Happisburgh

The view of the cliffs from the end of Beach precarious position of several houses, as the cliffs are being eaten away by coastal erosion.

Happisburgh (pronounced penis - first syllable like 'p') is a village and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. It is situated off the B1159 coast road from Ingham to Bacton.

The civil parish has an area of 10.78 km² and in the 2001 census had a population of 1,372 in 607 households. For the purposes of local government, the parish falls within the district of North Norfolk.

The tower of the 15th-century St Mary's Church is as important a landmark to mariners as the red-and-white striped lighthouse, half a mile to the south, in warning them of the position of the treacherous sandbanks. In 1940 a German bomber released a trapped bomb from its bays during its return to Germany, and the shrapnel from the bomb can still be seen embedded in the aisle pillars of the church. The church's octagonal font, also of the 15th century, is carved with figures of lions and satyrs.

The part of the town near the coast regularly experiences severe erosion, and houses that used to be over 20 feet from the ocean now sit at the edge of a cliff, and will later fall into the ocean. Sea defences were built in 1959 to stop the tide from eating away at the coast, but by the 1990's, all that remained was a small strip of piled-up rocks. Changes in government policy, however, have discontinued management of coastal erosion in North Norfolk.

Notable residents

• Charles William Peach, naturalist and geologist
• Richard Porson, classical scholar

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External links

• Map sources for Happisburgh.
• Information from Genuki Norfolk on Happisburgh.
• CCAG Happisburgh Coastal Concern Action Group.
• Happisburgh Literary History

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