Our most recent visit to north Norfolk was for the bi-annual Holkham Country Fair held near Wells-next-the-sea. We exhibited as part of the East Anglia Group of NVTEC in the Bygones & Country Collections section, with other vintage displays on show from the Series I Landrover Owners Club, North Norfolk Military Vehicle Groups and assorted classic car owners.

The weather was both blustery and wet on-and-off for most of the weekend, but Sunday was undoubtedly the better day for the public attendance. Attractions in the ring included the Minden Band of the Queen’s Division, The Flying Gunners Motorcycle Display Team from the Royal Artillery, The Tigers Freefall Team, birds of prey and an aerobatic display, pretty standard fare for this type of event.

As well of the vintage & classic cars, military vehicles, stationary engines, bygones and tractors, there was also a two-part vintage fairground consisting of gallopers, both junior and adult chair-o-planes, Ferris wheel, fun-house and juvenile rides. There were approximately 30 stationary engines, just over a dozen tractors and a handful of bygone displays, including dairy items, petrol cans, blacksmiths and wheelwrights memorabilia, cast-iron seats and lawnmowers.

The cars had moved from the north side of the house (to be replaced with a food fair) to the south aspect just under the lip of the wall surrounding the house, where arranged on the slope, they had an excellent view of the ring. It would be unfair to pick the most unusual exhibit as it’s not every day one sees a 1909 Rover, an early 1900s Panhard Levassor or a possibly unique Rolls Royce Safari estate, originally converted at a cost of £60,000 in the late 1980s but never shipped to the southern hemisphere.

The Landrover owners put on an excellent display including a number of vintage & classic campers and caravans. The oldest was the Rice folding caravan from the 1920s, basically a tent mounted on a trailer. The most spectacular was the 1957 Willerby with its futuristic glass-fibre egg design. Out front was a Landrovers sans bodywork, so one could see the engine, transmission and four-wheel-drive system in the raw.

Trade stands were not quite as interesting as I recall from previous visits, but if you had the money, you could buy very twee chicken huts in the New England style, alternatively you might want that Polynesian-style teak beach hut to put in your garden. Clothing stalls were plentiful with a degree of choice on both quality and price, i.e. expensive and not quite so expensive, and as expected there were plenty of stalls offering country sports equipment.