Norfolk notes - the Golden Cludgie

A posh pub toilet. Note serious portraits of mildly disapproving chaps, to make sure you don't get up to any funny business.

Seaside toilets are usually pretty basic. Let's face it, they have to be. Not only are they designed to resist all the normal perils of public convinces, such as regular use by members of the public, many on whom have a diet that is best described as 'harrowing' and of course serving as meeting places for those who are slaves to forbidden love (actually there's not much that's actually forbidden these days so it's actually quite romantic to think of homosexualists taking the time and effort to bum each other in an uncomfortable location rather than meet in some lovely boutique B&B somewhere), but in addition they have to resist the winds and elements that assail them from the outside.

When you think about it it's a wonder that seaside loos exist at all, a council would be quite justified in just providing a shovel and a sign pointing to a location on the beach below the high tide line.

The loos at Brancaster beach could be described as either 'basic', 'grim' or 'an affront' depending on what your expectations of a loo are. Suffice to say there are no little chaps ready with a towel and a squirt of cologne lurking here. There is a sign that advises wind surfers not to get changed in the loos but frankly they appear to have come to the decision themselves that peeling off a wetsuit in the car park in full view of everyone is less traumatic than walking into the gloomy loos with bare feet. It's the sort of place one visits with elbows in, trying not to make contact with anything.

The loos at Old Hunstanton are somewhat better.


Clean, light and airy they still preserve a seaside charm by having small mounds of sand from the beach piled up in the corners.

Away from the public eye, the loo in the Crown in Wells has soap so posh that I can't afford it at home. Another Flying Kiwi inn, the Ship at Brancaster, has a hand basin that is essentially a horse trough.



This is an attempt to capture a rustic, ancient feel; something effortlessly achieved at the public loos on the beach at Brancaster through the simple application of use, abuse and a total absence of bleach and fresh paint.

But the award for this year's Golden Cludgie, that is, the most outstanding loo visited this trip, goes to the ladies' loo at the Hoste Arms. Despite access being via a flight of stairs so steep that you expect the provision of a funicular or at least a guide to rope on to, and despite the lavish provision of the ladies being at the expense of sacrifices of space in the gents, this triumph of marble and alabaster has it all - a huge vase of lilies on a free standing table in the centre of the room, stools in front of a huge, well lit mirror and counter for adjusting hair and make up and a collection of toiletries that would put a clean freak to shame. It certainly had the wow factor, as in: 'wow! I can't believe that anyone I know would actually make a point of hissing 'take a look at this!' and then holding the door to a ladies' loo ajar for me to gawp'. This is the sort of situation that leads to either farcical hilarity when performed by a touring rep company on the stage of a provincial theatre, or a court appearance and having your name top of the list of the sex offenders register.