a two/three hour snooze before lunchtime trade and then packing it all up and coming back.’ He describes Dish Dash and Hot Chip as ‘two things that have been creatively mine, which is different from here, where you are evolving a blueprint you’ve been given.’ And it’s quite a blueprint: Somerleyton is a fully working Estate complete with hall, one of the finest Victorian stately homes in the country, 12-acre gardens, The Duke’s Head
25