Hunstanton

Hunstanton (sometimes pronounced 'Hanstn') lies on the north-west tip of Norfolk overlooking The Wash. It is a popular seaside resort and is known affectionately as 'Sunny Hunny'. It is famous for its layered cliffs and The Old Lighthouse Teashop.

The Famous Cliffs

Hunstanton Town Sign

P.G.Wodehouse (1888-1975)

Between the wars P(elham) G(renville) Wodehouse frequently visited his friend Charles Le Strange at Hunstanton Hall and it became an influence for a number of the locations in his comic novels.

P.G. Wodehouse at typewriter

It became Aunt Agatha's country seat Woollam Chersey and also the inspiration for the setting for Money for Nothing (1928). The octagon in the garden also featured in Jeeves and the Impending Doom. Norfolk also furnishes the names of many of the colourful characters in the books e.g. Lord Brancaster, Jack Snettisham and J Sheringham Adair.

Hunstanton Hall

A colourful ancestor of Richard Le Strange, Roger attempted to recapture King's Lynn for King Charles I in 1644. However, he was betrayed and sentenced to death but managed to escape from prison before being executed. He fled to the continent but on his return to England at the time of the restoration of the monarchy, he was placed in charge of all printing machines. He started one of the first ever newspapers, the Public Intelligence and translated Aesop's Fables. He also wrote a stinging attack on the poet John Milton. He died in London aged 88 and was described by his enemies as 'the scandal of a worthy family, who have long been ashamed of him.'
 

L(eslie) P(oles) Hartley knew Hunstanton and the surrounding area well from childhood holidays and he used it as a setting for The Shrimp and the Anemone (1944 - the first novel in his trilogy. It is to Hunstanton Hall (fictionalised as Anchorstone Hall) that Eustace enters the privileged world of the aristocracy and eventually inherits a small fortune.

L.P. Hartley

The famous layered cliffs at Hunstanton (consisting of chalk, red chalk and carstone) also provide the backdrop for Eustace and Hilda's games among the rock pools.

See also Bradenham.

Patrick Hamilton (1901-1962)

Hamilton's novel Hangover Square opens with George Harvey Bone walking on the cliffs in Hunstanton. Hamilton lived for many years at Martincross in Sheringham and also spent some time in the 1930s in a cottage in Burnham Overy Staithe living with his first wife Lois.
 

Links:

Hunstanton Website

P.G. Wodehouse Society