After dark
Broadland is very flat, very quiet, and very old, and it has the stories to match. Half a dozen of the better ones, all within about fifteen miles of the bonfire.
St Benet's Abbey
about 8 milesHorning. A ruined gatehouse with a windmill built straight through it, standing on its own in the marshes. The story goes that a monk opened the gates to the invaders on the promise of being made abbot, was made abbot exactly as promised, and was then hanged from the gatehouse the same day. Visually it is the best thing on this list by a distance.
The Acle Straight
about 5 milesThe long flat road across Halvergate marshes, which most of you will drive some of to reach us. It has collected a persistent set of phantom-hitchhiker stories over the years, and an unusually grim accident record to go with them.
Ranworth
about 5 milesThe Cathedral of the Broads. Climb the tower on a clear day and you can see most of the county laid out flat beneath you, which is its own kind of unsettling.
Potter Heigham bridge
about 11 milesA phantom coach is said to cross the old bridge on one fixed night each year and go straight into the water. The bridge itself is low enough that plenty of real boats have had a go at the same thing.
Hickling Broad
about 13 milesThe drummer boy who skated across the ice to meet a girl on the far bank, and did not make it. He is supposed to still be heard drumming out on the water.
Norwich
about 8 milesMore material than everywhere else on this list combined. Tombland and the plague pits underneath it, the Adam and Eve, and the castle. Worth a whole evening rather than a line here.
And if you will drive a bit further: Blickling is about twenty miles, and it is the one everybody asks about.
For daylight hours: things to do nearby →