Hunstanton Cross
As much part of this grand old town as its famous cliffs...
Henry Le Strange gazes out over Hunstanton Cross and The Wash (Richard Humphrey/geograph)
It’s a fairly safe bet to assume that this particular Norfolk landmark has had more feet running up and down it and more weary backsides taking the opportunity to tarry a’while upon its worn surfaces to take in the view it affords, than just about any other location along its particular stretch of coast.
Hunstanton Cross is certainly user friendly and accessible (no railings here, hurrah!) with just a hint of permanence about it. It hasn’t, of course, always been sat atop the equally well known town green, it just feels as if it has. Yet, modest as it is in size and aspect, if it were, somehow, to vanish overnight, Hunstanton would never quite feel the same place again.
A closer look at Hunstanton Cross-along with two resting walkers (Robin Webster/geograph)
Its current position on the town green owes much to the influence of one Henry L’Estrange Styleman Le Strange, a decorative painter by trade who, despite his flamboyant name, was a local man who was born in the town in 1815 as plain Henry Styleman. His place of birth was what is now known as Old Hunstanton, a quiet and exceedingly pretty village today that, nonetheless, is an settlement where the sight, sound and influence of the nearby sea is negligible.
Clearly born with a flair for entrepreneurship, Styleman could not, from an early age, stop thinking about the commercial possibilities a settlement much nearer to The Wash would bring. With this in mind (and, quite possibly, given the massive physical and economic growth in and around other British resorts at this time) he soon found himself worried that someone else might beat him to it so, in the no-nonsense manner of the gentlemen of the time, Styleman swiftly got to work on persuading a number of like minded men to fund the construction of a railway line from Kings Lynn to the town, one that would, he was convinced, be very popular with eager tourists.
His instincts were soon proved to be spot on as the newly formed Lynn and Hunstanton Railway swiftly became one of the most successful and profitable railway companies in the country, with visitors flocking in from the Midlands in particular to take advantage of the new resorts beach, invigorating air and even more invigorating waters.
The newly renamed Le Strange didn’t quite plant a victors flag in the middle of the new and growing town to symbolise his dominion over what was now known as New Hunstanton but he did make his mark in another way by, in 1846, moving the ancient village cross which had, for time immemorial, stood in Old Hunstanton on a site known as Gipsies Green to its present site.
Lesser men may, you feel, have felt that they might be subject to some kind of curse by moving such an ancient object from a place with that name but Le Strange had no such fears and, to further mark his intentions for the new town, commissioned the building of a hotel, initially known as the Royal Hotel but known today as the Golden Lion atop that sloping green that led down to the sea, a hotel that was, incidentally, referred to as “Le Strange’s Folly” for many years afterwards.
Looking up towards the cross with the Golden Lion hotel just behind it (Colin Smith/geograph)
The cross was later set atop the modern steps on which it stands today. It’s an easy climb to the pinnacle from which you can look either straight ahead to the grey and occasionally treacherous waters of The Wash (where a King lost his treasure) or, just behind you, Le Strange’s so called ‘Folly’ and the handsome façade of the Golden Lion hotel.
Le Strange’s name has been immortalised at another Hunstanton hotel, the Le Strange Arms. Situated on the outskirts of the town and with commanding views over The Wash, it is as good a place as any to sit and enjoy a quiet evening drink as you join the thousands of other visitors to the town who come to indulge in one of Hunstanton’s famous sunsets.
A scenario that the young Henry Styleman worked out for himself at a very early age.
He’d have done very well for himself on the Dragons Den…