Retiring to Norfolk - best place to live?

Hello Mavis!

Just bumped into your note from 2019, and wanted to share my experience about, "Will the people speak to me?" From, my experience, YES!

I am an American of PALMER descent from Norfolk (Crostwight, Honing, Dilham, Smallburgh) whose family emigrated to the USA in 1850. I was born in northern New York state, and currently live/work out on the plains of Nebraska, so I know cold, but not like you do. I also have thoughts of retiring to Norfolk, though not immediately. PALMER is an incredibly common name in Norfolk, so we probably aren't related. Still...

In 2011, I had a business trip to London that extended over a weekend, so I drove out to see the towns where my ancestors came from. On Saturday, I wandered around the churchyard in Stalham photographing tombstones from another side of my family. I was greeted by a gentleman who was the unofficial village historian, and ended up spending hours on his sun porch leafing through the original church records from the 1700's and 1800's as well as pedigree trees he had extracted from them.

On Sunday, I arrived at the parish church outside Dilham right after services ended, I had a wonderful chat with the vicar, and received a personal tour of the church and the ruins of the old priory, which are both a few hundred years old. (My ancestor, Elizabeth PALMER, married Philip DYBALL in 1803, who was the parish clerk for Dilham.)

Late in the afternoon, I was photographing family tombstones in the churchyard at Hickling, and was approached by a friendly lady out walking her dog. She noticed which stones interested me, and asked if I was related. When I said yes, she told me that her friend married a PLATTEN (another side of my family), they lived in the village, and if I waited a few minutes, she'd escort me there and introduce me. I spent a wonderful evening getting to meet my father's 3rd-cousin and his wife. Best of all was hearing the stories of when his father spent two years in the early 1920's in my hometown, living and working for my great-grandfather and his brothers. Priceless!

So yes, the people are friendly if you have a midwestern friendly approach to them. But I suspect that a cold New York attitude would not be received as warmly.

I am not normally on this site. If you wish to respond, my e-mail address is [email protected].

--Doug Murphy
Omaha, Nebraska, USA
[email protected]

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Thank you, jeanmark, for your reply. Norfolk is such a beautiful place, with so much to do. I think we'll be spoilt for choice as to where to live.

We are also thinking the same thing: Retiring to Norfolk in a year or two. In my case it will actually be "returning to Norfolk", as I went to school in Norwich for 10 years. We were carefully looking at the size of the village to retire to. We felt Norwich was "too big", while some of the small villages (Barton Turf) might be "too small". Horning, Brundall, Blofield, Coltishall were (in our current thinking) all coming out to be "just right" of big enough to have a mixture of things to do and support, without being too big and impersonal.
Yes: We are looking in the Broads area. Yes, that is where the tourists are in the summer. But that is also where the Sailing Clubs are, so a known community to move into.

Lionel, thank you so much for this detailed reply. You have certainly given us food for thought! I understand that some people in rural areas are slow to distrust incomers. We experienced a little of this when we came to live in a North Yorkshire village 12 years ago. Being naturally friendly, chatty people, we had to make a real effort to convince the locals that we were actually okay!
That being said, I take on board all your comments, including the ones about social and geographical isolation. Perhaps we would be better to stick to the more urban areas like Norwich or Kings Lynn? Thanks again for all your comments - much appreciated!

Hi Lionel! Thank you again for taking the time to give us so much information. It looks like Norwich could be a place to avoid, but we'll definitely look at the King's Lynn website and forums. We have visited King's Lynn a few times, and quite liked it. At least there are reasonable facilities and a hospital there. I would also mean that we're less remote from other family members, who are spread across the Midlands. Once again, some very useful food for thought ..... Thanks!

I can vouch for King's Lynn Annie. That is where I was born and brought up and my sister still lives there. There is a multi-cultural community but that doesn't that apply to most places? I think it is where in the town you decide to settle that may help as in any town or city.

Thank you, jeanmark! We're happy to live in a multicultural place, so Kings Lynn would be fine. We're just a bit wary of the flood zones in the area, so we'll probably look at the villages close by. We wondered about Dersingham, North Wootton, or a bit further afield like Great Massingham or Castle Acre.
I'm so grateful to everyone who has commented, it's really been helpful - thank you!

Dersingham and villages between King's Lynn and Hunstanton are nice places to live and are near the Sandringham Estate! I have a cousin who has lived in Dersingham for over 50 years and remains very happy there.

The flood areas in King's Lynn tend to be in the older part of the town as the town made very good defences after the 1952 floods. Gaywood, South Wootton, Gayton etc. are all areas away from the flood zone and have some nice residential areas and good services.

Thanks, jeanmark! That's very reassuring news about the floods. We'll definitely look at the places you've mentioned.
We had a holiday in Dersingham last year and though it was lovely. There seems to be quite a lot to do in the vicinity, plus you have all the amenities of Kings Lynn. As long as we have access to a B&Q we'll be fine! 🙂

Thank you, Lochinvar. You make a good point about the weather. We have tended to visit Norfolk in the Spring and Autumn, so we have not experienced a severe winter there yet. That being said, we do get some pretty grim winter weather here in North Yorkshire, so we're used to dealing with snow, strong winds and flooding. We just "batten down the hatches" and put the kettle on!