AT A GLANCE
- Accessible by train (a rare treat for north Norfolk)
- The perfect location for getting on the Broads
- Easy and affordable to hire boats
- The sprawling Roys retail outlets are without comparison
- A viable sunny-day alternative to the beach
I have lived in Norfolk all of my life and still have no idea how to best describe Wroxham. It refuses to be pigeon-holed. It refuses to be pigeon-hole-able. In some ways, it has a stately calm. In others, the gaudiness of Great Yarmouth. Add in its 1950s American Mid-West retail stores and you’ve got a quirky proposition all round.
For its oddness alone, Wroxham is a must-visit. And the easiest way to visit it is by hopping on the Bittern Line from Norwich. The station name is actually ‘Hoveton & Wroxham’, for reasons that are far too dull to get into here. (Long story short: the two villages overlap so messily that you can crash Google Maps just by typing either location in.)
Compared to some of the county’s train-less ghosts towns, the handful of locales lucky enough to be served by north Norfolk’s premiere/only branchline lead a more bountiful existence. Cromer and Sheringham are the obvious examples, but Wroxham is another to have its pockets routinely swelled by train-riding tourists. (There was a second track in Wroxham once, connecting it to Aylsham. Today it plays host to a mini-railway and is well worth a ride – click here for more.)
Once you arrive in Wroxham village centre, the first question you’ll ask as you survey its sweep of suburban-style American retail outlets is, ‘Why isn’t this a town?’ And the second is, ‘Who the hell is Roy?’
The word Roys (sans apostrophe) is writ large on almost every property in the village centre: Roys Food Hall, Roys Toy Shop, Roys Gardening & Furniture, Roys Colonic Irrigation Centre. It’s only a question of time before punters hire boats for a ride along Roys Norfolk Broads, or get an unexplained rash checked out at Roys Wellbeing Clinic.
The endeavour started in the late 19th century with two brothers – Alfred and Arnold Roy – selling fruit to holidaymakers from a small store in nearby Coltishall. As the company grew, the brothers moved into the big leagues (in village shop terms, I must stress), setting up their new store on the broads and calling it – wait for it – Roys of Wroxham.
In the 1930s, Roys won a competition that allowed the business to officially call itself the ‘The World’s Largest Village Store’. Whether the claim was true, no such competition has occurred since and they have gladly kept the moniker.
The always-thrilling Women’s Institute Book of Norfolk Villages paints a heart-warming picture of Roys in the middle part of the last century:
‘On its long mahogany counters, complete with brass scales, tea, coffee and sugar were displayed in lovely decorated containers and weighed to the customers’ requirements. Bacon was cut thick or thin by hand and all was personal service and no hurrying.’
Today’s Roys of Wroxham has less of the homespun, Walton’s-mountain feel detailed above, and is more of a zany, mid-50s Americana department store. It’s the sort of shop you might see in a Wes Anderson film. Except, instead of its departments being on different floors, they are in different buildings, on different sides of different streets. (My favourite is the short-lived menswear department of the late 90s named, I kid you not, RoyZone.)
The only noteworthy imposter on the Roys turf is McDonald’s. But even that dwells safely within the confines of Roys Food Hall. I haven’t checked whether there’s a Roy-nald McDonald, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the idea was mooted at some point.
Roys is a Harrods for people that would never go to Harrods. I include myself in that. God bless it. Need a cushioned dinner tray with pictures of chickens on? Or some Live-Laugh-Love wall art? Then, my dears, Roys is the place for you. As their website proudly proclaims, ‘A visit to Roys is almost a day out in itself.’
Almost. I love that caveat.
When I went to Roys recently, I was somewhat alarmed by how quiet its main store was. Literally ten or fifteen elderly women – all wearing white, long-sleeved tops with thin horizontal blue stripes – were drifting around silently, as around thirty or so staff – all wearing white, long-sleeved tops with thin horizontal blue stripes – watched on. I hope it was just an off day. I don’t want to live in a world where Roys of Wroxham nervously check their books.
Most people don’t visit Wroxham to shop, of course. They generally bypass the Roys estate and head for the water. Wroxham calls itself both the capital of, and gateway to, the Norfolk Broads. Although David Bowie suggested you might see mice in their million hoards there, the actual numbers aren’t quite so thriving since the 1970s, when overseas package holidays became affordable. Regardless, there is still a sizeable clientele for dayboat hire. From Wroxham, you can easily navigate deep into Norfolk’s famed waters.
Because the Broads were man-made (Google it – now’s not the time to lumber you with tales of medieval peat excavation), they are better behaved than natural waterways and generally less inclined to chuck your boat about and make you yearn for the safety of home. Should you choose to spend the day on the Broads, drifting between its banks of woodland, you may soon forget you’re in England altogether. It’s only the threat of a missed train that anchors you to reality.
Norfolk beaches can all too easily get clogged up on hot days. You can’t park. You can’t get a seat in a cafe. You queue hours for everything and anything. I’ve always found that Wroxham, meanwhile, is strangely immune to the sunshine. Its numbers remain steady, whatever the weather. Aside from Roys, it has plenty of knockabout, open-fronted shops specialising in inflatables and souvenirs, dishing out Mr Whippy ice creams and hot doughnuts on the side. Wroxham has all the thrills of the seaside, without the hassle of the masses.
Some will recognise the Wroxham waterways from the I’m Alan Partridge episode in which the eponymous Partridge has a cow thrown onto him from atop a bridge. Slightly more highbrow, the Swallows & Amazons writer, Arthur Ransome, loved the Broads and wrote about it in several books. It’s worth visiting the area for a pilgrimage in celebration of either of these cultural touchstones.
Should my own writing career prove less successful than Ransome’s, I have a back-up business idea up a sleeve: a dating app for local male singles. The name?
Norfolk Broads.
If all goes well, I’ll sell it to the Roys estate and sail off into the sunset. Starting, of course, at Wroxham.
The Norfolk Writer 