Hunstanton

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Old Hunstanton and Hunstanton are an adjoining town and village on the Norfolk coast. Known for being one of the few (or only) places on the east coast in England where the sun can be seen to set over the sea, the two pl

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Introduction

Seaside town in Norfolk, England For other uses, see Hunstanton (disambiguation). Human settlement in EnglandHunstantonView of Hunstanton front from the beachHunstantonLocation within NorfolkPopulation4,370 (Parish, 2021)4,193 (Built up area, 2021)OS grid referenceTF6740Civil parishHunstantonDistrictKing's Lynn and West NorfolkShire countyNorfolkRegionEastCountryEnglandSovereign stateUnited KingdomPost townHunstantonPostcode districtPE36Dialling code01485PoliceNorfolkFireNorfolkAmbulanceEast of England UK ParliamentNorth West Norfolk List of places UK England Norfolk 52°56′N 0°29′E / 52.93°N 0.48°E / 52.93; 0.48 Hunstanton (sometimes pronounced /ˈhʌnstən/ ⓘ) is a seaside town and civil parish in the King's Lynn and West Norfolk district, in the county of Norfolk, England. The town's seafront faces west across The Wash. Hunstanton lies 102 miles (164 km) north-north-east of London and 40 miles (64 km) north-west of Norwich. At the 2021 census, the parish had a population of 4,370 and the built-up area had a population of 4,193.

Etymology and pronunciation

[edit] The original settlement, now Old Hunstanton, probably gained its name from the River Hun, which runs to the coast just to the east. It has also been argued that the name originated from "Honeystone", referring to the local red carrstone. The town's name is often pronounced "Hunstan"; "Hunston" (the emphasis is placed upon the vowel of the first syllable). Peter Trudgill suggests that in the 8th Century CE Hunstanton was called hunstans-tūn, meaning 'the homestead of Hunstan', but that this three-syllable pronunciation "eventually and quite naturally acquired a more reduced form, Hunst'nt'n, which was later further reduced to Hunst'n". He writes that the original form would "most certainly not come down to us as Hun-STAN-ton - that is a modern mistake". The "authentic old three-syllable pronunciation" is, he asserts, "HUN-st'n-t'n"

History

[edit] Remains of St Edmund's Memorial Chapel in 2016 Hunstanton is a 19th-century resort town, initially known as New Hunstanton to distinguish it from the adjacent village of that name. The new town soon exceeded the village in scale and population. In 1846, Henry L'Estrange Styleman Le Strange (1815–1862), decided to develop the area south of Old Hunstanton as a bathing resort. He brought a group of like-minded investors into building a railway line from King's Lynn. In 1861, Le Strange, as principal landowner, became a director of the railway company. By 1862 the line had been built. Le Strange died that year at the age of 47, leaving his son Hamon to reap the rewards of his efforts. The Lynn and Hunstanton Railway became one of the most consistently profitable in the country. Le Strange moved the ancient village cross from Old Hunstanton to a new site in 1846. In 1848 the first main building, the Royal Hotel (now the Golden Lion), was built by Victorian architect, William Butterfield, a friend of Le Strange. Overlooking a sloping green and the sea, and for several years standing alone, it earned the nickname "Le Strange's Folly". In 1850 Le Strange, an amateur architect and painter, appointed a land agent to survey the site and prepare a plan. Le Strange drew and painted a map and a perspective of the scheme, showing shops, a station and a church. He consulted William Butterfield on the design. Their shared passion was for an "Old English" style of architecture for domestic buildings, owing much to medieval precedents and the earnest Victorian Gothic Revival. Hunstanton came to exemplify a 19th-century estate seaside town. Most of the fabric and character of that development survives. In 1915, during the First World War, Hunstanton was the headquarters of the West Norfolk training programme of the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders, as they prepared for active service on the Western Front. Among them were regimental bagpiper Iain Eairdsidh MacAsgaill (1898-1934), and poet Dòmhnall Ruadh Chorùna (1887-1967). Hunstanton was hit badly by the North Sea flood of 1953. The wall of water on the night of 31 January – 1 February killed 31 people, 16 of them United States military personnel and their families. There were 35 more victims in neighbouring Snettisham and Heacham.

