Dogs and Deer in Norfolk

Dogs and Deer in Norfolk

After spending several days in Wells (of Norfolk, Next-the-Sea) I began gradually to be possessed by a conspiracy theory, one involving dogs.

Needless to say, it being school half-term, it was fairly obligatory for any adult to be within mutual harassing distance of a child. But the sheer volume of dogs: could it be that some freemasonry of dog ownership was at work? 

The more I observed and considered, the more plausible the theory became. Everywhere there were signs- literally so: “Dogs welcome”. There were dog drinking stations; a dog accessories shop; dog-friendly hotel rooms; bare-boarded floors in bars, ready to be carpeted with dogs. Only a few tokens of resistance - the food shops and, the major enemy, the Holkham Estate, owner of a stately home, vast park, and much of the local foreshore and coastal land.

Holkham’s anti-dog mission takes two forms. One is an attempt (note: just an attempt) to ban dogs from one end of the beach at Wells- dogs are supposed to follow a diversion to another part. The other is a rule stating that dogs must be kept on leads in Holkham Park, it being home to many deer.

But so far as the town of Wells goes, dogs freely flow. I believe there must be some corner of the Dark Web, accessible only to owners of suitable dogs, where privileges and discounts are negotiated and secret places of rendezvous are advertised. What else explains the emptiness of Wells after nightfall? They must be gathered somewhere, the dogs and their owners, somewhere large and soundproof.

(There’s even a little street named “Dogger Lane”. But this has nothing to do with either dogs or dubious sexual practices. “Dogger” refers to a fisherman whose fishing ground is the Dogger Bank in the North Sea.)

Now my party had a dog. But sadly it didn’t count, being too small and, frankly, undoglike. It neither barked nor ran about, but shuffled silently. It had a suitably pleading look, but otherwise the temperament of a pet rabbit.

The doggy end of Wells beach has to be shared from time to time with seals hauled out from the navigable channel. There’s a favoured patch of beach, very near the channel and less affected by the low Norfolk tides, which otherwise withdraw the sea into the far distance.

The beach authorities (Holkham again) have set a permanent single strand cordon around this patch of beach, rather like the off season cordon protecting the “square” on a cricket ground. Beach-goers and their dogs are to stay behind the cordon when any seal is hauled out (which means dogs on leads, always the goal of Holkham).

We saw one seal, mostly still and oblivious to spectators and lurking dogs, but occasionally madly flopping for a few seconds, like a fallen drunk trying, but unable, to find purchase to stand up.

In the Park, the deer were in the rutting season. This was obvious from the number of bellowing stags. A walk through one of the wooded areas fringing the Park provided bellows in stereo, as the path cut straight through the herd or, more accurately, various sub herds, each attended by a roaring male. But apart from the aural experience, it was difficult to discern patterns of behaviour.

The does seemed largely indifferent, as if they had tuned the bellows out; other, non-bellowing stags wandered about, seemingly neither challenging, or being challenged by, the bellowers. Some stags stayed wholly apart, either too old or too young for the fun.

Most strange of all was a pair of stags, in their prime (judging from their antlers), who lay a few feet apart in open ground facing each other with docility.

‘What is all that tiresome fuss about?’, they seemed to imply, channelling perhaps Ferdinand the [peaceful] Bull. 

Thanks to George

November 2019