The Langham Hall barns

Beginning in 1722, the proprietor of Langham Hall Farm erected a range of flint-and-brick barns in North Street. The largest of these was called the Great Barn; other structures, including a nineteenth-century cart-shed, were added later. Not much more seems to be known about these: if anyone has any information or anecdotes to share, please leave a comment. As farm buildings they remained in use until the seventies.

By 1979, though, they had become redundant and the site was sold to the newly established Langham Glass.

Paul Miller had learned his trade from leading European glassmakers at King’s Lynn Glass, and aged only 21 became a Master Glassmaker. Subsequently Wedgwood bought King’s Lynn Glass from its founder, Ronnie Stennet-Wilson, and Mr Miller continued working there, creating many of the unusual glass animals and paperweights that are so collectible today.

A Langham Glass badger

He and his wife Sue wanted one day to set up their own glassworks. They proposed not only to make crystal of the highest quality but also to invite members of the public to watch glassmakers at work. Because of its size, the Great Barn made an ideal venue, and its height allowed a steel gallery to be installed. From this visitors could look down on the various processes, including the fascinating techniques of the glassblower.

Langham Glass became a very popular tourist attraction, with many thousands of visitors a year, so popular indeed that by 2005 it had outgrown its premises. It moved first to Tattersett Business Park, and in 2013 to its present home in Fakenham.

Langham Glass at Tattersett – image credit: Stacey Harris; licence

Once the Millers had decided to leave the village the question arose: what was to be done with the Great Barn and its attendant buildings?

In May 2006 planning permission was granted for a £7m project (pdf) to build 25 houses on the site; the Great Barn was to be converted into four individual dwellings. The developer was Avada Langham Ltd, a sister company of Avada Country Homes. Permission was dependent on providing also a boutique (i.e. small and luxurious) hotel on the site, this being insisted on by NNDC as part of its policy to encourage tourism and create employment: the hotel was predicted to generate 40 to 50 jobs in the local economy, 15-20 of them in the hotel itself. Avada Langham Ltd was to contribute £500,000 towards affordable housing in the Langham area and £58,000 to Langham Village School.

It was envisaged at the start that the majority of the houses would become holiday homes; the linked pdf file above also explains the mooted management relationship between the owners and the hotel.

There was much opposition in the village. One person even pursued a judicial review but withdrew just days before the case reached the High Court.

The 2008 financial crash and subsequent recession did not exactly help things along either, and work did not start until June 2014. Parish Council chairman Dave Curtis said, ‘There has been a range of opinions on the Parish Council about this development over the years but, personally, I have always been supportive of it as it will bring jobs and a new amenity to the village.’

Parish Council vice-chairman John Hope said, ‘I still feel this is a very large development in a very small village. It has been approved, so we now have to accept it. I hope most of the jobs promised are full-time jobs because that is the only benefit Langham will get from this, as far as I’m concerned.’

Given the proximity of the school, Norfolk County Council reduced the speed limit in North Street to 20 mph.

While work was going on there was much noise and disturbance. Again and again dumper trucks carried spoil down to a pit at Seeley’s Barn and left the roadway filthy; a crane rose against the skyline and pile-driving was added to the Langham soundscape. But even antipathetic locals had to admit that the tradesmen employed on the site seemed to know what they were about.

Ian Johnston, the owner of Avada Langham Ltd, is a house-builder and not a hotelier. His heart had never been in the idea of running the hotel, and in 2016, when the building was still under development, he put it up for sale.

In June 2017 it was purchased by the Bijou Collection, owned by the Cutmore-Scott family, whose expertise in the hospitality industry had till then been focused on their wedding venues. Sam Cutmore-Scott, elder son of the founders and already a director of the company, took over the hotel and supervised its completion: an enterprise costing millions of pounds. The hotel was named ‘The Harper’ as a tribute to Stanley Harper Cutmore, Sam’s maternal grandfather, who with his brother Jim ran Cutmore’s Mechanics in Barrack Street, Norwich – and whose work ethic still inspires the family today. As a further nod to him, and to the glassworks, the decor, featuring much iron, copper and slate, is faintly redolent of Britain’s industrial past.

The Harper was due to open on 1 April 2020. Preparations were in full swing when the lockdown was imposed. A very difficult and uncertain time followed, but when Sam was finally able to reopen the bookings were encouraging and the enterprise is now doing well: Delia Smith was one of the first guests through the doors.

As envisaged by NNDC, the hotel is unashamedly upmarket. It attracts wealthy visitors from London and Cambridge and elsewhere. Use of the hotel facilities is restricted to hotel residents only, which has been a source of some ill feeling in the village given the history of the site, but the point has been made by the Cutmore-Scotts that, were it otherwise, non-resident visitors would have to park along North Street.

Recently the Bijou Collection also bought the adjoining Hall, which was on the market for £1.95m. It is being thoroughly refurbished and updated and will be incorporated into The Harper.

The Yard at The Harper