please empty your brain below
I adore Hunny! It was a great place to make memories with my young family way back when, and now provides a starting point for windy wanders on the western part of of the Norfolk Coast Path.

Over the years I've enjoyed everything you've highlighted - including Searles, Fishers and Captain Willy's Wash Monster.

Frank F | 20.07.24 - 8:01 a.m. | #

But how do you say “Hunstanton”? Is it “Hunston” or is that a myth?

VeeJayEm | 20.07.24 - 8:31 a.m. | #

I've had a couple of holidays in Hunstanton, the first time for the lavender gardens a few miles to the south, then again during the bit of Covid when international travel was still a PITA. Loved it both times.

Additional mention for the fulmar colony on the cliffs - much more interesting and relaxing to watch than the standard packs of psycho gulls.

Graham | 20.07.24 - 9:07 a.m. | #

You missed commentinging on the 1960s steel and glass looking school at the top of the hill (your correspondent an attendee from 1979 to 1984).

Actually built in 1947 so quite a famous and groundbreaking building in architectural circles (sadly also in a "how not to do it" way too).

Putters | 20.07.24 - 9:55 a.m. | #

Been there, done the seal trip on the Wash Monster, but never knew I was getting the place name wrong!

Lucy Garden | 20.07.24 - 10:41 a.m. | #

Just call it Sunny Hunny and you can't go wrong.

miker | 20.07.24 - 11:02 a.m. | #

Many abbreviated place name pronunciations are optional, so I think hearing two "t" sounds would not prompt derision or amusement, or not much anyway. Whereas a pronunciation of "Leicester" where you hear two separate "s" sounds would seem wrong to almost anyone.

Malcolm of Kent | 20.07.24 - 11:18 a.m. | #

However nice your postcard shots are, Norfolk I recall, is a symbol of them and us society, that the UK has become. I spent longer periods in 2021 & 2022 with my then terminally ill sister based in Wells. We visited all these places, King's Lynn, Cromer, Hunstanton, Wells and even Norwich, all of which had high levels, eastern European levels?? of deprivation.

dg writes: looking at actual data, north and west Norfolk have utterly average levels of deprivation.

Looking in as an EU citizen I especially noticed the lack of butchers, bakers and greengrocers and proper shops everywhere; Wells only has one supermarket but a handful of charity shops. Outside of the towns, there are plenty of well maintained, picturesque villages with renovated former worker's homes, now mostly owned by wealthier incomer boomers, eeking out their last decades.

I got my postcard shots too. But I've not forgotten the bleakness of the place in the winter.

Steve | Homepage | 20.07.24 - 12:12 p.m. | #

My family went on holiday to Old Hunstanton for two weeks every year for pretty much the first 16 years of my life. We loved it!! The whole of north and west Norfolk is gorgeous, and I t’s relative inaccessibility adds to the charm. Great write-up.

DB83 | 20.07.24 - 2:11 p.m. | #

Spurred on by this post, it made me wonder what the son of a friend of my mother, when I was 5-7 years old, was doing, having vague memories of him moving to Hunstanton. It turns out he bought the Krusty Loaf bakery there, now in Fakenham, which supplies bread throughout Norfolk. I used to listen to his Shadows 45s on his record player.

felix | 20.07.24 - 4:31 p.m. | #

Portmahomack is also on the east coast but faces west although it is in Scotland. It's on the other side of Dornoch Firth from Dornoch itself and also has much to recommend it.

Alex | 20.07.24 - 6:29 p.m. | #

Happy boyhood memories of combing through the dunes at Hunstanton and collecting leftovers from WW2 training exercises - spent bullets, casings, grenade levers etc - which I still have somewhere in a tin in the loft. Probably still some sand from the dunes too..

jpmac | 20.07.24 - 7:17 p.m. | #

I have lived in Hunstanton for 20 years. Nobody calls it Hunston except a few visitors who read it in a guide book. Presumably you read the same guide!
I suspect it was a 'deliberate' error by the publisher to prove that the source material had been copied.

Steve | 20.07.24 - 8:26 p.m. | #

I was going by...
a) the opening line of the Wikipedia article
b) what Sir John Betjeman called it in his documentary

...but you're right, I've never heard anyone else call it that. Let me withdraw that assertion.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 20.07.24 - 8:29 p.m. | #

Legendary bleak family holidays in the joyless vicarage of a (god bothering) relative. And none of the family ever learned to drive, so a lovely bike ride in the inevitable rain from kings Lynn. Grim

Bdarren | 20.07.24 - 8:37 p.m. | #

No need to apologise for your pronunciation. As a child, 60-70 years ago, we holidayed in north Norfolk, and I was taught to call it Huns'ton (along with Hazebruh, Stookey and Cly and others). Huns'ton is supported by
friendsofnorfolkdialect.com who have a long list of Norfolk placenames and their pronunciation.

I suspect BBC and ITV local news have a a lot to do with the loss of Huns'ton, as they always pronounce it as spelt.

John U.K. | 21.07.24 - 8:05 a.m. | #











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