Psycho-geographic postcard no.2: The Walcott/Bacton Interface

 

I headed out of Happisburgh, along the 'Byway to Ostend (1/2 a mile)'. I didn't follow the Byway to its conclusion at Ostend, a   hybrid of a chalet holiday park, old people's bungalow estate and Essex pioneer settlement, which seemed to be a sort of addendum to Walcott.

Instead, I took a left turn to follow another route, across a field, through the grounds of  All Saints Church and past the Lighthouse Pub. The pub was a roadside affair which featured a campsite, large beer garden and further up another piece of land that appears to be under development. This was fronted by a parade of flowerbeds and no less than four large blue signs announcing 'Walcott says thank you NHS' and in smaller font at the bottom 'Thank you NHS love from Steve'. 

The Church and pub were outliers of Walcott proper, the only buildings for about half a mile. But I soon emerged into the beginnings of Walcott, past it's worn village sign and the village hall, which had an impressive floral display in a bathtub out the front. The parish notices displayed above it talked of typical pressing local issues; car parking, traffic volumes, 'the defribulator' and dog theft. Additionally there were inevitably Covid issues added to the usual list, including a missing sanitiser station that would be 'investigated'. 

A series of small mosaics on a low wall outside somebody's house marked rememberance day (a large poppy motif), Walcott itself ('where the land meets the sea') and (presumably) the latest, a rainbow motif marked 2020, the (first) year of Covid, and support for the NHS and key workers. This display of folk art was the first example I noted as I entered Walcott and headed to the sea front. I knew it would not be the last. I was heading to a spot I knew to be ripe in the sort of ramshackle, homemade decoration that is such a great feature of seaside spots around Britain, particularly the ones that have yet to be overly, or at all, tidied-up.

I was heading for the Walcott/Bacton Interface, the zone immediately each side of the where Walcott ends and Bacton begins, at least according to the road signs. Without them, there is no obvious point at which one becomes the other.

Equally abitarily, I decided this zone really begins to emerge, on the Walcott side, where a sign displaying a forlornly sad looking wooden fish reads 'No Beach'. The creature was a folk art classic in its simplicity and the words seemed to match it's sad visage. On the other side, the word 'parking' was added, or more accurately, had not been removed. I should have guessed, considering that probably nearly all notices in the wider vicinity, official or otherwise, are concerned with either parking, private property or usually both.

At the very epicentre of the Interface is a series of four or five walled or fenced off enclaves, most containing at least a caravan and usually other ephemera, detritus and an occasional vehicle. The strangest and most impressively 'folk art' of these featured a wall embedded with all manner of creatures and appendages around all sides. A small child would probably have taken it for the exterior of tiny fairground or amusement arcade. Among the menagerie cemented into or onto the wall were stone fish, birds, gargoyle heads and a large Aslanic lions face. Also there was a letter box constructed out of blue and white tiles, embedded into the wall, and which contained the single word 'Correio'. Correio  is apparently the name of a Portuguese language newspaper published in Luxembourg. This gave the enclave an extra dimension of enigma, indicating strange international connections   The only other phrase displayed on the wall, 'shifting sands', did little to dispell the mystery.

An opaque 'window' in the wall revealed little of what was inside the enclave. Whatever was beyond was distorted and obscured. The only thing visible was a caravan or possibly motorhome, rising slightly above the wall. There was no sign of life. Around the back was a slightly rusting and apparently out of action white van.  I wondered if the enclave was a permanent residence or some kind of bizarre holiday let. 

I moved on and passed the other enclaves, less impressive but equally puzzling. One contained just a small caravan, a sandy floor and a couple of raised beds that were still under construction. A sign on the fence was advertising 'North Norfolk Coast and Country relaxing places to stay'. I assumed this was one of them. It's immediate neighbour was hidden by a six foot wall made of breeze blocks, with a canon-cum-weathervane amalgamation perched on top. A flagpole rose up from within the compound, flying the flag of St George. I didn't attempt to look over the wall.

