Overstrand

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for the aircraft, see Boulton Paul Overstrand

Overstrand is a village (population 1,101^[1]) on the north coast of Norfolk in England, two miles east of Cromer. It was once a modest fishing station, with all or part of the fishing station being known as Beck Hythe. In the latter part of the 19th century it was catapulted into prominence, and became known as “the village of millionaires”.

As with much of the Norfolk coast, erosion was and continues to be a major problem. Clifton Way is an experimental site, of which sea defences include; riprap (at £1,300 a boulder), wooden groynes, a revetment and they have tried to replant trees on the slumped cliff, but in an act of controversy they were stolen and nothing has since been done. The soft boulder clay cliffs slump because of the water running through the clay, and the resulting material on the beach is removed by the succeeding high tides. And so the process continues over the years. In the neighbouring village of Sidestrand, the whole church was moved back from the cliff edge in the 1800s, though the tower of the church was left standing on the cliff top.

The London journalist and travel writer Clement Scott came to Overstrand in 1883, christened the area ‘’Poppyland’’, and wrote about the church tower on the cliff edge and its “Garden of Sleep”. While in Overstrand he stayed at the Mill House with miller Alfred Jermy and his daughter Louie. Louie became “the Maid of the Mill” in his articles about ‘’Poppyland’’.

Scott had many London contacts in the theatrical world, and his writings led a number of them and others from London society to come to Overstrand. Some bought land in the village and had houses built there, and for a while the village was the place to visit. A large hotel was built on the cliff edge, though this slid into the sea in the 1950s.

Whilst the large houses of the gentry have largely passed from private ownership to other uses, the visitor to Overstrand can still appreciate the development that took place at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century.

[edit] Further reading

Poppyland - Strands of Norfolk History, Stibbons and Cleveland, Pub: Poppyland Publishing, Fourth ed. 2001, ISBN 0-946148-56-2
Poppyland in Pictures, Elizabeth Jones, Pub: Poppyland Publishing, Second ed. 2004, ISBN 0-946148-66-X