Photos:
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| View of the north-west
side from the lane
The flints, red brick and pantiles echo traditional Norfolk houses. |
View of the south-east
side from the big field.
The house nestles in the trees and fits in with the old farm buildings beyond but the all-glass east gable says 'contemporary'. |
The cottage is down a lane called 'The Driftway' which is a dead end for cars so there is no through traffic. There are a few cars going down the lane to neighbouring houses and sometimes hikers and horse-riders pass by, but it is quiet and peaceful. It is possible to walk along the lane and across the fields to Cromer but you definitely need a car or bicycles for convenience. The cottage overlooks open fields which grow arable crops. Farm machinery works in the fields at times such as ploughing, harrowing or harvesting but there are no farm animals (nor their smells) close to the cottage. There is a patio and a small garden around the cottage where you can sit and enjoy the peace of the Norfolk countryside, and of course, the occasional country noises. There are no street-lights and the stars are brilliant on a clear night.
Cromer is a small seaside town on the north Norfolk coast. It offers a variety of beaches which are a mixture of sand and pebbles, depending where you are, an old-fashioned pier with a theatre at the end, a cinema, plenty of activities for children and all the facilities of a seaside town. Seafood, especially crab, is a speciality of Cromer and small fishing boats still go out crab fishing daily. There are some good restaurants in the area and there are a number of historic houses, National Trust properties and estates within easy reach: Felbrigg Hall Blickling Hall Sherringham Park Houghton HallRoyal Sandringham EstateHolkham Hall .
Hobby Cottage is close to
wonderful coastal areas for seeing birds and wild life: Birds
and birdwatching
Blakeney
Point is especially interesting and it is a National Trust nature
reserve and on the migration paths of many birds. You can walk out over
the mud flats (low tide only!) and see the wild seals or you can take a
boat from Blakeney to see them close to. Norwich
and the Norfolk Broads are within
easy reach. Norfolk is very rich in picturesque villages and small towns
and is wonderfully unspoiled.
The Interior of Hobby Cottage
The rest of this page shows
photos of the interior of the new house. It is fully furnished and equipped.
There are three good-sized bedrooms, two with double beds and one with
two single beds. There is a cot if required. As it is so new we are
still adding pictures and other small items and you will understand that
the garden was destroyed by the building process and we have had to start
creating a new garden from scratch - it will take a year or two!
On opening the front door you enter a small lobby which has double glass doors into the rest of the house.
The ground floor is open-plan with a large sitting-dining area which links to the kitchen. The end-wall of the sitting-dining area is all-glass and it also has large double doors that open out to the patio and the side-wall has french windows too. So the garden feels very close.
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| The garden end of the sitting area. The central panels of the end and the side windows open out to the patio. | Dining area with wood-burning stove. The double doors to the entrance lobby are on the left of this photo. |
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| Another view of the sitting area, late afternoon with the lights on. | Lunch on the patio. We have done some work on re-creating the garden since this photo was taken! |
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| The kitchen is all-electric. The fridge-freezer & microwave oven are out of view, on the left. The dishwasher is at the bottom right. Photo taken at night so the windows are dark. | The spiral stair.
Note the kitchen beyond. |
Also on the ground floor there is a shower room which has a walk-in shower ('wet room'), a toilet and a wash-basin. This room also serves as a utility room and the central heating boiler and the washing machine are there.
Upstairs there are three bedrooms and a bathroom. The rooms have sloping ceilings but the ceiling goes right up to the apex and the structural wooden ridge beam is visible so it feels very spacious.
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| Main bedroom | Main bedroom. The field had barley stubble when the photo was taken in late summer 2006 |
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| The front bedroom has twin beds and looks over the Lane. | The north-east bedroom. It has a big triangular window and looks over the big field and down the bridleway to the woods beyond. |
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| The upstairs bathroom has a large bath with a shower-end, a wash-basin and a toilet. It has a roof-light which can be opened. | View from the garden at night. Su-Nak, our dog, is looking out (middle, bottom) |
The kitchen is all-electric:
cooker, dishwasher, large fridge-freezer, microwave, all cooking tools,
cutlery and crockery.
There is a washing machine
in the utility room and a TV and DVD-player in the sitting area. There
is wood for the wood-burning stove.
contacts: E Raggatt, The
Ferns, Berkley St, Eynesbury, St Neots PE19 2NE
raggatt2@onetel.net
01480 213884
Availability and cost
Just in case you are interested in music as well as holidays in Norfolk, may we recommend the photos and music on sites created by young Raggatts.
Fiona Raggatt, our second
daughter, has a website together with her music partner Miranda Swift Sabai
on 'Myspace' and they
are also at Sabai's
webpages
These sites have clips of the music they perform, pictures and other information
about their
duo 'Sabai' . They have
been performing mostly in Chiang Mai and in Koh Samui in Thailand and in
Edinburgh but they have
also performed all over
Europe and in Canada.
Heather McVey is an 'honorary daughter' of ours and a promising singer/songwriter Heather McVey
Tim Raggatt has agreed to me listing his site. Click on the opening picture. Tim Raggatt's website
Josh and Luke Raggatt's band
~Nato
Josh and Luke are very excited
about their band and welcome listeners and contacts. They are busy making
a record and a video.