Community and locality are at the heart of an award-winning new bakery on the coast of north-west Norfolk
Words Jenny Oldaker | Photography @WhiteHorseHolme
In a coastal town where the ebb and flow of seasonality shapes the year, community-focused businesses represent a vital point of unity and continuity. In north-west Norfolk, White Horse Holme is one such enterprise: part of the family-run Anglian Country Inns (ACI) group, the pub opened its doors in Holme-next-the-Sea in summer 2024, dedicated to championing local suppliers and offering a facility that serves the community year round. Launched on the back of ACI’s famous White Horse Brancaster – much loved by both visitors and locals – the expansion had an excellent blueprint to follow. However, the offering was extended still further with the opening of a bakery in spring 2025 – a departure for a business which specialises in pubs and inns, but a huge boon for the village and a perfect fit for the local ecosystem.
‘We had always wanted to finda way of using the beautiful 19th-century farm building that we had next door to us,’ explains Will Pryke, general manager at White Horse Holme. ‘We came up with a few ideas, but what we really wanted was to create something that was accessible for a lot of people and which we could utilise alongside our existing pub operation.’
The bakery has proved a perfect complement to the pub’s offering, increasing the local availability of daytime bites – both to eat in and take away. Plus, it’s just as handy for picking up a loaf to take home as it is for sitting in the sun with a sandwich or grabbing a coffee to enjoy at the beach. ‘It’s a way for us to tie everything together,’ says Will. ‘Creating something that works well for lunchtime trades, and is also new and interesting, and accessible for lots of people. And it’s also been a good way for us to feed in some more local produce and work with local suppliers.’
Although its output is different from that of the pub, the bakery’s philosophy is entirely the same. ‘Provenance has always been extremely important to our identity and really influences what we put on the menu – both at our pubs and the new bakery,’ emphasises Will. As such, whether it’s the seafood caught by Billy Ward off the local coastline or the traceable heritage grains that go into the bread, the produce is thoughtful, sustainable and rooted in tradition.
A learning curve
The journey has also been a steep learning curve for the team, who have had to step up to master a new kind of business. ‘We’re restaurateurs and publicans,’ admits Will. ‘We had some experience, obviously, with baking bread, but not in the sense of a traditional, artisanal bakery.’
To get the expertise they needed, the team reached out to local bakers whose knowledge and skills could help make the vision of the bakery a reality – and they were lucky enough to attract the attention of Leigh Gentry. ‘Leigh, our head baker, lives a couple of miles from us, and when we got in contact with him, he was looking for a new challenge and had extensive experience of running a bakery.’
With Leigh at the helm and his son joining alongside him, the White Horse Bakery team was coming together, and the new business was ready to spring to life, poised to fulfil its fundamental aim of delivering handcrafted artisan bread, proper coffee and viennoiserie to the local community.
Success was swift, and the people of Holme were keen to support the enterprise, delighted by the hearty, heritage-inspired products available on their doorstep. Beyond the local trade, the summer season brought deluges of visitors, stopping off from coastal hikes or grabbing sustenance for a day on the beach. A more official level of recognition arrived when White Horse Bakery was named one of Britain’s 50 Best Bakeries 2026 by The Good Food Guide, less than a year after its launch.
‘Revealing that news to the team, especially to Leigh, was such a proud moment,’ says Will. ‘As publicans going into the bakery business, it’s been a completely new field for us, and being listed in the Guide was such a tribute to the hard work of the people we have working here. It also makes us so grateful to the customers that we see daily, who have really supported us from the start.’
These regular customers are a testament to the strong connection that the pub and bakery have built with local people. ‘We really try and maintain those strong community links,’ says Will. ‘We’re in a village that is massively impacted by the seasonality of trade and tourism. There are a lot of holiday homes and a lot of second homeowners in villages like Holme-next-the-Sea. We’ve made it very clear from day one that we really wanted to connect to our core community that are around for 365 days a year. And getting to know them has been fantastic.’
As part of its dedication to the community, the bakery hosts a monthly village coffee morning, offering a regular social platform that encourages local people to get together over a hot drink and a pastry.
A hub for everyone
Although the day-to-day local trade is important, Will is proud that the bakery has become a popular hub for tourists, too, and it is positioned to provide a convenient facility for those visiting the area. Located just a 15-minute walk from the beach and close to the Norfolk Coast Path, the White Horse Bakery is perfectly situated for beachgoers to buy a picnic to take away, or for hikers needing a stop-off and sustenance.
‘Alongside the pub, the bakery has been a good way of utilising the coastal location,’ says Will. ‘Creating a facility for people to take away a coffee or pastry before they go out and about to enjoy Norfolk.’
A passion for the area is at the heart of everything for White Horse Holme, and the local coastline is part of this identity. ‘It never ceases to amaze me, in all honesty, how beautiful it is,’ enthuses Will. ‘One of the best parts of living and working here is walking to the beach, enjoying the views – it’s never the same twice, with the constant changes in the tide, the light, the weather.’
And the one thing better than being able to enjoy all of this? To be able to enjoy all of this with a steaming hot coffee in one hand and a hunk of hearty artisan sourdough in the other – and thanks to the endeavours of the White Horse Bakery, it’s deliciously easy to do so.
Plan a visit to White Horse Holmeand the bakery at whitehorseholme.co.uk.
