I thoroughly enjoyed my week at The Old Chapel. Banningham proper, such as it is, is about a mile away from this bit, Mill Road, a dead-straight line of mixed old and new buildings which peters out in the fields and turns into a footpath after about a quarter of a mile. Its straightness gives it a strange end-of-the-world feel, although I can confirm there is indeed something beyond the end of the footpath as I went walking out that way. The Chapel has TARDIS-like qualities, appearing a very compact building outside and managing to fit within its modest space a lofty lounge, double bedroom, kitchen and two bathrooms. In the pattern of Landmark's Abbey Gatehouse and Ty Capel, the bedroom has been put on a mezzanine and the Necessary Facilities beneath it, a neat way of making use of the space. I'm not sure about the history of the building - it's too humble for the Buildings of England to have noticed, apparently - but looks early Victorian or before, the kind of humble structure that even the Primitive Methodists would have scorned after about the 1860s. When the current owners, the Greens, bought it in the early 1990s it was fairly much derelict after being used for various utilitarian purposes, but some of the chapel's former congregation were still living nearby, and behind glass in the bookcase there are some items relating to its time as a working building - including a small penny loaf, which must be pretty stale by now. My stay in the Chapel gave me great respect for anyone who must have played the harmonium for these small congregations: my attempts to keep the thing going while trying to produce anything resembling a tune were not especially edifying.
My family took a week's break in 'The Old Chapel' in Banningham (5-10 Aug 2019), supported via Norfolk Cottages (NC). It is a converted Methodist chapel retaining many original features and giving a large living/recreation room and an upstairs sleeping area which was perfect for us with a 5 year old. The kitchen area is perfectly useable, with room to move about and runs on electricity (we were unaffected by the recent national outage). The addition of a knife sharpener would have been good, but easily fixed. The bathrooms (two) were compact but clean and fully functional. In the dedicated shower cubical I think the addition of a power shower rather than the small electric shower there would have been a nice touch (!). There is even a small sauna incorporated next to one bathroom, though we did not get to sample it, it was a nice touch. There is off-street parking for 2 cars and a compact, relatively secluded, paved rear garden. As a base of operations to explore Norfolk and especially the villages around Cromer, The Old Chapel was perfectly located. NC has an informative, easy to navigate website. I found the customer services easy to access and very helpful. I would certainly consider NC as a platform for a self-catering house, should we choose to visit Norfolk again.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comment, Han. I enjoyed my week in the Old Chapel, as well (I think, it was a long time ago).
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