Norfolk n Good - a selection of holiday spots....

The Child is 15 and almost all grown up!

The Iron Duke is a place I find fascinating as its in a prime seafront location but I've only ever seen it boarded up.

What I know is...

It was built in 1939 but the war broke out before it was finished / opened. It spent the war requisitioned as either an officers mess or something of that ilk. It finally opened as a pub after the war once it was "demobbed".

It had a promenant position at the end of the Great Yarmouth Promenade, and also close to the Great Yarmouth Race Track. However it had started to get a bit of an iffy reputation as far as I can tell. Plenty of fights and trading in stolen goods etc.

In the 50s or 60s a holiday park was opened up just a few hundred yards up the coast, with the entrance not far from the pub. You'd imagine that this should have been a boon for the pub but it seems that the pub and the holiday park did not get on so well.

Eventually it seems the pub closed (in the 1980s I think) and may have been bought by the holiday park to keep it shut.

However, it seems sad / odd to me that the pub and the holiday park couldn't have gotten to a mutually beneficial arrangement. The derelict pub doesn't do anything for the apearance of the approach to the holiday park (which is still open and seems busy and successful)

I guess the park doesn't want "attractions" taking its campers off site. But then they will be going off site to go to the promenade and the town anyway....


Shame as its a lovely art deco type building and its a real waste to see it like that.

Great Yarmouth's very own 'Ace cafe' perhaps . . .

A pair of 15/60 cool

Thanks Akku for sharing this. I especially love the Iron Duke, shame what became of it, but hopefully the future will see some TLC!

Thanks HotWire, too, for the story You found.

Had looked up where it is and found out, that Akku was only south just around the corner of California!

I'm sure theres a Florida round there as well.

We were just north of Hemsby.

The old holiday park there is finally being redeveloped. Sad to see it all abandonned (also kinda cool), sad to see it being redeveloped but it seems that holiday park style of holiday isn't what the British want any more so its days were numbered. It did do a while of being a centre for rockabilly weekenders and so on before it finally closed.

Interestingly the developer seems to be reusing the actual structures of the holiday appartments to turn them into houses rather than demolishing and rebuilding. Also work seems to be going very slowly. Little having changed since last year.