Autumn food foraging on North Norfolk coast
Prepare to fall in love. Fall in love with modernism that is. The point of all Living Architecture holiday homes is to give people the opportunity to experience living in an architect designed house, in this case a house designed by the notable Sir Michael Hopkins. One can only imagine the cost of the build but for one week/weekend only, it can be your home.
Depending on your architectural preferences (traditional or modern) first impressions of the house will either be, from the exterior, bleak or staggeringly beautiful, and once inside, spartan or gloriously spacious. Whatever your initial judgment though, this house will beguile you, soothe you and engender such harmonious social interactions, that you will, without doubt, be loathed to leave and promising to return, despite the expensive - but not exorbitant - cost attached.
Set in a bucolic corner of softly undulating, heavily hedged North Norfolk countryside, near the coastal village of Stiffkey, the area is brimming full of local produce. Spend a morning picking up everything you need for a veritable feast of seasonal gastronomies. Head to Cookies Crab Shack in Salthouse for the freshest seafood and lobster, Arthur Howells in Binham for the best local meat (the Wells sausages can’t be bettered), fruit, vegetable, artisan bread and unpasteurised dairy from ‘The Farm Shop’ in Cley then every thing you may need, including a strapping walk along the sand flats and dunes, at Wells-Next-To-Sea.
Return in the evening to light the double facing fire, put the children in front of the huge plasma screen at one end of the open plan ‘long house’ and let the adults pretend they are the stars in stylish movie at the other.
Not a whisper of wind, not a creak of movement will be ushered from the walls and windows of this rock-solid, high-quality build house to disturb your train of thoughts which are gently guided to esoterically matters by a library of books on architecture, design and ‘School of Life’ philosophy. Pull open one of the floor to ceiling glass doors and you will be joyfully blasted with a rush of coastal wind, the whinny of neighbouring horses and an expanse of mind-opening skyscape.
Bring the works in terms of country clobber for the long walks on the beach and tramps across fields. But also bring a set of smart clothes for the stylish cocktails and the very grown-up meal you will have around the designer table and chairs dining on surf and turf with David Mellor cutlery, glassware and tableware.
Good sleep and refreshing starts to the day are guaranteed thanks to enormous beds; deep, comfortable mattresses; luxurious duvets; black-out blinds; underfloor heating and ensuite shower or bathrooms. Draw the blinds for views and effects that really have jumped out of Grand Designs. In fact you half expect to find Kevin McCloud reading a design book in a corner by the fire. TS
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