File:The Hill House, Happisburgh - geograph.org.uk - 1053053.jpg

English: The Hill House, Happisburgh I did not notice the blue plaque when I was there. It is probably for one or both of the men in the following quotations from the village website:

William Cowper, the poet and hymn writer, visited Happisburgh twice in his last sad years when suffering from mental illness. In 1795 he walked along the beach from Mundesley with his cousin, the Rev'd Dr. John Johnson. They dined at the Hill House, where Cowper 'did eat very heartily, though of very ordinary food, for the only things he would touch were Beans and Bacon, which were very old, and apple pye (sic), the worst I ever saw. He ate, however, with a most complete relish of them all'. (from his cousin's journal).

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stayed at the Hill House Hotel when on a motoring holiday at the beginning of the 20th century. The landlord's small son Gilbert Cubitt had developed a way of writing his signature in pin men. This intrigued Conan Doyle, who used the idea in one of his Sherlock Holmes stories, 'The Dancing Men'. It is based in Norfolk and is said to have been written in the Green Room of the old Boarding House which overlooked the bowling green – one of the finest in this district.