Southrepps is a village and a

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

in the

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

county of

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...

. The village is southeast of

Cromer Cromer ( ) is a coastal town and civil parish on the north coast of the English county of Norfolk. It is north of Norwich, north-northeast of London and east of Sheringham on the North Sea coastline. The local government authorities are Nor ...

, north of

Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with ...

and north of London. The village lies northeast of the A149 between

Kings Lynn King's Lynn, known until 1537 as Bishop's Lynn and colloquially as Lynn, is a port and market town in the borough of King's Lynn and West Norfolk in the county of Norfolk, England. It is located north of London, north-east of Peterborough, no ...

and Great Yarmouth. The nearest railway station is at Gunton for the Bittern Line which runs between

Sheringham Sheringham (; population 7,367) is an English seaside town within the county of Norfolk, United Kingdom.Ordnance Survey (2002). ''OS Explorer Map 252 - Norfolk Coast East''. . The motto of the town, granted in 1953 to the Sheringham Urban Distr ...

, Cromer and Norwich. The nearest airport is Norwich International Airport. The village is close to the sea and surrounded by rich agricultural land.

Upper and Lower Southrepps

The village is in two halves, separated by a mile of farmland. The halves are known as Upper Southrepps and Lower Southrepps (Upper Street and Lower Street on Ordnance Survey maps).

Geography

Southrepps is built on a low-rise mix of glacial sands and gravels, with expanses of rich till formed from the so-called Cromer Forest Bed created in a warmer period when a great meandering river fringed rank forest vegetation. This surface geology makes for well-drained and fertile soils. Beneath these younger rocks lie chalk beds which come to the surface in a line stretching south from Weybourne and can also be seen on the village's nearest beach at low tide in a chalk pavement between Trimingham and

Sidestrand Sidestrand is a village and a civil parish on the coast of the English county of Norfolk. The village is north of Norwich, south east of Cromer and north-east of London. The nearest railway station is at North Walsham for the Bittern Line whi ...

. The beach here is littered with flint cobbles formed into nodules by chemical replacement of the chalk and eroded into cobbles by wave action. These durable and abundant flint cobbles were collected from the beaches and used as decorative and structural materials in village buildings. Local clays and imported orange pantiles from the Low Countries were used for roofing. Being in the east, sheltered from most of the extreme weather of the Atlantic, from where most of Britain's rainfall comes, Southrepps has amongst the lowest rainfall in the UK, at less than 500 mm per year. The area has a mean temperature of 10 °C, second only to southwest and southeast England. With a south to west wind blowing in summer the temperature easily surpasses 20 °C and exceeds 30 °C on at least a few days every year. Severe frosts are rare because of the proximity of the sea, although in December 2011 the village recorded a low of −13.8 °C. With over 1,550 hours of sunshine annually, it is behind only the south-coast counties and Suffolk, though it can be plagued by low sea cloud in spring and early summer when water vapour held in warm, moist continental air from the east condenses into fog over the comparatively cold

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea, epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the ...

. The village can be in bright sunshine while the lanes to the coast at Trimingham or Overstrand are shrouded in thick mist. The village has several weather stations, one of which is on the Met Office website. Climate and geology have combined to make the area highly productive in various forms of agriculture, arable and sheep farming being predominant from the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

, though the Black Death and

Great Plague The Black Death (also known as the Pestilence, the Great Mortality or the Plague) was a bubonic plague pandemic occurring in Western Eurasia and North Africa from 1346 to 1353. It is the most fatal pandemic recorded in human history, causi ...

led to serious falls in activity. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

agriculture rapidly intensified, and it has remained very intensive since with the establishment of large fields for cereal and root crop growing. Many uprooted trees and hedgerows, however, have been systematically replaced, restoring the traditional appearance of the landscape, due to the efforts of a small number of local farmers and landowners.

Village amenities

The village has two shops and one

public house A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and wa ...

. Its village hall provides a venue for a number of regular users and special events such as receptions for weddings, christenings and funerals, annual village events and other celebrations. It is the meeting place for the Southrepps Society of local historians. The

parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in community activities, ...

, St James, provides for a range of different worship styles. Southrepps has a primary school, Antingham & Southrepps CP.

Organisations

The Southrepps and District Branch of the

Royal British Legion The Royal British Legion (RBL), formerly the British Legion, is a British charity providing financial, social and emotional support to members and veterans of the British Armed Forces, their families and dependants, as well as all others in ...

has a membership of some 30 plus. It meets quarterly at the Vernon Arms. Local bell-ringers meet and practise at 7.30 pm on Wednesday at the parish church. The Southrepps Society was formed in 1979 to celebrate and conserve all that is best in Southrepps. The Memories Project started in 2006, its objective to present the Society's archive in an easily accessible form and to engage the village in these community-based Memories Events and Exhibitions. Its current project is a detailed survey of the history of agricultural land use in the area which the local school is participating in. There is a long-established Southrepps and District Women's Group. The group meets on the third Tuesday of every month at nearby Thorpe Market Village Hall. There is also a Women's Reading Group. The Village Fayre Committee came together to organise the highly acclaimed Summer Fayres of 2007 and 2009, the first for a number of years. They succeeded in attracting a huge number of visitors and raised substantial funds for local charities and for pump-priming other events aimed at bringing villagers together, such as the Carols-Round-The-Four-Village-Trees event during December which itself raises funds for a local children's hospice. Every summer the Southrepps Classical Music Festival brings international singers and players to the village to showcase a wide repertoire of classical genres. The musicians are hosted by 30 village families.

