The story of Sea Marge, a listed building in Overstrand that I mentioned in a post a couple of weeks ago, just keeps getting more interesting...

I've now finished reading Antony Lentin's 2013 book, which documents the career of Sea Marge's original owner, Sir Edgar Speyer.

It's a terribly sad tale. Speyer, born in 1862 in New York to a wealthy German Jewish family, became a naturalized British subject in 1892. He made exemplary use of his riches, it seems: playing a major role in funding the construction of the London Underground; taking an active and generous part in supporting the Proms; hosting a range of performers and composers at his opulent London house; donating funds to Captain Scott's Antarctic expeditions; and supporting a number of philanthropic endeavours.

Conspiracy theorists, however, even before the war, were fanning resentment towards German-born supporters of the ruling Liberal Party. Once the war started, all gloves were off, and attacks multiplied. At the end of May 1915, a month that had seen a wave of anti-German rioting in London, Speyer took his family to America.

Charges were brought against him in February 1920 (for showing disloyalty to Britain, assisting pro-Germans in America, and forming the intention of settling in Germany). These would be considered by the Committee of enquiry set up under the new Aliens Act. It is clear that the aim from the outset was the revocation of Speyer's naturalization. Speyer returned to England in August 1921 to attend the Committee hearings, and the proceedings ended a few months later. The Committee concluded: "That Sir Edgar Speyer has shown himself by act and speech disaffected and disloyal to His Majesty; That Sir Edgar Speyer, during a war in which His Majesty was engaged, unlawfully communicated with subjects of an enemy state and associated with business, which was to his knowledge carried on in such manner as to assist the enemy in such war." Speyer was stripped of his British citizenship and his membership of the Privy Council.

Sir Louis Blom-Cooper, who wrote a foreword for the book, has no hesitation in describing the whole episode as "a lamentable tale ... of political bigotry". For him, Speyer committed "indiscretions" but no more, whereas the way the Committee had gone about its business was highly suspect. It failed to elucidate the definition of "disaffection"; and showed partiality by judging Speyer's record of philanthropy and good standing to be irrelevant. Its report was "singularly uninformative", and the process, in sum, "gravely deficient".

Lentin acknowledges that Speyer might not always have acted wisely, and might sometimes have "Iacked the instinct of prudence". But he regards the proceedings taken against Speyer as "a unique and disturbing example of the coordinated concentration of state power ... against an individual". Speyer was unfortunate in having become a scapegoat. In targeting him, "Conservatives were paying off old scores, taking vicarious revenge for their deep-seated grievances both against [former Prime Minister] Asquith's prewar administration and for his wartime failings".


And what of Sea Marge? Built in the period 1908-12, and known rather misleadingly as a "cottage", it gave the Speyers the opportunity to provide more of their well-known hospitality.

In the summer of 1914, says Lentin, "a young guest, the composer Cyril Scott, dedicated to them a 'meditation' for piano entitled 'Sea Marge': a modernist piece, discordant and vaguely menacing." That seems somehow appropriate, given what happened next.

Once the war was under way, early British naval losses strengthened the belief that it must be spies who were responsible. "Edgar ... fell straight into this class of suspect. It was rumoured that 'Sea Marge' was 'a stronghold of espionage' and that Edgar, who was believed to have recently installed a wireless apparatus there, was in the habit of signalling to German submarines... From the start of the war, indeed, letters, both signed and anonymous, had alerted Scotland Yard's Special Branch to 'wireless installations', 'suspicious lights' and 'powerful motor cars with strong headlights' as well as to the presence, both at 'Sea Marge' and Grosvenor Street [the Speyers' London residence], of 'foreign employees'."

In September 1914, the Chief Constable of Norwich wrote to the Home Secretary, explaining that suggestions had been received that he should "thoroughly search the premises" (despite the fact that "no suspicious circumstances have been observed"), and asking for advice. Despite favourable testimonies from the head of counter-intelligence and the Home Secretary, Speyer continued to be hounded. "Persons unknown scaled the roof at 'Sea Marge' and at Grosvenor Street, apparently looking for wireless installations... It was later put about that the tennis-court at 'Sea Marge' was intended as a landingplace for zeppelins!"

On 3 November 1914, German cruisers fired a barrage of shells in the direction of Yarmouth. Most landed on the beach, but the event unleashed "a fresh surge of spy-mania". Edgar, still at Overstrand, decided to return to London.

Before the war, Norfolk locals had thought well of the Speyers. By the end of 1914, they were being warned to stay away, and were increasingly snubbed and ostracized by "fair-weather friends ... who had only recently enjoyed the Speyers' hospitality at Overstrand that summer". Leonora opened up some of the outbuildings at Sea Marge to accommodate wounded French soldiers, "but her offers to join organisations engaged in women's war work were chillingly rebuffed".

After Edgar's death in 1932, Sea Marge was sold. It became a hotel in 1935; served as a care home for a number of years; and reopened as a hotel in 1996.

Of course, in these locked-down times, we can't get in... But yesterday we discovered a delightful little path that takes you across the sea-facing facade of the Sea Marge, and gives you great views out to the ocean. Knowing the story of the Speyers somehow made that big-skied day even more melancholy and dramatic.



Edgar Speyer's wife, Leonora, initially famous for her talents as a violinist, subsequently gained a reputation for her poetry, and won a Pulitzer prize in 1927.

I struggled to relate to the first few I read. But they've definitely grown on me. I find this one very poignant:

Suddenly

Suddenly flickered a flame,
Suddenly fluttered a wing:
What, can a dead bird sing?
Somebody spoke your name.

Suddenly fluttered a wing,
Sounded a voice, the same,
Somebody spoke your name:
Oh, the remembering!

Sounded a voice, the same,
Song of the hearts green spring,
Oh, the remembering:
Which of us was to blame?

Song of the heart's green spring,
Wings that still flutter, lame,
Which of us was to blame?
God, the slow withering!

_*_*_

The whole saga of World War I in Norfolk is engrossing. Hard on the heels of the shelling of Yarmouth came the first zeppelin raid over East Anglia in January 1915. Concerns about the vulnerability of the region were also reflected in the measures excluding German subjects resident in England (who were now officially classified as "enemy aliens") from "prohibited areas" that included most of the east coast.

During our trip to Aylmerton, we'd come across a World War I pillbox, but not thought too much about it.


Well, this is just part of a network of defences hastily constructed to meet the looming threat. From 1916, trenches and coastal defence batteries were supplemented with concrete pillboxes.

Now pillbox-aware, we today went in search of the one (from the World War II era) that we've obliviously walked past countless times on East Runton beach:


(A picture here shows it in a less engulfed state...)

I'm happy to say that there's lots more pillbox-hunting to be done...

It seems appropriate to close with a few lines from another of Leonora's poems, April on the Battlefields:

April now walks the fields again,
Trailing her tearful leaves
And holding all her frightened buds against her heart:
Wrapt in her clouds and mists,
She walks,
Groping her way among the graves of men...