The place

Wickmere is a working harbour with six boats still going out of it, a lifeboat station, a shop, a church with a Norman font and a car park that fills by ten on a bank holiday. It is not pretty in the way that gets a village on a biscuit tin, and that is largely why it has stayed as it is.

The building

The Herring House was put up in 1908 by the Wickmere Fish Company to gut, salt and barrel herring, and it did that until 1962. Then it was a boatyard store, then it was nothing at all for eleven years. We took it on in 2014.

Three feet of stone, north-facing windows, and a floor plan designed around barrels rather than beds — which is why none of the four rooms is the same shape and why there is no lift.

Walking

• The harbour wall — two minutes. The ice house at the far end opens on Saturdays in season.
• Wickmere dunes — twenty minutes north. Four miles of sand. Terns nest at the far end from May and the roped-off sections are not optional.
• The saltmarsh — thirty-five minutes, boardwalk from the church. Curlew and redshank all year, geese from October.
• Fennick Point — fifty-five minutes along the coast path. The light is automatic now but the keepers’ cottages and the tea hut are still there. Check the tide table by the door before you go; the last half mile floods.

Weather

It is the North Sea. Bring a coat you do not mind ruining, and something waterproof for your feet. There are spare boots by the back door in most sizes and you are welcome to them.