Past these unexplained enclaves, at the Bacton extremity of the Interface,  was the Poachers Pocket Pub. The large car park extended from the main road across to the path above the beach where I was walking. The outdoor benches were abandoned, partly due to the wet weather and partly because today was the day Covid restrictions were relaxed to the point that people are allowed back in pubs. I could see a handful of people sitting in the rear window of the cavernous looking establishment, taking advantage of this situation. I didn't feel tempted to join them, thinking it would be better wait a bit and see how things panned out with the Indian Variant before re-visiting pub interiors.

Around the back, a decrepit and formerly white painted outbuilding of some kind featured a fading sign that suggested passers by 'Try our Superb Calvery'. The smaller fonted addendum 'Sun', revealed that a full seven day a week 'Toby Calvery' style operation was not being offered. Indeed, the apparent age of the sign gave doubt as to whether anything was still being offered at all. But back around the front of the pub, newer signage gave assurance that it was.

I headed back, past the enclaves and a giant metal replica seagull marking the boundary of one of them. Across the street, a ramshackle bungalow, with a large Esso sign on the side, shared it's plot with a green nissen hut, heavily covered in logos and badges. At first I couldn't work out why an apparently randomly placed 'closed' sign was displayed half way down the garden, until I saw another sign offering 'MOT' tests near the bungalow. 

The bizarre Nissan hut/MOT garage/bungalow amalgam was the penultimate manifestation of the Walcott/Bacton Interface I encountered, before I once again passed the Sad Fish, bade it farewell and left the zone.

 

Psycho-geographic Postcard no.1: Ghost Caravans of Happisburgh

This is the first in an intended series of 'psycho-geographic postcards' from a trip to Norfolk. There's no set plan or itinerary and I'm not sure how co-operative the technology (my phone and it's data allowance) will be in this venture. The weather is also looking a bit dodgy, but I've got my raincoat. The first 'postcard' is a scene from the ghost caravan park on the clifftops of Happisburgh.

Having escaped Cambridge, work and hopefully news of the wider world for a week, we are staying in Happisburgh, at the Manor caravan park (the only caravan park in Happisburgh). The site moved in 2019 to its current more inland location, away from the former clifftop site that is in the process of disappearing due to coastal erosion.

The previous site is located behind the Hill House Inn, the only pub in Happisburgh. It's an impressive, slightly crumbling, building and around the back sort of merges into the former caravan site. Indeed, there is a slightly dilapidated looking caravan around the back of the pub, the only one now in the vicinity, lurking in the ramshackle environment of the pub's private rear beyond the beer garden. 

Down the track along the side of the pub towards the cliffs is a crudely painted sign in blood red 'DEAD END NO TURNING'.

Shortly after this, a gate marks the entrance to the ghost caravan site and acts as a barrier to stray vehicles that might otherwise find themselves accidentally driving towards the cliff edge. 

For the walker, the gate was no barrier and the site was accessible as shown by markers for a  series of 'permissive paths'. I imagined that there would have been permissive access to non-residents through the caravan park when it was here and fully functioning and this has continued. The clifftop is part of the coast path too, so the area is well used by walkers, particularly ones with dogs.

Today the weather was rainy and murky, and I only saw a handful of other people while I made my perambulation of the site. I had visited before, last August, but failed to make a document of that excursion. I hadn't expected it to have changed, assuming the site was abandoned by whoever owned it while they waited for it to fall into the sea. But I immediately saw that a lot of the detritus that had been here last time had gone entirely or been tidied up. A large pile of caravan related remnants had been removed, leaving an area of exposed earth. Though the land was doomed, it hadn't been completely discarded and obviously considered worth tidying up for the last couple of decades of its existence, before it finally disappears into the sea. The removed detritus had given a clear headway to the encroaching vegetation that was merging with the remaining signs and outlines of 'caravan graves' across the site, like a sort of green embalming agent.

The spot of the former detritus pile was on my left as I passed through the gate. But I headed right, to start a sort of clockwise circulation of the site at the point where the deteriorating wooden structure of the former shower/toilet block still stood. Next to it was the small pile of wooden caravan remnants, depicted in the 'postcard' above, including a couple of sets of the sort of  steps often used to climb to the caravan door. 

