Newhaven Court

'This is the house by Cromer town ...' 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. Before its dramatic destruction in flames nearly eighty years later, the house played host to such eminent figures as Sir Winston Churchill, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Sir Ernest Shackleton, illustrator Kate Greenaway and French 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 and hidden love. Follow the true story of Newhaven Court and its colourful inhabitants from the decadent years of the late nineteenth century and the elegant Edwardian era, through the tragedy of the First World War and terrible conflict of the Second to the roaring twenties and the uncertain post-war age.

Helen Murray is a historian, author and public speaker with a specialism in house history and the history of Cromer in Norfolk. She was the winner of the Olga Sinclair Prize 2023, the Past Search Prize for non-fiction in 2020 and 2021 and the Cooper Prize in 2021. Her first book, Newhaven Court: Love, Tragedy, Heroism and Intrigue, was published by The History Press in 2022.