Historic Places in Norfolk

Sandringham Estate in northwest Norfolk has been a private royal residence for over 160 years, purchased by the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII, in 1862 on the advice of Queen Victoria who recognised the value of a private country property away from the formalities of state. The estate encompasses approximately 8,000 hectares of farmland, woodland and formal gardens around the main house, and its connection to the personal and informal life of successive generations of the royal family gives it a character quite distinct from the official royal palaces open to visitors in London. The house itself is a substantial Victorian country house built in the Jacobean Revival style between 1870 and 1900, replacing an earlier house on the site that the Prince of Wales found insufficiently grand for his purposes. The style, which draws on the elaborate decorative vocabulary of Elizabethan and Jacobean architecture, was fashionable among the Victorian wealthy as an expression of English heritage and tradition. The house is not architecturally distinguished in the way that Balmoral or Windsor Castle are, but it has the comfortable, lived-in character of a house that has been genuinely used and loved rather than simply maintained for public display. Sandringham is most famous as the place where the royal family spends Christmas, a tradition established by Edward VII and maintained with remarkable consistency ever since. The church of St Mary Magdalene in the grounds, in which the family worships on Christmas Day, attracts considerable media attention each year, and the practice of the royal family walking from the house to church and greeting members of the public gathered outside has become one of the most familiar rituals of the British royal year. The house and parts of the grounds are open to visitors during the summer season when the royal family is not in residence. The house tours provide access to a number of ground-floor rooms furnished as they are used by the family, including the main drawing room, dining room and the Saloon, the principal reception space. The museum in the old stables contains a remarkable collection of royal memorabilia, vintage cars and shooting and sporting equipment accumulated over generations. The formal gardens surrounding the house include the Norwich Gates, presented to the Prince and Princess of Wales as a wedding gift in 1863, and the extensive parkland beyond provides pleasant walking around the estate's country tracks and woodland.

Baconsthorpe Castle is located north of the village of Baconsthorpe in Norfolk, England. The castle was a fortified manor house and is now in ruins. It is a Scheduled Ancient Monument and a Grade I listed building. The ruins include the remains of towers, forming a square court of 30m, and the curtain walls are still complete. In the middle of the south wall are the remains of a three-storey gatehouse with a two-storey projection for the drawbridge. To the east are the remains of a two-storey range. There is a lake on the east side, and a deep moat round the other three sides. The ruins are administered by English Heritage and are accessible to the public. Baconsthorpe Castle was built in the late 15th century by John Heydon and Sir Henry Heydon (died 1504). The castle was originally a manor house which was later fortified. A three-storey gatehouse was built in the south wall, and later the a quadrangle was completed with curtain walls, towers and a range of buildings on the east side. There used to be a drawbridge over the moat. An turreted outer gateway was built 50m south of the drawbridge. The house fell into disrepair after the Civil War. The outer gatehouse was inhabited until 1920.

Burgh Castle is located in the village of Burgh Castle in Norfolk (about twenty three miles south east of Norwich). The castle was a Norman earthwork motte and bailey fortress, built within the stone walls of a 3rd century Roman fort. Three of the four sides of the large rectangular Roman fort are still standing (the fourth side fell into Breydon Water, the adjoining estuary). The walls have large rounded bastions at the corners and at intervals along the walls. The gate is in the middle of the east wall. The Norman castle had a large oval motte with a surrounding ditch and was positioned in the south west corner of the Roman fort. The motte was leveled in the 18th century and now only fragments of the earthworks remain. The site is owned by English Heritage and is open to the public. Burgh Castle Burgh Castle