27 July: Norfolk Day

Norfolk Day is a relatively recent celebration - the first Norfolk Day was in 2018. 10 things you might not know about Norfolk, England's fifth largest county.

1. Norfolk has over 90 miles of coast, but no motorways. It was actually quicker to get from Norwich to Amsterdam by sea than to London by road before trains were invented.
2. It was the first part of Britain to be settled by human beings, as 1.2 million years ago, Norfolk was connected by a land bridge to mainland Europe. A local man walking his Dog in the 18th century stumbled upon a hand axe and contacted a local museum. It turned out the axe was made 700,000 years ago, 200,000 years earlier than any previously discovered artefact.
3. For centuries, Norfolk was England’s most populous and prosperous county, with Norwich being the second largest city after London. A third of the population of Norwich died in an outbreak of plague in 1579. Norfolk is one of very few counties where the population is lower today than it was in the early 14th century.
4. In Medieval times, a lot of people meant a lot of churches. Back then, there were over 1,000 churches in Norfolk. 659 medieval churches survive there today, the highest concentration in Europe. Of these churches, 125 have round towers – more than any other county in Britain. Because the county was prosperous, they were able to import honey-coloured Caen limestone from Normandy to build the churches. Also on the subject of churches, St Nicholas’s Church in Great Yarmouth is the largest parish church in the country at 23,000 square feet; and he spire of Norwich Cathedral is 315 feet high – second only to that of Salisbury.
5. The Norfolk dialect is almost like another language. It's hard for outsiders to imitate and has a rich vocabulary of words all its own, including jasper (wasp), dodman (Snail), pishmire (ant), hamser (heron), kewter (Money) to pingle (to play with food) and bishy barnabee (a ladybird). You might even spot the dialect on road signs instructing ‘Slow You Down’.
6. Things invented in Norfolk include fish fingers, Bowler hats and Colman's Mustard. The world's first football stand is in Great Yarmouth, opened in 1892 and still in use today. On the subject of football, Norwich City Football club's song, On The Ball City is the oldest football chant still sung in UK today.
7. Some celebrity connections: The Sandringham Estate, where the Queen goes for Christmas, is in Norfolk. The Queen Mother used to have a beach hut at Holkham. 2,000 years ago it was home to another queen - Boudicea and the Iceni tribe. Admiral Lord Nelson was born in Burnham Thorpe, and Howard Carter the archaeologist who discovered the tomb of Tutenkhamen grew up in Swaffham. Albert Einstein hid from the Nazis in Norfolk for a time before heading to America. A local legend of a ferocious dog called Black Shuck came to the ears of Arthur Conan Doyle whilst holidaying in Cromer and provided him with the inspiration for The Hound of the Baskervilles. Paul Daniels and Debbie McGee first met at Britannia Pier Theatre in Great Yarmouth.
8. While Norfolk is known for being flat, it does have a few hills. Norfolk's highest point is Beacon Hill (also known as Roman Camp) near West Runton, 338 feet above sea level. Beacon Hill is the highest point in East Anglia.
9. The Norfolk Broads are made up of twelve large and twenty-four small lakes or meres, and were created by the flooding of ancient peat diggings. The Broads are home to Britain's largest butterfly, the Swallowtail butterfly. You can't find swallowtail butterflies anywhere else.
10. Great Yarmouth was once the hub of the herring fishing industry, with over 80 million herring being brought into port in just one day in 1907. There were so many boats that it was said you could walk across the river simply by stepping from one boat to another.