Visitors to Brancaster will find it very different from how it would have appeared fifty to a hundred years ago. It may surprise many readers to know that in the past Brancaster was a coastal village with many viable small businesses and small farms, with houses occupied overwhelmingly by full-time residents.

Today Brancaster has a significant proportion of holiday lets and second homes, which of course bring advantages to the village, and few businesses. The historical constants over the past hundred years or so are the church, school, Hermitage, The Ship Inn, BVH (Simms Reeve Institute), including shop and Post Office and the Royal West Norfolk Golf Club. Other buildings remain from this period, but have been converted to different uses, mainly homes, or sold outside the original family, such as Brancaster Hall and its environs.

Let us take a walk down the central road of Brancaster and see how things have changed over the last fifty to a hundred years. We start at St. Mary’s Church and look towards Titchwell. On the right is the old Manor Farm, now houses and flats, but once the home of Brancaster Orchard Coxes Orange Pippins. The wide verge running beside the road was where Florrie Johnson, who kept the village dairy, used to graze her cattle.

Further along at the entrance to Brancaster garage was the old apple store to the orchard. Looking to the left were the nurses’ and police homes, both replaced by new buildings. Next to this were farm workers’ cottages and the registered office of Powell’s foundry. Further along, almost opposite the church, was a small village pond and green, behind which sat Powell’s foundry and engineering works and cottages for workers. The cottages still exist, but the site of the works is now a new housing development.

Across the way from the foundry site was the old saw mill (now a housing development), with the bakery and sometimes Post Office adjacent.

Walking down the main road from the church past the magnificent old vicarage, you come to London Street, down which are a number of former shops, the Hermitage apartments and Methodist church, behind which was the old slaughter house, On the other side of the road, along from The Ship is Duffields, which was a hardware shop that was next to the Southland Arcade. Further along is the road leading to Brancaster School, which is coming up to its 160 year anniversary.

On the opposite side is the Old Post Office and next door is the Dry Lion, once the White Lion beer house. Next is Links House, site of the former garage, and Springfield House, where Miss Reading used to cut hair. South End House was the premises of Miss Grieg, the chemist, and opposite, Snellings bicycle shop, which became Wright’s greengrocery: behind Wright’s was Johnson’s dairy and the old laundry.

Carrying on towards Brancaster Staithe, opposite the Simms Reeve Institute (now BVH), there is the site of the Old Lifeboat public house, now a caravan park. Little Ash opposite was a shop, later Edward’s coal yard.

Finally, we come to the Branodunum housing development, which is on the site of the old Roman settlement, adjacent to the Roman fort. Opposite are the two lodges leading to Brancaster Hall, one of which was the home of Bill Adams, who farmed on the estate.

We are now at the end of our tour, and you will see some of the major changes that have taken place in the village over the last century. Such changes have brought great advantages as well as having a downside – particularly across the winter period – and many of these are echoed throughout the coastal villages in Norfolk.

The three photos show, firstly, the site of the village green and pond, with the cottages for Powell’s Foundry workers behind; secondly, the Hermitage Alms Houses, dating back to the late 16th century and renovated in 1996; thirdly, the Old Post Office.