✉ Head south from Hunstanton and the first village you graze is Heacham, home of Norfolk Lavender. It describes itself as "England's premier lavender farm (est. 1932) with nearly 100 acres of lavender" so we had high hopes, but it was also free to visit so all the clues were there. We saw the big lavender field while we queued for ages at the strange roundabout, rippling purple because we'd had the foresight to visit peak season. But we never found the way into the big field, the signage being very poor throughout - no visitor reception, no map of the site nor any decent wayfinding provided. Instead Norfolk Lavender is more a garden centre/gift shop/farm shop/play barn cluster with a few surrounding gardens, the biggest of which sprawls beyond the millstream and contains no substantial lavender at all.
The best part is the National Collection of Lavenders, which sounds admirably definitive and supposedly contains over 50 different varieties arranged in planted beds. The stripes form pleasingly contrasting shades of whites and pinks and purples but they don't quite stretch off to the horizon, only to the hedge beside the B1454, and floral interpretation stretches to little more than a Latin name label in the first bush. To anyone who's gambolled through the massive fields at Mayfield Lavender in Sutton it was all somewhat of a letdown, entirely worth the admission price but eminently skippable.
✉ Head south from Heacham, round the Dersingham bypass, and the next utterly famous place you reach is the Sandringham Estate. This royal hideaway was a 21st birthday present for Edward VII, then Prince of Wales, and covers 20000-acres of mostly woodland. It's where royalty tends to spend the winter months, hence was where George V (Jan 1936) and George VI (Feb 1952) took their last breaths. And during the summer months they open up the house and gardens to visitors, plus they offer 30 minutes free in the car park so we zipped in past the famous gates to see what we could manage to see in half an hour flat.
Crazy golf (with central red telephone box); woodland drives; period lampstands; obligatory gift shop; restaurant and/or cafe; ice cream dispensary; kiosk where you buy tickets (£24); royal thrones (aka public toilets); postbox; the Sandringham bus stop (route 34 hourly); road called Scotch Belt; focal war memorial; entrance to the paid-for bit; hmm, hang on, gate at end of short drive leading to... ooh.
St Mary Magdalene is extremely well-known as the church where the royal family go at Christmas, the focus of many a news broadcast when no other news is happening. But it's also open to the public daily from April to October and for free, so you can walk up the grass where the wellwishers huddle and climb the steps to the churchyard where royalty emerges. The church is much-upgraded Tudor, especially inside where the chancel is sumptuouslydecorated with carved angels hanging from the ceiling like golden bats. The altar and pulpit have a heck of a lot more silver than your average average-sized church, the royal pew is roped off in the chancel and the font is where Princess Diana was baptised. Next Christmas I shall be watching with more interest.
✉ Head south from Sandringham, past the junction where the Duke of Edinburgh notoriously overshot, and the next attraction is Castle Rising. It's one of the best-surviving 12th century keeps in the country, putting a lot of lesser ruins to shame, and English Heritage only charges £6 for the privilege of admission. We didn't go - there is a limit to how much you can cram into a 130-mile round trip from Norwich - but I got a briefly decent eyeful driving past along the A149.
✉ Head south from Castle Rising along Queen Elizabeth Way and you eventually hit the outskirts of King's Lynn. Look, there's the famously falling-apart Queen Elizabeth Hospital with its roof held up by props, a building project the local MP sadly never saw to completion during her seven weeks as Prime Minister. And I've blogged about King's Lynn before so let's leave the journey there.
