The Lodge History
Welcome to The Lodge in Old Hunstanton, situated in a delightful corner of Norfolk. The coast curves round from the west-facing, Victorian resort of New Hunstanton with its multi-coloured cliffs, past Old Hunstanton to the north-facing sand dunes of Holme Nature Reserve. Using The Lodge as your base, golf, sailing, birdwatching, country walks and drives – including trips to royal Sandringham – may all be enjoyed in the neighbourhood.
The story of The Lodge can be taken back to 1542; the story of Hunstanton to pre-Roman times when the Icknield Way extended all the way from here to Wiltshire. About 500A.D., there is evidence of an Anglo-Saxon settlement in Hunstanton. Artefacts found in a nearby cemetery suggest that it was founded by immigrants from North Jutland. The name Hunstanton is of the earliest English type. The cliff top ruined chapel of St Edmund recalls Edmund, the Martyr-King of East Anglia, who is reputed to have landed here in 855 A.D. King Edmund met his fate at the hands of the Danish invaders after being captured and tortured.
From the 12th century until 1948, the Le Strange family owned moated Hunstanton Hall, a few hundred yards south-east of The Lodge. The 14th century parish church of St Mary contains many of their memorials and is well worth a visit. Hamon Le Strange fought at Crécy, 1346; subsequently three Le Strange brothers, Christopher, Hamon and Leonard, were present at Agincourt, 1415. Sir Thomas Le Strange accompanied Henry VIII to the meeting with Francis I of France at the Field of the Cloth of Gold, 1520. Later, during the English Civil War, staunch Royalist Sir Hamon Le Strange, as Governor of King’s Lynn, led the defence of that town against the besieging Parliamentarians for almost three weeks in 1643; his son Roger was to be betrayed in the following year while formulating plans to retake Lynn from the Roundheads, and he spent some years in the condemned cell at Newgate Gaol before escaping to the continent.
The Le Stranges were careful to preserve manuscripts relating to Hunstanton from medieval times. These reveal that William Bretton owned and occupied a farmhouse on the site of The Lodge from 1542 until his death in 1569. A well against the back wall of this property is likely to date back to Bretton’s day. At the deaths of two subsequent occupiers of the farmhouse here, inventories of their belongings were made. Thomas Rayner’s inventory of 1633, states that his brewing vessels with two beer firkins were worth eight shillings. The one drafted for Edmund Richardson in 1728 indicates that he made leather goods as well as running the farm.
From 1728 until 1785, this property was owned by the Mason family. Shortly after acquiring it, they rebuilt it along lines which still survive for the most part. Although The Lodge was a brick facade, its walls also include locally-quarried white clunch and gingerbread-coloured carstone-indeed, it is the blending of such materials which helps to make Old Hunstanton such an attractive village.
During the 18th century, Old Hunstanton was a particular haunt for smugglers. According to the Norfolk Chronicle, on the night of 26th/27th September 1784 a group of smugglers found Customs officers and a party of General Elliot’s Light Horse Dragoons lying in wait for them. Attempting to reclaim their contraband that the officers of the Crown had seized the smugglers shot dead William Green a Custom officer and Private William Webb of the Light Dragoons from their horses in the ensuing exchange of fire. Subsequently Captain William Kimbell and two of his crew, namely Andrew Gunton and Thomas Williams, were arrested and taken to be gaoled in Norwich Castle. At Thetford Assizes the following March, Captain Kimbell and Gunton were acquitted after a re-trial, the prosecution having accused Norfolk juries as unlikely to find smugglers guilty.
The bodies of the murdered William Green and Private William Webb lie in the graveyard of St Mary’s church. Green’s stone is inscribed: ‘Here lie the mangled remains of poor William Green, an Honest Officer of Government, who in the faithful discharge of his duty was inhumanly murdered by a gang of Smugglers in this Parish September 27th, 1784, aged 37 years.’ Webb’s stone is inscribed: ‘William Webb, late of the 15th Lt. D’ns who was shot from his horse by a party of Smugglers on 25th Sept. 1784 aged 26 years. I am not dead but sleepeth here And when the Trumpet Sound I will appear. Four balls thro’ me Pearced there way. Hard it was I’d no time to pray. This stone that here you Do see My comerades Erected for the sake of me.’
From 1792 until 1825, The Lodge was owned by the Birkbeck family who mostly used it as a weekend retreat. John Birkbeck married Martha Gurney, a member of the famous Norfolk banking family, and managed Gurney’s Bank in King’s Lynn. Martha wrote a number of poems which survive in the Norfolk Record Office; some of these are amusing, but most are sentimental.
Widowed Emilia Styleman (nee Le Strange) purchased The Lodge from Henry Birkbeck but was to grant it to her son Henry upon his coming-of-age in 1836. About this time The Lodge was either used as a dower house by Emilia or let to her relations. The Census of 1841 recorded it in the occupation of her son-in-law and daughter, Frederick and Emily Fitzroy and their four small children and nine servants.
Henry Styleman adopted the surname Le Strange in 1839, and Le Stranges were to own The Lodge until 1925. Between 1858 and 1910, they let this with about four acres of landscaped grounds as a country retreat for wealthy Londoners who were initially charged an annual rent of one hundred pounds. Hunstanton became a particularly desirable place to live in 1862: for in that year it was linked to the national railway network and the Prince of Wales acquired the Sandringham Estate.
In 1912, The Lodge was converted into a hotel under the direction of Mrs Mercy Gray. It was spared damage from German Zeppelins which raided the area in the First World War; however, British forces then billeted here were less kind, according to a list of repairs urgently required in 1921! In recent years, The Lodge has enjoyed an ever-growing reputation for its comfort, good food, fine wines and real ales. The Lodge Hotel has recently been acquired by Gordon Hale of Swannington Hall and Roland and Christine Gowing, formerly of The Ploughshare, Beeston. Their intentions are to enhance the facilities of the Hotel, Restaurant and Bar. In welcoming residents and non-residents alike, they hope that you find this brief History of interest.
Geoffrey Kelly, B.A.(hons.), A.L.A
December 1988