Holkham is a tiny village, a major stately home and estate, and an attractive beach, all located in the north-west of the English county of Norfolk. The three lie at the centre of the Holkham National Nature Reserve

The village

The village of Holkham is located on the coast road between Wells-next-the-Sea and Burnham Market . At one time the village was a port with access to the sea via a channel to the harbour at Wells, but nineteenth-century reclamation of the salt marshes put paid to that.

Now the village serves principally as the main entrance to the Holkham Park, and to Queen Anne's Drive which leads to the beach. Among the houses of the village are several estate-owned businesses, including a hotel and art gallery.

The stately home and park

Holkham Hall is one of the principal Palladian houses of England, built for an ancestor of Thomas William Coke, noted agricultural innovator and later 1st Earl of Leicester of Holkham. The Hall is still the home of the current Earl.

The attractive park, with a herd of fallow deer, a lake that was once a tidal creek, several monuments and drives, and its own church, is open to the public, as is the Hall itself.

The beach

From the main coast road Queen Anne's Drive, a toll road owned by the Holkham estate, crosses the reclaimed salt marshes to Holkham Gap. This is a gap in pine fringed sand dunes which form the outer coastline. From here, an uninterupted sandy beach runs both ways to Wells and Burnham Overy Staithe . To the west of the gap is a nudist section of beach.

Nearby places

• Burnham Market
• Burnham Overy Staithe
• Burnham Thorpe
• Wells-next-the-Sea
• Walsingham

External links

• The Holkam Estate website