In 1776, 22-year-old Thomas Coke inherited the Holkham Estate – 30,000 acres of sandy, salty, windblasted and flinty land along the North Norfolk coast.
First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window
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The young owner dedicated himself with a passion to improving the agriculture of this barren countryside. By the time he died in 1842, hugely famous as a breeder of sheep and cattle, grass and turnip pioneer and all-round agricultural reformer, he was known simply and universally as ‘Coke of Norfolk’.
On a glorious sunny afternoon, the tall column of the Coke Monument glowed brilliantly in strong winter sunlight among the bare trees of Holkham Park. Guarded by stone sheep and long-horned cattle, embellished with bas-reliefs of sheep shearers, horses and dogs, diggers and planters of seed, the inscription named Thomas Coke ‘Father, Friend and Landlord’, and declared: ‘Of such a man contemporaries needed no memorial. His Deeds were before them: His Praise in their hearts.’
Grand sentiments, and a grand artificial landscape to wander through, a gentle forest of old sweet chestnuts and beeches in which a long lake lay like a dark jewel. Pink-footed geese honked and chattered as they rested on the water. On a green knoll the Church of St Withburga caught the westering sun and threw it back dazzlingly from windows and flint cobble walls. Across the lake lay the grand Palladian palace of Holkham Hall, severely built of yellow brick by Thomas Coke’s uncle, the Earl of Leicester. Fallow deer roamed its parkland, their big branchy antlers occasionally clashing as they grazed close together.
From this miniature land of content the trail extended into the southern half of Holkham Park with its more agricultural feel – big open fields of beet, carrots and winter wheat, bounded by conifer belts and pheasant coverts. Coke of Norfolk would have appreciated the Holkham of today, a subtle balance of commercial and utopian landscapes.
Thomas Coke took a barren countryside and made it tremendously productive, literally sowing the seeds of North Norfolk’s agricultural success. Human beings are not the only beneficiaries of this transformation. The pink-footed geese that come from Iceland and Greenland to winter on the Norfolk coast spend each day in the fields, feeding on sugar beet fragments, before flying seaward at dusk to roost on the marshes and mudflats. That’s where I found them towards nightfall, gabbling and jostling in their hundreds, a seething carpet of big rustling birds. I watched them from a hide, entranced, as the sky turned apple green, then gold and pink, before darkening to the indigo of night.
Start: Holkham, North Norfolk NR23 1RG (OS ref TF 892440)
Getting there: Coasthopper Bus (01553-776980; www.coasthopper.co.uk), King’s Lynn-Cromer
Road: On A149 between Brancaster and Wells-next-the-Sea
Walk directions: (6½ miles from Holkham or 8½ miles with hide extension; easy; OS Explorer 251): Up Holkham Hall drive, through gateway (892435); right, following Farm Walk (red posts) to Coke Monument (884436). Ahead to lake; right (anti-clockwise) round lake (Lake Walk, yellow posts) via St Withburga’s Church (878436). At T-junction at foot of lake (880427), left past Ice House, right along The Avenue to pass Obelisk (884420). In 300 m, left (883416; Park Walk, green posts) back to gateway at Holkham.
Hide extension: Start walk from car park at north end of Lady Anne’s Drive (891448; £5 all day, coins or card). To reach easy access bird hide (883452, signposted) turn left on forest track beyond car park.
Lunch/accommodation: Victoria Hotel, Holkham (01328-711008; www.holkham.co.uk/victoria) – superbly friendly, warm and genuinely welcoming
Tea: Rose Garden Teashop, Holkham (01328-711285)
Information: Holkham Estate (01328-710227; www.holkham.co.uk); Wells-next-the-Sea TIC (01328-710885; www.visitnorfolk.co.uk)
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