Newhaven Court: Love, Tragedy, Heroism and Intrigue

Built in 1884 as the grand summer home for the well-connected Locker-Lampson family, the red-brick turreted mansion Newhaven Court once sat high on a windswept hill above Cromer town. Before its dramatic destruction in flames nearly eighty years later, the house played host to such eminent figures as Lord Tennyson, heroic chain-smoking explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton, Winston Churchill, illustrator Kate Greenaway and French brandy-swigging tennis superstar Suzanne Lenglen. It was a home where poets rubbed shoulders with politicians, and aristocracy with artists and authors. There was dance, dining and song, but also family tragedy, hidden love and illicit affairs. Follow Newhaven Court and its colourful inhabitants through the decadent years of the late nineteenth century, the elegant Edwardian era, through the tragedy of the first world war, the roaring twenties, another terrible conflict and the uncertain post war era. AUTHOR: Helen Murray is a history graduate with two decades of experience within the Norfolk Museums Service. She is a keen local historian and writer and an active member of both the Thorpe History Group and Norwich Writers Circle. She has won the Past Search Prize for non-fiction in 2020 and 2021, The Cooper Prize 2021 and was shortlisted for the 2020 Olga Sinclair Prize. She lives in Norwich. 32 b/w illustrations