Ostlers Cottages

The Ostlers Cottages sit just outside Wells-next-the-Sea, a pair of flint-built terraces that look like they've barely changed since Victorian times. These aren't grand or flashy - they're genuinely modest workers' housing, the sort of place you'd walk past without thinking twice if you didn't know what you were looking at.

What makes them worth stopping for is the architecture. The flint work is proper handsome, and there's something quite moving about seeing how ordinary people actually lived during the industrial era. You can see them from the road, and if you're lucky enough to catch them open for a local heritage event, you get a real sense of the cramped quarters and no-nonsense practicality of the period.

They work best as part of a broader Wells-next-the-Sea wander rather than a destination in themselves. Couple them with a walk down to the quay, a pint at one of the harbourside pubs, and maybe a browse through the independent shops. If you're camping at Pinewoods Holiday Park just down the road, this is an easy afternoon detour that adds some local flavour to a coastal break.

Norfolk's full of these sorts of unpretentious historical spots - nothing over-interpreted or gift-shop heavy. The cottages remind you that the county's real story isn't about grand estates; it's about the people who built the place with their own hands.