Back To Sheringham, The North Norfolk Railway, And The Moore Family

Today, we're returning back to Sheringham after a most successful visit to Oxted and Woldingham.  I was up and about by 7:30, packed and on my way to the Oxted train station for 9:00 to get back to Norwich and Sheringham via London Town.

To give you an idea of the ups and downs in the area, here’s a photo of the train bridge.  I’ve just descended from my B&B, The Croft, which is half as high up again as the bridge.  Turning left at the red light and then right, I now have to ascend the hill to get up to the level of the bridge and the train station. Not too bad when it's all downhill but it's the uphill part that was getting to me.  And all of Oxted is like this -up-and-down, up-and-down, up-and-down.  And not a level piece of land in sight. 

Train travel around England is very cheap.  My fare from Oxted to London Victoria station was £7.95 return.  To Sheringham from London and return was £28.65.  In all cases, I was using my Senior’s Railcard which I had renewed for £28.00.  This automatically gives me 1/3rd off all train fares.  Combine that with off-peak or advance-purchase travel and the savings are even more. 

There is, however, one drawback to getting the cheapest fares (usually off-peak travel).  You can’t travel during the peak periods.  In this case, I had to wait until 10:23 to catch the first off-peak train from Oxted.  Off-peak hours vary between stations and depend on the volume of traffic.  The closer one is to London, the later is the start of off-peak travel.  But, since I was in no rush, my cheap-fare ticket was the ideal way to travel.  And besides, you don’t want to be a tourist travelling on the train in rush hour traffic!!

My trip back to Sheringham would be broken down into 4 distinct phases

1. Oxted to London Victoria Railway Station by train
2. London Victoria Railway Station to London Liverpool Railway Station by London's Underground
3. London Liverpool St Railway Station to Norwich Railway Station by train
4. Norwich Railway Station to Sheringham Railway Station by train

Parts 1, 3, and 4 would be relatively easy.  It was Part 2 - getting from Victoria Railway Station to Liverpool St on the Underground - that could be tricky.  One could very easily get on the wrong subway train and end up in Timbuktu.  To show you what I mean, take a look at the map below.  The map below is only a small piece of the London Underground.

Leaving Oxted at 10:23, I arrived at London Victoria train station at 11:05.  With a “pit stop” along the way, I made my way to the London Underground’s Circle line, hopped on the next subway (the correct one this time!), and arrived at London Liverpool Street train station at 11:45.  I quickly got into the ticket line up, bought my ticket (£28.65 return) and hopped on the 12:00 train to Norwich.  I started this blog and then sat back to enjoy the 2-hour trip. 

I arrived in Norwich at 13:55 but had just missed the 13:45 train to Sheringham.  It was a short 45 minute wait for the next train. This is the route that I had travelled so far.  

I could either continue with Plan A - return to Sheringham to pick up the book on the history of Letheringsett from the Library, or resort to Plan B - visit the Norfolk Archives.  I decided to continue with Plan A and return to Sheringham and the library,

The weather had turned cooler with temps about 16C compared to the 28C we had on the weekend.  The clouds were gathering in the sky and it looked as if we might have rain for tomorrow.  The weather so far has been sunny and relatively cool.   Nice weather for trekking around the countryside. 

The trip to Sheringham went quickly by.  The 100 fatted bunny rabbits hadn’t yet come out as the common was full of school kids playing cricket and soccer.  On arriving in Sheringham, I trekked down to the library to see if my Letheringsett history book was in.  Eureka!!  It was there. 

Well, that’s what I wrote in advance while waiting for the train in Norfolk.  As I turned the corner and walked towards the library, all was quiet in front.  No people going in or out.  The library was closed.  On Wednesday afternoons the library closes at 1:30.  I had to wait until Thursday morning to get my book.

So now I had to resort to Plan C.  Problem though was that there was no Plan C.  So I had to improvise.  I had accumulated a bit of dirty laundry so I thought it might be a good idea to get that done in advance of the long holiday weekend - Friday to Monday.  I went up to Camberley House to drop off my things and then hauled my laundry down to the launderette and washed my dirty socks and linens. 

While there, I ended up talking to a British ex-pat who had lived in the United States for the last 30 years and who spends summers in Norfolk and winters in Florida.  She had taken a cruise ship from Florida to England as she doesn’t like to fly.  On the way over, she came down with a flu bug and visited the ship’s doctor.  Cost was $360 for the visit and 2 pills.  She hadn’t shaken the flu in the last week so she visited a doctor here.  Cost of the visit and a full prescription? £0.00!!  She couldn’t believe it. She’s on Medicaid in the US which covers 70% of her medical costs.  She pays $300 a month for coverage for the other 30%.  Her daughter who lives in Sacramento pays $1,000 a month.  She hadn’t seen Michael Moore’s movie “Sicko”. 

After Plan C (do the laundry), I implemented Plan D - Dinner at The Lobster where I had a nice baked North Sea sea bass, new field potatoes, stir fry and a pint.  As I was finishing a group of people walked in and started to talk municipal politics.  It was the mayor and councillors of the Town of Sheringham.  Introduced myself ("Hello, I'm Bob Moore from Canada")..  The Mayor and I exchanged business cards.  "Oh yes, "Railway Bob"" he said as he read my card.  "Yes, I've heard about you!". 

Now whether 'twas polite
or perhaps renowned  
Word is out
That Railway Bob's in town!

While not a very eventful day, I had managed to get from the south end of London back up to the north east end and back up to Sheringham without too much of an incident.  Tomorrow we’re off to the Sheringham library and then on to the Norfolk Archives in Norwich to do some more research on the Moore family.  Hopefully I’ll be able to pinpoint the residences in Letheringsett, Little Thornage and Holt where the Moore family used to live back in the early 1800s.