When you buy a holiday home in our holiday parks in East Anglia, like Waveney River Centre or Broadlands Park and Marina, you might not be aware of it, but you are walking in the footsteps of a wealth of famous men and women from yesteryear.
We’ll ease the suspense and let you discover the famous individuals with connections to this wonderful neck of the woods:
1. Admiral Lord Nelson
Naval mastermind Admiral Horatio Nelson, renowned for being the hero of great sea battles at The Nile, Cape St Vincent and, most famously Trafalgar, was born in Burnham Thorpe, a village located on the North Norfolk coast.
Nelson spent a fair few years in Norfolk, learned to sail on the Norfolk Broads as well as being a pupil at the Norwich School next to the Cathedral.
If you head over to Burnham Thorpe, you can sit in Nelson's seat at the local pub, which has now been aptly named The Lord Nelson. The public house has maintained the style and feel to be in-keeping with how it was in Nelson's days.
You can also take a trip to the local church, where you’ll discover the tribute to Nelson, which is, in fact at the same church where his father was the rector.
2. Albert Einstein
Cromer was the location for the world's most famous scientist when he was taken into hiding in 1933.
The physicist and mathematician stayed in a cottage at Roughton in Norfolk during the 1930s, following his departure from Germany when Hitler came to power with the Nazi party, and this was because Einstein strongly opposed war, so knew it was time to leave when Hitler took office in Germany.
While Albert was residing here, he would still get to work on his scientific theories. This is rather interesting news, because the science he was working on altered the course of history. How? He’d established the idea for the world's first nuclear bomb.
Some years later Einstein vacated Norfolk and set sail for America.
3. Pocahontas
Pocahontas, best known for her immortalisation in the Walt Disney animated movie, was a resident of Heacham in Norfolk.
Visit the church of St. Mary at Heacham and you will find a memorial to Pocahontas which was carved by a pupil of François Auguste René Rodin, the French sculptor.
Pocahontas is also depicted on Heacham’s village sign. The sign and the memorial both feature her dressed in a stylish Jacobean trilby hat along with great neck ruff.
If you’d like to see more of Pocahontas, you can see a picture which is believed to be of Pocahontas and her son at the Kings Lynn Museum.
4. Elizabeth Fry
Elizabeth Fry is known as a social reformer and was born in Norwich. Known most prevalently for her work in improving conditions for women prisoners, she has had her portrait on the Bank of England £5 note.
Fry was a member of the Quaker Gurney family and in her early years she lived in Gurney Court, off Magdalen Street. Later on in life she resided at Earlham Hall, which is now a part of the University of East Anglia.
5. Edith Cavell
Norwich Cathedral’s gates is the location of a commemorative statue dedicated to Edith Cavell. Known as a “Nurse, Patriot and Martyr”, Cavell met her demise when she was executed for helping hundreds of Allied soldiers to escape Brussels during World War I, an occupied country of the Nazi Party at the time.
Edith was born in the South Norfolk village of Swardeston, and was buried next to Norwich Cathedral.