Southrepps Common

Southrepps Common is a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest and a Local Nature Reserve. It covers an area of 12.4 hectares. It can be found in Lower Southrepps. The site supports

woodland A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with trees, or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the ''plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade (se ...

reedbed A reedbed or reed bed is a natural habitat found in floodplains, waterlogged depressions and estuaries. Reedbeds are part of a succession from young reeds colonising open water or wet ground through a gradation of increasingly dry ground. As ...

s and many species of grass and wild flowers. There is an 800-metre

boardwalk A boardwalk (alternatively board walk, boarded path, or promenade) is an elevated footpath, walkway, or causeway built with wooden planks that enables pedestrians to cross wet, fragile, or marshy land. They are also in effect a low type of brid ...

which allows access to the most interesting and important parts of the reserve for

wheelchair A wheelchair is a chair with wheels, used when walking is difficult or impossible due to illness, injury, problems related to old age, or disability. These can include spinal cord injuries ( paraplegia, hemiplegia, and quadriplegia), cerebr ...

s and all other members of the public. The diverse habitats support an exceptional range of species and it also has "Special Area of Conservation" status. Across the site there are over 160 plant species including some small

orchid Orchids are plants that belong to the family Orchidaceae (), a diverse and widespread group of flowering plants with blooms that are often colourful and fragrant. Along with the Asteraceae, they are one of the two largest families of flowerin ...

species. List of plants include: * Parnassus grass (''Parnassia'') * Bog pimpernel (''Anagallis tenella'') * Flea sedge (''Carex pulicaris'') * Common cottongrass (''Eriophorum angustifolium'') * Marsh helleborine (''Epipactis palustris'') * Bogbean (''Menyanthes'') *

Marsh marigold ''Caltha palustris'', known as marsh-marigold and kingcup, is a small to medium size perennial herbaceous plant of the buttercup family, native to marshes, fens, ditches and wet woodland in temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. It flower ...

(''Caltha palustris'') There is a large variety of nesting birds across the reserve such as

reed warblers The ''Acrocephalus'' warblers are small, insectivorous passerine birds belonging to the genus ''Acrocephalus''. Formerly in the paraphyletic Old World warbler assemblage, they are now separated as the namesake of the marsh and tree warbler fami ...

reed bunting The common reed bunting (''Emberiza schoeniclus'') is a passerine bird in the bunting family Emberizidae, a group now separated by most modern authors from the finches, Fringillidae. The genus name ''Emberiza'' is from Old German ''Embritz'', a ...

, and

sedge warbler The sedge warbler (''Acrocephalus schoenobaenus'') is an Old World warbler in the genus '' Acrocephalus''. It is a medium-sized warbler with a brown, streaked back and wings and a distinct pale supercilium. Sedge warblers are migratory, crossing ...

. The woodland areas are habitat of such birds as

greater spotted woodpecker The great spotted woodpecker (''Dendrocopos major'') is a medium-sized woodpecker with pied black and white plumage and a red patch on the lower belly. Males and young birds also have red markings on the neck or head. This species is found acros ...

nuthatch The nuthatches () constitute a genus, ''Sitta'', of small passerine birds belonging to the family Sittidae. Characterised by large heads, short tails, and powerful bills and feet, nuthatches advertise their territory using loud, simple songs. M ...

treecreeper The treecreepers are a family, Certhiidae, of small passerine birds, widespread in wooded regions of the Northern Hemisphere and sub-Saharan Africa. The family contains eleven species in two genera, '' Certhia'' and '' Salpornis''. Their plumage ...

, barn owl and

tawny owl The tawny owl (''Strix aluco''), also called the brown owl, is commonly found in woodlands across Europe to western Siberia, and has seven recognized subspecies. It is a stocky, medium-sized owl, whose underparts are pale with dark streaks, a ...

. The stream that runs through the common is called Fox's Beck. The stream is shallow, free-flowing and supports several species of

snail A snail is, in loose terms, a shelled gastropod. The name is most often applied to land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs. However, the common name ''snail'' is also used for most of the members of the molluscan class G ...

, caddis fly and dragonfly, with water voles living along the banks. Fox's Beck and the common until quite recently had

common rights Group rights, also known as collective rights, are rights held by a group '' qua'' a group rather than individually by its members; in contrast, individual rights are rights held by individual people; even if they are group-differentiated, which ...

attached to certain properties in the Southrepps and other rights of common included

turbary Turbary is the ancient right to cut turf, or peat, for fuel on a particular area of bog. The word may also be used to describe the associated piece of bog or peatland and, by extension, the material extracted from the turbary. Turbary rights, whic ...

(peat cutting), estovers (firewood and bedding for livestock) and piscary (fishing).

Livestock Livestock are the domesticated animals raised in an agricultural setting to provide labor and produce diversified products for consumption such as meat, eggs, milk, fur, leather, and wool. The term is sometimes used to refer solely to animal ...

could be grazed and many other natural resources were exploited, such as reed cutting for

thatch Thatching is the craft of building a roof with dry vegetation such as straw, water reed, sedge (''Cladium mariscus''), rushes, heather, or palm branches, layering the vegetation so as to shed water away from the inner roof. Since the bulk of ...

; alder and hazel were

coppiced Coppicing is a traditional method of woodland management which exploits the capacity of many species of trees to put out new shoots from their stump or roots if cut down. In a coppiced wood, which is called a copse, young tree stems are repeate ...

for tool handles, twigs were collected for the use of broom heads and willow was cut for use in screens.

Notable people

John Dolphin John Robert Vernon Dolphin (1 October 19052 May 1973) was a British engineer and inventor, who joined the Secret Intelligence Service and then became the Commanding Officer of the top-secret Second World War Special Operations Executive (SOE) " ...

(1837–1899), cricketer and clergyman, born at Southrepps

References

{{authority control Villages in Norfolk Southrepps Common Local Nature Reserves in Norfolk Civil parishes in Norfolk North Norfolk