North Norfolk has long been a destination for bird watchers from across the UK and abroad. While some species require a degree of expertise and a good dose of luck to spot (recent examples – bluethroat, booted eagle, and rosefinch), other rare species can now be easily seen.

Spoonbills are one of the latest species to become well established, and now from around Easter to late summer, they can reliably be seen from Holkham to Cley.

Early in the year they can be seen collecting twigs and reeds to take back to their tree-top nests, and around now, their young ‘teaspoons’ are joining them on the reserves to feed and preen.

Another success story for the local reserves is the increasing numbers of Great White Egrets. While it was uncommon to see even one a few years back, I watched as five settled just outside the hide for an early evening preen this week.

When you stay at Oak Tree cottage you are within half an hour of some of the country’s top bird watching spots. We even provide the binoculars if you don’t have any!

It’s not just birds either. Keep you an eye on the fields for hares – often hunkered down in shallow scrapes during the day, and more active in the early evenings. A walk from the cottage towards Stody church on a summer an evening is a good bet. And keep an eye out for deer from the bedroom windows in the morning.

Sitting on the edge of the village, Oaktree cottage has always been a classic Norfolk hideaway.

Originally it occupied a much larger plot, with its own well, and enough land to form a self-contained hideaway. We can see this from the earliest tithe maps, to aerial photographs taken in World War Two…

Some time after the end of WW2 the cottage fell into disrepair, and we’re told by previous owners that it was again rescued and restored as a Norfolk Hideaway by a couple who were doctors in a London hospital. They clearly loved North Norfolk, as they put a lot of love and effort into the restoration, and of course the roads from London were nothing like they are today.

We suspect that it was during this renovation that the kitchen and bathroom extension was added. There are no planning records from the time, but we believe that the original stairs would have been a ‘Norfolk Winder’ in one of the alcoves by the fireplace, and the footprint of the building would have basically been the lounge and the bedrooms.

The kitchen, bathrooms, and staircase were all added at this time, with the stairs now taking you outside of the original building, stepping back into the old house when you enter the bedrooms.

The cottage was then home to a builder who divided the plot, and built a much larger home on what would have been the smallholding. Sadly they also had to remove the ancient oak which gave the cottage its name to make room for the house, although the ‘small’ oak at the front of that house must be at least 120 years old.

Finally the cottage was a retirement home for the couple that we bought it from, before they moved to a flat by the coast.

Our story began in the late early 2000’s. I’d grown up near Holt, and still have family in the area. A degree in Electronics and Telecoms meant that I ended up working in London, and the Berkshire, and living in Surrey, but a love for North Norfolk led us to seek our own Norfolk Hideaway, which we’re now proud to share with you.

It has been, and continues to be a challenging time for all of us. Thankfully neither we or any of the cleaning team have been directly impacted, but of course it changes the way we do things.
Our cleaning company were on the ball, and invested in anti-viral foggers back in March 2020 which means that the cottage gets a good fogging on every changeover. Even so, we’d rather put safety ahead of profit, and so decided to keep a buffer week between bookings. The best advice we’ve found tells us that the virus can survive for up to 3 days on some surfaces (stainless steel being one), but much less on more absorbent surfaces. This means that our buffer week allows the cleaner to visit on Tuesday, 3 days after guests have left, and four days before the next guests arrive.

We’re also being as fair as we can with refunds and cancellations for bookings made since the start of the pandemic, as we appreciate that you can’t get insurance that will cover Covid related cancellations any more. If we are locked-down and can’t accept guests, then you will get a refund.

It’s been a long time since we posted – mostly because things have settled into a pleasant routine.

Just a quick note though, to say that we have now added prices and availability for 2017.  A few dates have already gone – so if you have a preferred date then please get in quick!