The serenity of a sea-view property depends on how well protected you are from the powers of the ocean. This is the unavoidable caveat of homeownership along north Norfolk’s gentle coastline, a region almost constantly conceding territory to the encroaching North Sea.
When Nicola Bayless’s parents moved to the Norfolk seaside village of Happisburgh in the early 2000s, they were told by solicitors they had at least 150 years before their property would be swallowed up by the incoming sea. Twenty years on their house, once safely buffered by a field and a car park, now backs onto the ocean, protected only by dilapidated 1950s revetments languishing in the lapping waves.
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