Welcome to Blakeney

Take a small historic fishing village, add the character of narrow streets and traditional flint cottages, mix in the appeal of boating and wildlife, and colour it with legendary tales of piracy and smuggling and you have Blakeney...., probably the most attractive village on Norfolk's fabled heritage coastline.

It has been said that the appeal of Blakeney lies in it's unspoilt simplicity, a place where you can reach out and almost touch the past, knowing that it has escaped virtually unscarred with the passing of time.  A place guarded jealously by those who share its secret.

The first references to Blakeney can be traced back to the 12th century with its emergence as a rapidly-growing fishing port.  Some historians claim that before this the village was known as Snitterly, while others have supported the theory that Snitterly was a smaller neighbouring village which had surrendered to the sea many years earlier.

Whatever the truth, it is an undeniable fact that between the 13th and 17th centuries Blakeney thrived as one of East Anglia's major ports, with many sizeable ships taking advantage of the natural shelter offered by 'Blakeney Haven'.  Indeed, the prosperity and importance of the village can be measured by the building in the 13th century of both a Carmelite Friary to the east of the Manor Hotel, and the impressive village church dedicated to St. Nicholas, the patron saint of fishermen.  Later, in the 15th century, the church was extended to embrace the Nave and a lantern turret, used for guiding ships into the port.

The village had its own Fish Merchants Guild, the headquarters of which are believed to have been the old Guildhall, a part of which still remains at the foot of Mariners' Hill.  In later years, the building was used for a myriad of purposes from a store for smuggled contraband to a makeshift mortuary for victims of shipwrecks.

Although Blakeney began to emerge as a holiday resort in the 1920s, it was slow to succumb to 20th century commercialism, preferring to hide its light under a bushel until 1951, when street lighting was eventually installed.  Four years later, piped water became freely available and in 1962 a sewerage system was completed, condemning the rattle of the night-cart to the pages of local history along with the more romantic images of smuggling, piracy and Sir Percy Blakeney, the fictional hero of  'The Scarlet Pimpernel' series, the first of which was written during Baroness Orczy's stay in the village.

Today, visitors find a tranquil resort where the pace of life is reflected accurately by warm summer breezes filling sails, where the peace is broken only by the cries of the gulls, terns and redshanks etc. which have established Blakeney's reputation as a bird sanctuary. Regular short boat trips offer many their first opportunity of close-up views of the seal colony on Blakeney Point.  To others, the appeal lies in the desolation of the marshes on a crisp winter morning, a scene which offers a totally new dimension to those who know the village only in the summer months.  For nature has offered her entire repertoire to Blakeney, sometimes kindly and sometimes cruelly, as in the sever floods of 1897, 1953 and 1978, the levels of which are recorded on plaques opposite the quay.