Manor Farm House sits about a mile down a private lane, accessed from Stone Road in Halvergate. The first half is metalled (council-maintained, ordinary tarmac); the second half is an unmade track that runs through working marshland.
The lane is shared with the farmers who graze cattle and sheep on the surrounding marshes — among them members of one of the families who have farmed here for generations. There is a pair of steel gates at the boundary between the metalled road and the track, which the farmers occasionally close when moving livestock; you simply open and close them as needed. Wooden gates at the entrance to our driveway work the same way. Living here means living alongside a working marsh in active use — we enjoy watching the cows walk up and down the lane past our gates.
The track surface varies with the seasons. It is well-drivable year-round in any ordinary car — Julie used to drive her Mazda MX-5 happily up and down it, and we and our visitors have managed it in everything from estate cars to small hatchbacks for twenty years. It is unmetalled though, and Norfolk winters can leave it muddier than summer ones. We maintain and improve it as needed; the surface today is significantly better than it was when we arrived in 2005.
The remoteness is, of course, the point. Manor Farm House is a self-sufficient marsh property, and the mile of approach is part of what makes it that. The reward, on arrival, is the peacefulness.