The first history of Newhaven Court and the fascinating inhabitants
who dwelled within.
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 colorful 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.