In 1870-72, John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales described Cromer like this:
CROMER, a small town, a parish, and a sub-district in Erpingham district, Norfolk. The town stands on the coast, 8½ miles NW of North Walsham r. station, and 21 N of Norwich. A railway, running nearly due south, has been projected from it to Norwich. Cromer was once a borough, a market-town, and walled; but has been greatly altered; and is now notable chiefly as a fashionable watering-place, and as the station for the sub-marine telegraphs to Hamburg and Denmark. ...
It stands chiefly on cliffs, with full view to the sea; and is environed by an amphitheatre of wooded, beautiful, romantic hills. An adjacent town, of the name of Shipden, which stood on lower ground seaward, was destroyed by the sea in the time of Henry IV.; and has left no traces except some masonry supposed to have belonged to its church. Parts of Cromer itself have fallen into the tide within the memory of living parsons; large portions of contiguous cliffs were undermined and overwhelmed in 1825 and 1832; and a jetty, which gave the only harbour accommodation, was washed entirely away in 1845. The sea, during northerly winds, breaks here with a force unchecked by anything nearer than Spitzbergen; and the approach for vessels is then so tremendous as to be called by mariners "the Devil's throat" But, in 1847, a sea-wall, with esplanade, and a new jetty and breakwater, were constructed at a cost of nearly £10, 000; and they promise to give security against any further serious damage by the waves. The town is a sub-port to Clare, and a coast-guard station. It offers good hotels, good lodging-houses, and an excellent beach to summer sea-bathers. It carries on a considerable fishery in herrings and lobsters; and it has a post office‡ under Norwich, a parish church, a Methodist chapel, a free school, and a fair on Whit-Monday. The church is later English, of the 15th century; is built of flint and freestone; and has a tower 159 feet high. A battery, for defence of the town and neighbourhood, was constructed during the war with Buona-parte. A lighthouse stands at a short distance, within Overstrand parish, with a revolving light 274 feet high. Bacon, the discoverer of Iceland, was a native. -The parish comprises 1, 001 acres; of which 150 are water. Real property, £6, 331. Pop., 1, 367. Houses, 324. The property is divided among a few. Cromer Hall belonged formerly to the Wyndhams; and belongs now to the Buxtons. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Norwich. Value, £99. Patron, the Bishop of Norwich.—The sub-district contains twenty-two parishes. Acres, 23, 769. Pop., 7, 145. Houses, 1, 643.
Cromer through time
Cromer is now part of North Norfolk district. Click here for graphs and data of how North Norfolk has changed over two centuries. For statistics about Cromer itself, go to Units and Statistics.
GB Historical GIS / University of Portsmouth, History of Cromer in North Norfolk | Map and description, A Vision of Britain through Time.
URL: https://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/381
Date accessed: 07th November 2024
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