Great Yarmouth – a seaside destination since 1760
With a heat wave encompassing the majority of the United Kingdom I wanted to find a local beach town to explore. I began looking at the towns that I could train to and were reasonably priced. Most of the towns I have seen advertised or on Instagram are in Southeast England. Since I would have to train through London the tickets were over £95 which is more than I paid for some international flights so I was very hesitant to spend that much on a day outing. After minimal research with Google Maps and AllTrails I found Great Yarmouth was only £24 round trip, a similar journey length to Southeast England, and had a city walk from the train station to the beach.
While on the train I began to research Great Yarmouth history to gain a little insight into the town. It was originally founded by fisherman around 900 and became one of the wealthiest towns in England. In 1849 Charles Dickens visited Great Yarmouth and part of his book David Copperfield is set in Great Yarmouth which is now added to my to read list. Another book I added to my list is Black Beauty which was written by Anna Sewell, who was born in 1820 in Great Yarmouth.
As I continued on my journey, I had high hopes of this becoming my go-to beach destination. It is reasonably affordable compared to the other beach destinations and has only one train transfer. After two and a half hours I finally arrived at my destination.
The route on AllTrails was easy to find as it starts immediately right out of the train station and joins the Great Yarmouth heritage trail. The beginning of the walk has a large pedestrian area along the water which you then follow to the beach.
A factor in choosing this walk was it included historical sites along the way to the beach. The Elizabethan House Museum is a National Trust site along the walk where I stopped in for a quick look around. National Trust is a UK charity that is focused on preserving historic locations and green spaces. With an annual membership fee you are granted access to free parking and entrance to all their sites across the United Kingdom. If you visit a couple of their locations in a year I would recommend a membership.
The Elizabethan House Museum showcases a house that dates back to 1596 by a wealthy merchant and member of parliament, Benjamin Cooper. The house remained a private home until after the second world war where it was left to the National Trust by the Alfred family. Since then it housed council offices and later a museum. The house underwent renovations in 1997-1998. One of my favorite parts of the house was the different stained glass panels on display from the 16th and 17th centuries that has just been recently restored in 2024.
The biggest show stopper for this house was in the toy room. After looking around the room I had a double take after seeing this tea party below.
Why yes those are actual, real squirrels that are stuffed and set up to enjoy a tea party. Unknown creepy fact of the day: in the Victorian era it was not uncommon for children to use taxidermy animals for playing and cuddling. Also how did they get them to actually hold the little spoons? It has to be glue right?
After leaving the tea party behind it was time to continue the walk to the beach. The next historical site on the stroll is the Greyfriars Cloisters which is the remains of a Franciscan grey friars church from 1271 but it is currently closed for renovation. You can still see some of the ruins around the scaffolding. As I made my way towards the beach there was two additional museums to visit, The Tolhouse Gaol and Great Yarmouth Row Houses. I skipped both of these to head to the beach as the temperature was rising and I was ready for a swim.
Sadly the rest of the route I was following was along the main road through an industrial area. It had substantial trash along the sidewalk so I decided to detour straight to the beach for better views of sand and water. Upon arriving to the beachfront I came to a a small theme park called Pleasure Beach. It takes up a large portion of the beachfront, and looks like it has a bunch of different rides. It was closed the day I was wandering, but it gave off Coney Island vibes, which suffice to say is not the small beach village that I was aiming to discover.
After bypassing around the closed gates, I finally made it to the water! While the water color was less blue than I was expecting, the North Sea was quite refreshing. I did enjoy my walk back up the beach with minimal people. After passing the pier and Joyland (the Ferris Wheel and other rides), the other side of Great Yarmouth is less of touristy cliches and more open sand dunes.
On my way back to the train station I did pass many tourist traps with bright flashing lights, a casino, and even a strip club. This was not the quaint beach vibe I was intending on visiting, but all my day trips will not be successes. Overall if you are looking for a beach destination with a range of different activities Great Yarmouth could work for you.