The A149 coastal road runs through this small conservation village of Salthouse with its flint and white washed cottages. As its name suggests it was once a warehouse centre for locally-produced salt. Although small in size Salthouse is a popular place, particularly with walkers and twitchers.

Nowadays the salt and freshwater lagoons of the Salthouse Marshes support a host of breeding bird life. Once a thriving port, linked to the sea by the Mayne Channel, this village was wrestled from the sea in 1638 by the building of dykes and the blocking of the canal as part of land reclamation, making a lot of fishermen and sailors redundant. 

For holiday accommodation in Salthouse or closeby - self catering - bed and breakfast - camping and caravan - hotel - inns - guest house look at our accommodation pages.

In summer one can normally purchase an ice cream from an icecream van that frequents this place and across the road in one of the cottages you can buy fish and chips, on certain days. There is a village stores and post office which can supply your basic holiday provisions.  There is also a popular outside tea shop complete with outside heating, which serves light refreshments.

The local pub The Dun Cow is a popular watering hole for birdwatchers and locals alike, with its views over the surrounding waterslain marshes. On the hills above is Salthouse Heath, a heath land of gorse and heather, with narrow lanes on which one can walk or cycle.

Further round the coast is the small fishing village of Blakeney with its picturesque quay and nearby salt marshes. Few visitors can resist a one-hour boat trip to see the colony of 400 common and grey seals off Blakeney Point, and many opt for the two-hour trip, going ashore to observe the Blakeney Point birdlife. Boat trips are dependent on the tide and weather and the breeding season of the seals.

Round the coast less than 8 miles in the other direction is Sheringham a traditional seaside town which has grown up around its old fishing village, and where fishermen still bring in the daily catch. Sheringham is home to the North Norfolk Railway which operates steam train rides into Holt. A busy popular town of charm and character. with a good selection of shops.

There used to be a spectacular castle like structure on Salthouse beach known as Randall’s Folly. However, the devastating floods of 1953 took the house and also a large portion of the beach. Built by local man one Onesiphorous Randall born at Cley in 1798, he used the place for "entertaining ladies".

The village pond which given its proximity to the lagoons is home to a wide range of ducks, geese and swans and is a plesant place for a stop, especially if you have the foresight to bring along some bread.

Waterslain is an old Norfolk word meaning flooded.