On my previous visit, there had been a similar set of of steps  stood among some detritus to the Northern edge of the site. They had acted as a viewing platform across  adjacent agricultural land towards the pylonic structures of Bacon Gas Terminal in the distance. On that occasion, I had named the steps 'the Pulpit of Futility', and imagined some sort of demented  wasteland preacher conducting a sermon to a reduced and wretched congregation as they waited for the land to crumble beneath them. The pulpit had been tidied away, with the rest of the detritus in this part of the site. The lone mound of remnants was surrounded by a now rubbish free expanse of emerging vegetation; grass, thistles, docks and other unidentified edgelandic plants, as well as some leftover survivors from caravan owners 'gardens' that originated, no doubt, from the finest garden centres in Norfolk.

'Caravan graves', the ghostlike impressions of former caravan spots, are spread across the site. Some have physical markers: concrete bases or slabs, bits of piping and distressed garden centre plants. I encountered a couple of spots with derelict electricity boxes still unremoved. Other 'graves' were marked only by an oblong of distinct vegetation, usually dominated by dead brown dock stalks.

A desire path near to the cliff edge appeared to follow an old gas or water pipe, part of which was breaking through the surface. Sporadically, I encountered other bits of piping and although I did not venture there today, these can be seen emerging from the cliffs if you stand on the beach below. Back on the cliff top, a variety of manhole covers and utility appertures were spread around the site, some half hidden in the grass, others boldly placed in the middle of the tracks that lead to the cliff edge before coming to a premature halt.

After my foray around the caravan graves and utility covers, I followed one of the official 'permissive paths'. In the distance I could see the red and white striped lighthouse, which always looks newly painted and is in stark contrast to the semi-abandoned wasteland of the former caravan site. But like the caravan site, the lighthouse was destined to crumble into the sea, if not quite as soon. Back inland  from where I stood, just behind the site, is the looming tower of St. Mary's Church, Happisburgh's other vertical landmark. It's days also numbered. 

As I followed the path, the caravan graves ran out just before it was about to pass into the neighbouring field. I took a right turn to follow a path back into the site. This passed by a large imposing manor house of some kind just across the hedge, with towering chimney stacks and flint walls. At the top of a large apex something had been attached to the wall that read either 'Paris', 'Maps' or 'Mars'. Or possibly none of those things. It was hard to make out in the dim twilight of a grey rainy afternoon. The phrase appeared to have some sort of place orientated connection, not one that was local. As I tried to make it out I was reminded that Specsavers have been sending me constant reminders that I'm overdue for an eye-test and that they are able to provide it, even under the current restrictions. Maybe it's time I took them up on the offer. 

As I veered back around, I soon found myself among caravan graves at the back of the Southern part of the site. There was another electricity box still attached to the rotting back fence, this one fully covered with its warning sign :'Danger: 415 volts' stuck on its outer casing. I soon emerged back at the exposed earth of the former detritus heap, with a clear view back to the derelict former toilet block. The exposed earth had been colonised by a healthy profusion of comfrey, dominating among the thistles, nettles, grass and odd garden centre survivor. I was a bit disappointed that the caravan remnants had all gone, but was reminded that the site was very much a space between. It was in a semi-static state as it gradually (and sometimes not so gradually) fell into the sea. Human activity to clear it up was happening at a similar pace to the vegetative and erosional processes that are simultaneously greening the land and dismantling it. 

As I emerged back at the toilet block, I saw a faded notice stuck to the wall. 'The facilities are for the use of people staying on the site' was the jist of it, although half the words had been obscured.  A ghost sign for a spectral caravan park. 

I had one last look across to the cliff edge, where the tracks that caravaners had used to get around the site now abruptly came to a premature end. As I drifted back though the gate out of the site, I wondered how many years it would be before the current Manor Caravan site, where I was staying safely away from the cliff edge, would be in a similarly abandoned static state.

P.S. Additional photos of this excursion will be posted to Instagram. As this is a 'postcard' it seemed fitting that there is only one photograph as it fitted the concept, which itself was in part at least the result of not having WiFi access and sufficient 'bandwith' or patience to upload lots of pictures to Blogger using phone data.

Instagram @ramblingperambulator