The display cabinet in Claire Nugent’s hallway is filled with things she has found while digging in her garden. There are glass jars, pottery shards, and a brass casing that looks like the base of a light fitting but which is actually the fuse from a 500lb bomb. The bowl full of large aluminium strips, a sort of metallic potpourri, is especially bizarre. “It’s called ‘window’,” Claire explains. “The RAF used to throw it out of their planes on bombing raids to confuse enemy radar.”
These are the kinds of things you find in your North Norfolk backyard when you live on what was once a secret Second World War airbase. “We’ve also found a lot of Brylcreem bottles,” Claire says. “Clearly being beautifully quaffed has been important for the men here since the war.” Her partner, Nigel Morter, sports his own mid-century quiff: the period detail at their Control Tower B&B is nothing if not consistent.
This particular operations block, on the decommissioned site of RAF North Creake, became offices after the war, then a private home. From the outside, the initial function of this square whitewashed home, built in 1943, remains immediately apparent. The first-floor balcony from which airmen once surveyed the surrounding runways leads via exterior stairs to the flat roof, where signals antennae would have reached for the sky. Step through the front door and you enter a world that blends wartime chic with modern-day comfort. It’s as if you’ve travelled here in a time machine, and set the dial to “stun”.
With immaculate taste and care for detail, Claire and Nigel have styled an art deco haven that vibrantly reflects its origins. Three suites upstairs — formerly the signals room, the operations boardroom and the controller’s rest room — are complemented by a guest lounge with a wood fire; there’s also an annexe in the garden, the Stirling Suite, with a private living room. The couple sourced every element of the era-appropriate decor and furniture themselves, from the luxuriously large baths to the Bakelite lamps.
As labours of love go, this has been a sweeping epic. It was in 2005 that Nigel and Claire first lost their hearts to the modernist architecture of control towers, and promised one day to live in one. They bought the control tower in 2011 and immediately gave up their jobs in academia to spend the next three years digging and plastering. “We were a little worried about being outsiders moving into the community,” Nigel says. “But the harder we worked, the more the locals took to us. They ended up being really invested in this place.”
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Since then the B&B has become one of North Norfolk’s sleeper hits, the kind of place you discover by word of mouth, then feel supremely smug to know about. It’s the perfect grown-up base to explore the coast: Wells-next-the-Sea, with its competing fish and chip shops, is only a five-minute drive down a country lane; Brancaster beach, to the west, and Blakeney Point, to the east, are not much further.
As someone who visits the B&B every year, I can confirm its allure. The undulating delights of the surrounding countryside have never yet disappointed: a walk around the Iron Age fort near Wighton, a homemade pie at the Three Horseshoes in Warham, a seasonal fair at one of the neighbouring villages. I remember the first time that Nigel and Claire encouraged me to visit the medieval remains of Binham Priory, with its on-site dairy. They had me at “cheese vending machine”.
Some of Norfolk’s most fascinating historical sites — the Burnhams with their Admiral Nelson connections, Walsingham with its shrines and light railway — are within walking distance. For me, it’s the two stately homes nearby that exert the biggest pull. Houghton Hall, the former home of Britain’s first prime minister, Robert Walpole, stages a regular calendar of art exhibitions. The Holkham Estate, owned by the Earl of Leicester, encompasses one of the largest and most beautiful coastal nature reserves in the country.
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The fact that the Control Tower is flanked by Holkham land is an irony not lost on Nigel, a former shop steward and trade union historian who is now good friends with his aristocratic neighbours. It’s equally quirky that they’ve opened a vegetarian B&B in a county famous for its bacon and sausages (their full English comes with locally sourced eggs and mushrooms, and their compote is a joy). Nigel and Claire’s warmth and humour make them exquisite hosts, which is probably the chief reason I keep coming back.
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They recently hosted their first in-house concert when the singer-songwriter duo Pete Astor and Neil Scott played an intimate gig in the lounge, with ticket prices including a bowl of homemade veggie chilli. They have done much, too, to preserve the history of the airbase, commissioning a commemorative sculpture honouring those who served, and those who were lost; Nigel is writing a book that tells their stories. In the meantime, a visit to the tower is one of the most pleasurable trips back in time you’ll ever take.
Emma John travelled independently. B&B doubles from £125, two-night minimum stay (controltowerstays.com). Control Tower Calling, Nigel Morter’s book about the tower, is published on June 8 (crowdfunder.co.uk/p/controltowercalling)
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Three more 1940s-style escapes
1. The Corrugated Cottage, Somerset
You can live like a Land Girl at this shed stay just south of Glastonbury. Built for the young women who went to work on the local farms, the corrugated iron structure has been insulated to make it a cosier prospect than it was 80 years ago. But the interior, with four single beds, remains true to its mid-century self, and there’s a record player with a set of 1940s LPs to provide the perfect soundtrack.
Details One night’s self-catering for four from £100, minimum stay two nights (airbnb.co.uk)
2. The Decoy Bunker, Monmouthshire
The men stationed here during the Second World War had a curious job, running across the fields at night to light fires that deceived the German bombers into thinking they’d hit the ordnance factory further up the Usk valley. Beautifully transformed into a tiny eco-home by its owners, the bunker has been renovated with skylights, a wood-burner and a complete kitchen, sleeping up to three and offering spectacular views and hill-walking straight from your door.
Details One night’s self-catering for three from £115 (canopyandstars.co.uk)
3. The Guard Tower, Devon
This luxury couple’s retreat looks straight out onto the sea — which was very much the point during the Second World War, when its location at the mouth of the Teign River provided an early-warning system for Britain’s coastal defences. While space is at a premium inside, its outdoor seating and barbecue area provides a gorgeous spot to watch the sun go down.
Details Three nights’ self-catering for two from £613 (hostunusual.com)
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