Governance

[edit] Hunstanton Town Hall and the statue of Henry Styleman Le Strange There are three tiers of local government covering Hunstanton, at parish (town), district, and county level: Hunstanton Town Council, the Borough Council of King's Lynn and West Norfolk, and Norfolk County Council. The town council is based at Hunstanton Town Hall on The Green. Administrative history[edit] The new town of Hunstanton grew up in the 19th century within the ancient parish of Hunstanton. In 1891, a local government district called Hunstanton was created just covering the part of the parish around the growing new town. The district was then administered by an elected local board, which first met in May 1891. Under the Local Government Act 1894, such districts were reconstituted as urban districts. The 1894 Act also directed that civil parishes could no longer straddle district boundaries, and so the part of the old parish within the Hunstanton Urban District became a separate parish called New Hunstanton. In 1896 the Hunstanton Urban District was renamed New Hunstanton Urban District. The boundaries between the urban district and neighbouring parishes were adjusted in 1902, 1925, and 1928. In the 1928 boundary changes, most of the village of Old Hunstanton was transferred from Hunstanton parish into the New Hunstanton Urban District, leaving the Hunstanton parish primarily covering the estate of Hunstanton Hall. In 1953 the neighbouring parish of Hunstanton was renamed Old Hunstanton, despite most of the village of that name being within the New Hunstanton Urban District. The following year, 1954, the urban district's name was changed back from New Hunstanton to just Hunstanton. Hunstanton Urban District was abolished in 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972. A successor parish called Hunstanton was created covering the area of the former urban district, with its parish council taking the name Hunstanton Town Council. The boundary between Hunstanton and Old Hunstanton parishes was adjusted in 2007 to transfer the main part of Old Hunstanton village (which had been in Hunstanton parish) to the parish of Old Hunstanton.

Culture

[edit] The Princess Theatre is a 472-seat, year-round venue for shows from comedy to drama, music for all tastes, and children's productions. It also has a six-week summer season and an annual Christmas pantomime. Films are screened in the week. Opened as the Capitol Cinema in 1932, it is noted for its Norfolk carrstone construction, of which it contains the largest gable wall in existence. It was designed as a theatre as well as a cinema, but closed in the 1960s and was sold in 1974. It reopened as the Kingsley Centre for summer seasons and films for about two years, but declined into a bingo hall before closing again. The Borough Council of King's Lynn and West Norfolk purchased it in 1981, and in honour of Lady Diana Spencer, who married the Prince of Wales in July 1981, it was renamed the Princess Theatre and officially re-opened on 5 July 1981. Hunstanton Concert Band plays in and around Hunstanton at a wide variety of venues including churches, fêtes, concerts and the town's bandstand. The Deaf Havana album Fools and Worthless Liars featured a track called "Hunstanton Pier", a nostalgic recollection of the town where James Veck-Gilodi, its lead singer, grew up. Literary associations[edit] Wreck of the Sheraton Between the world wars, P. G. Wodehouse often visited his friend Charles Le Strange at Hunstanton Hall. It influenced a number of locations in his comic novels, as Aunt Agatha's country seat Woollam Chersey and the inspiration for the setting for Money for Nothing (1928). The octagon in the garden featured in "Jeeves and the Impending Doom". Norfolk also furnishes names for many of Wodehouse's characters, such as Brancaster, Jack Snettisham and J. Sheringham Adair. L. P. Hartley knew the Hunstanton neighbourhood from childhood holidays and used it as a setting for The Shrimp and the Anemone (1944), the first novel in his Eustace and Hilda trilogy. It is at Hunstanton Hall, fictionalised as Anchorstone Hall, that Eustace enters the privileged world of the aristocracy and eventually inherits a small fortune. The layered chalk, red chalk and carr-stone cliffs at Hunstanton provide a backdrop for Eustace and Hilda's games among the rock pools. Patrick Hamilton's novel Hangover Square opens with George Harvey Bone walking on the cliffs in Hunstanton. Hamilton lived for many years at Martincross in Sheringham and spent time in the 1930s in a cottage in Burnham Overy Staithe, with his first wife, Lois.

Hunstanton

From Wikipedia

Introduction

Etymology and pronunciation

History

Governance

Demographics

Geology

Climate

Tourism

Hunstanton Pier

Transport

Education

Culture

Media

Sport

Notable people

Arms