Carmel of Our lady of Walsingham

Carmel of Our Lady of Walsingham is a house built in 1885 for Lord Suffield, a promoter of Cromer's contemporary development. It is constructed in the domestic revival "Queen Anne" style, using red brick with tiled roofs.

The building comprises two storeys and an attic, with a long service wing to the east and a single-bay wing to the west. The entrance front faces north and has eight bays. The projecting entrance porch is elaborately moulded with ball finials and displays a date-stone; the main door beyond has a fan-light. A brick plinth and first-floor plat-band extend across the five easterly bays. The ground floor has four sash windows with plate glass in the lower lights; the upper lights feature glazing bars with six lights. The first floor contains five windows, three to the east arranged as casements following the rise of the staircase. White painted wooden eaves run along all elevations. Four large dormers feature three-light casements and plastered gables beneath a hipped roof with prominent eaves and stacks. To the west, a single-storey gabled wing has a tripartite sash window with glazing bars, a niche above, and a return verandah.

The south elevation displays moulded brick quoining and a central projecting bay with broken pediment flanked by two large dormers. The windows are mostly six-over-two light sashes. The single-storey extension to the west bears a date-stone carved with the initials "R C S" and the date 1885 above its tripartite sash window. A French window on the ground floor opens to the garden. The east wing is set back with plainer treatment and appears to incorporate part of a former flint outbuilding and small tower with dentil cornice and three-light casements in recessed panels at the east end. Fenestration in the east wing is of varying sizes but generally consists of six-over-two sash windows.

Internally, the east wing features simple mouldings and contemporary four-panelled doors on both ground and first floors, served by simple backstairs with stick balusters extending from basement to attic. The main house contains a large entrance hall with a tripartite arcade and an open well staircase with turned balusters and ball finial newel posts, lit by casement windows. The dining room and billiard room retain shutter boxes; the billiard room has a panelled ceiling and contemporary fireplace with swags. Other fireplaces are plain, as are the cornices. The roof structure comprises a ridge-piece with plank cladding over the main house and scissor bracing over the east wing.

The building was constructed for Lord Suffield by an unknown architect. In 1982 the Suffield estate sold it to the Carmelite Priory of Our Lady of Walsingham, which in 1986 constructed a chapel and single-storey addition linked to the north elevation.