This is a view of the East Beach taken from the East Parade,
and looking in the general direction of Lighthouse Hill and
Overstrand. This is an area of outstanding natural beauty,
immortalised in Clement Scott’s poem entitled The Garden of
Sleep, and known as Poppyland due to the vast seas of gently
swaying red poppies growing everywhere in the nearby fields and
on the cliff tops.

On the grass of the cliff, at the edge of the steep,
God planted a garden, a garden of sleep!
’Neath the blue of the sky, in the green of the corn,
It is there that the regal red poppies are born!
Brief days of desire, and long dreams of delight,
They are mine when my Poppyland cometh in sight.
In the music of distance, with eyes that are wet,
It is there I remember, and there I forget!
Oh, heart of my heart, where the poppies are born,
I am waiting for thee, in the hush of the corn.
Sleep! Sleep!
From the Cliff to the Deep!
Sleep, my Poppyland,
Sleep!

And that is how Clement Scott, a writer with the Daily Telegraph,
saw the area around Cromer in August 1833.