05 — Our Story
The Saltmere House is the work of two people, one old house and a stretch of coast that got under their skin.
“We didn't simply create somewhere to stay. We created somewhere we wanted to escape to ourselves.”
The origins
Nell grew up in Norwich and spent every childhood summer on the beach below Cromer pier. Hugo is from London and had never seen the North Norfolk coast until she brought him here one October, twenty years later.
On the second day of that trip, walking the cliff path east from town, they found a padlocked gate, a meadow of long grass and a flint rectory with its windows boarded. Nobody had lived there for years. They sat on the front step for an hour and watched the sea.
Eighteen months later it was theirs, along with a roof that let in the rain and a sycamore growing out of the walled garden.
An autumn walk from Cromer, a padlocked gate and a rectory that had been empty for years.
We sold our London flat, moved into a caravan in the meadow and started with the roof.
Flint walls rebuilt by local craftspeople, lime plaster, salvaged oak and a walled garden cleared by hand.
Six rooms and The Old Dairy welcomed their first guests in the spring. The sycamore became the kitchen table.
Nell Carrow
Nell spent fifteen years designing sets for film and theatre, which is why every room at Saltmere is lit like the last scene of something. She plans the weddings, chooses the art and knows the name of every florist between Cromer and Wells.
Favourite room Marram, for the round window.
Hugo Carrow
Hugo cooked in London kitchens for most of his twenties and thirties before swapping them for a walled garden and a fishing boat's phone number. He runs the kitchen, the pantry and, in his opinion, the best breakfast on the coast.
Favourite walk Cliff path to Cromer, for the crab at the end.
There is no reception desk at Saltmere. There is us, a kettle and a map of the coast we have walked a thousand times.
Flint from the site, wool from the county, fish from the boats on the beach and art from the people who paint the light here.
No schedules, no sittings, no checkout at dawn. The house works around the tide and the weather, and so should you.
Rooted in North Norfolk
Saltmere belongs to this coast: its soft cliffs and big skies, its flint villages and round-towered churches, its fishing boats hauled up the beach and its slower, kinder pace. Everything we do starts from there.
We buy from growers, fishermen, bakers and dairies close to home, hang work by artists who paint this light, and spend our days off on the same walks we recommend to guests.
