In winter, however, when the holiday folk are gone, its modern status lies heavy, like a shadow, on one: for then the whole place, given over, body and soul, to providing for visitors, is in doleful dumps. This is the dark reverse of that bright summer picture, and the fact that Cromer’s season is only of eight or ten weeks’ duration means many little domestic miseries. To stand in the empty October streets and meet the last bathing machine being drawn up from the deserted beach to winter quarters; to see the restaurants and tea-shops without customers, and cards offering rooms to let in most of the houses, is to realise that a fisher-village on an open coast, without river or harbour, and consequently no trade, cannot suddenly become a resort without a tragical side to its comedy. I stand on the cliff-top as night shuts down over the North Sea, and I have the place wholly to myself. The hotels have switched on their electric lights, but those rooms, so gay and crowded in August, are now for the most part empty. I am sorry for the Cromer that was, and much more sorry for the Cromer that is. [Illustration: THE END.] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ INDEX Albemarle, 6th Earl of, 201, 220-224 Ambresbury Banks, 55 Archer, Fred, 142-144, 165 Attleborough, 256-61, 264, 265-266 —— Mere, 263 Audley End, 92, 96-102 Aylsham, 315, 316, 326 Balsham Ditch, 116, 123 Barnham, 187-189 Barton Mills, 1, 11, 190, 193, 194, 197, 204 Bishop’s Stortford, 13, 14, 15, 17, 20, 57-66 Blickling, 315, 317-324 —— Hall, 317-322 Bourn Bridge, 121 Boy’s Grave, The, 168 Brent Ditch, 116, 121 Bridgeham, 245 —— High Tree, 245 Bure, River, 326 Bury St. Edmunds, 1, 11, 12, 167, 174-186, 264 Cam, River, 8, 102, 113, 114, 116, 117, 118 Cambridge Heath, 27, 28 Cawston Heath, 325 Chunk Harvey’s Grave, 215 Clapton, Lower, 32, 34 —— Upper, 35, 37 Coaches:— Diligence (Norwich), 3 Expedition (Norwich), 4-9, 297 Express (Norwich and Cromer), 337 Flying Machine (Norwich), 3 Machine (Norwich), 3 Magnet (Norwich), 7-11, 206, 297 Norwich Mail (by Bury and Thetford), 11, 12, 43, 183, 294 Old Stortford (Bishop’s Stortford and London), 13, 65 Phenomenon, or Phenomena (Norwich), 12 Post Coach (Norwich), 3, 297 Safety (Norwich), 12 Stortford (Bishop’s Stortford and London), 66 Telegraph (Norwich), 11, 12 —— (Saffron Walden and London), 13 Unicorn (Norwich and Cromer), 294 Coaching, 12-14, 34, 53, 138, 183, 206, 220-223, 288, 294-297, 336 Coaching Notabilities:— Gilbey, Henry, 65 Horne, Benjamin Worthy, 12 Low, William, 65 Nelson, Robert, 12 Cringleford, 272, 287-291 Cromer, 1, 2, 339-254 Crossdale Street, 328 Culford Park, 186 Deadman’s Slade, 44 “Deserted Railway,” The, 119-121, 123 Devil’s Ditch, 49, 116, 120, 124-129, 130, 133, 156, 258 Devil’s Punch Bowl, 247