Rock proves popular in Swaffham
STICKS of rock, usually associated with seaside resorts, are proving a big seller in Swaffham – even though it is 25 miles inland from the nearest beach.
And the reason they are selling like hot cakes is because of the town's links with the popular ITV1 show Kingdom, which is largely filmed in Swaffham but set in the fictitious coastal town of Market Shipborough.
Since the first series was shown in the spring, an increasing number of tourists have been arriving in Swaffham expecting to find the long, sandy beaches and picturesque harbour they have seen on the telly – but which in reality are scenes shot on the north Norfolk coast around Wells and Holkham.
However, thanks to the enterprise of local taxi firm owner Richard Wood, they can still get a stick of mint-flavoured rock, with the words Market Shipborough running through the middle of it and a mini-photo of the Pedlar sign under the wrapper, to take home as a souvenir.
The sticks of rock are available at the Tourist Information Centre, which Mr Wood's business, Cool Cabs, runs on behalf of Swaffham and District Tourism Association. He arranged for a Yarmouth firm to produce the special Market Shipborough rock.
Jamie Moulding, office controller at Cool Cabs, said there were 520 sticks in the first batch and they were nearly all sold out by last weekend.
"We had a lady buying 20 sticks on Thursday and a local soccer team bought 30 sticks. They have been selling at about 70 a day lately," he said.
If the rock continued to sell well, different flavours could be tried and colour photographs of some of Kingdom's popular locations in Swaffham, such as Oakleigh House and the Greyhound pub, could be used for the wrappers, as well as the Pedlar sign, he said.
Mr Moulding said three-quarters of the visitors to the Tourist Information Centre were now asking about the locations used in Kingdom, for which filming of the second series to be shown next spring is currently taking place.
Cool Cabs transports some of the regular stars, such as Stephen Fry, Karl Davies, Hermione Norris, Celia Imrie and Tony Slattery, during filming and has their autographs in the information centre for visitors to see.
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Weather for King's Lynn
Monday 28 May 2012
Today
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Temperature: 10 C to 24 C
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