HOLKHAM HALL AND HUNSTANTON in NORFOLK

Back from our time with family in Luxembourg and, as promised, here are some more sketches from my weekend trip with Anita to the north Norfolk coast.

We spent the whole day Sunday at Holkham Hall finishing with a yummy pub/hotel dinner on the way back to our caravan.

This is a sketch of part of the mansion I enjoyed doing in pen late afternoon seated on a rise above Holkham Hall and sharing the bench with us amongst the trees was a magnificent bronze seated figure of Thomas Coke (pronounced Cook) the founder of the family fortunes and builder of the house in the 1750's. This is a classic 18th century Palladian style mansion with many artistic treasures and home to seven Earls of Leicester. Other delights are the deer park with many interesting architectural features from an obelisk to an ice house and church and a large lake.

please click to enlarge for detail

Here are the last two sketches on Saturday evening as the sun went down, leaving some delightful skies. We stopped off at Hunstanton lighthouse and walked down onto the beach for a quick standing up sketch and some photos of the sunset but it was getting cold and blowy.





We walked up the slope to see the lighthouse in more detail and found this little expanse of clifftop grass with a round flowerbed and a wolf made of twigs beside three slim young silver birch saplings. When Anita kindly went back to fetch the car, I sat on a bench and quickly put this next sketch together as the light disappeared leaving a pinkish glow.

I added the colours to both pen sketches when we got back to the caravan. They were sketched in my new soft cream suede bound journal, rather like a Moleskin to look at but made by Derwent I purchased from my village gallery for £7.