The hamlet of Sidestrand hugs the coastal road. Located in an area of outstanding natural beauty with a  coastline which is truly stunning. It is believed that the name Sidestrand originated from the Old English Sid – broad, spacious and the Danish Stronde – shore.   The village is forever immortalised as Poppyland, due to the writings of Victorian journalist Clement Scott. 

In 1836 Quaker Samuel Hoare and his brother-in-law Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton started a fund to move the church of Sidestrand to a safer site inland, owing to the ever-encroaching sea. However, the old church tower and graveyard was left on the cliff-top to act as a coastal marker for shipping.   In 1916 the old church tower fell over the cliffs, though the image of the tower continued to appear on postcards right up to the 1930s. The tower inspired the famous poem by Clement Scott – the garden of sleep. On every New Years Eve for fifteen years Scott is said to have walked along Tower Lane and spent the last few moments of the old year on the cliffs in his Garden of Sleep.

Sidestrand has no shops or village inn, but all of these can be found at the nearby village of Overstrand located just one and a half miles down the coast.  Further along is Cromer famous for its crabs and with all its popular seaside attractions, end of pier show and famous Golf Club. For holiday accommodation in Sidestrand or closeby - self catering - bed and breakfast - camping and caravan - hotel - inns - guest house look at our accommodation pages.

The National Trust property of Felbrigg Hall is 4 miles distant.  A 17th century house with restored wall garden set in 500 acres of fields and woodland. The Jacobean building was for three centuries the home of the Windham family, who installed a Gothic library. It is said that the ghost of the man who began the Hall's impressive library is sometimes seen. He was  William Windham II, a scholar who loved his books, and died trying to save volumes from a friend's burning library in London.