So still is the air at Wiveton Wiveton’s Jacobean history reveals more than just a day out at the coast. KL magazine takes a look at the crockery and the crocuses.
W
iveton Hall is one of those brief encounters that you want never to end. This wonderful venue gets folk returning time after time after time, and no wonder. There are two sorts of people: those who love Norfolk, and those who have yet to fall in love with Norfolk. A note to the latter – head to Wiveton Hall. Take the A149 coast road (the Coast Hopper is a superb option) to head east past Stiffkey. Soon after you’ve got to Blakeney you’ll see a sign: Wiveton Hall Café. Stop here. Please, stop here. Down the track, past the growing asparagus and the pick your own raspberries and strawberries, you’ll find a handsome café, blue and white, reflecting sky and sea. Before you head in for the best cup of coffee for miles, or any of the food prepared with passion by chefs James and Ben, look at the sea. It’s worth repeating – look at the sea. That extraordinary view over marshes that stretch wind-blown to the near coast, a haven for harriers and bitterns, owls and wildfowl will lure you in like a Siren and own you for ever. You’ll have
KLmagazine March 2013
fallen in love with Norfolk in a single glimpse. Desmond MacCarthy thought that maybe he could share that view with the rest of us by providing tables and chairs, good home-cooked food, ambience, style and a zest for life and make something out it. He did, and now they come from far and wide to enjoy those sumptuous dishes, using ingredients sourced from the hall’s high-walled kitchen garden or from providers very close to home in Binham, Holt or Burnham Market. Sea bass? Yes, if it’s available, caught off Cromer last night. For Friday and Saturday it’s Tapas night – hugely, hugely popular, and you’ll need to book in advance. The café’s décor is a spicy, colourful shock against the marshes. Its walls are vibrantly decorated with images by local artists and its north and westfacing big-picture windows offer a song to the coast. The farm shop is a happy basketful of Wiveton cordials, jams and chutneys made from the
farm’s own produce, together with unexpected treasures like exclusively produced crockery by Emma Bridgewater and Katherine Barney. Barney’s unexpected hand-painted poems, themselves witness to Wiveton, are unique as presents and beautiful to give and own. The children and pets will never be bored by a venue that’s made lively by its connection with the sea in earth-based activities that have more in common with a halfremembered childhood of nooks and grass and Arthur Ransome. And as you head home with layers of summer fruit, magical mementos or no more than a happy memory, you know you’ll be back. Wiveton does that.
> Wiveton will be open again in time for Easter > Check the website for more details: www.wivetonhall.co.uk > Wiveton Hall, Holt, Norfolk NR25 7TE 01263 740515 www.wivetonhall.co.uk
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