Norfolk, Nelson’s County

Horatio Nelson was born in the small, windswept Norfolk village of Burnham Thorpe on 29th September 1758. The North Sea lies only one and a half miles away, its lapping and pounding providing the soundtrack to Horatio's first twelve years of life. The Nelson family moved into the rectory in Burnham Thorpe in 1755 (the original building is no longer there). Horatio's father, Edmund, served as rector of the Burnhams, the group of villages taking their name from the river Burn. Nelson's mother, Catherine, was distantly related to Britain's first Prime Minister, Robert Walpole, and Horatio was named after his godfather Horatio Walpole 1st Earl of Orford. They had eleven children, Horatio being the sixth, and eight of them survived infancy. Burnham Overy Harbour was the young Horatio's link to the wider world as it was from here that he was captivated by sights of ocean-going vessels and interacted with merchant seamen.