Finding that Norfolk butterfly has been distinct subspecies for 200,000 years could transform conservation approach

The endangered swallowtail butterfly Papilio machaon britannicus, which is only regularly found breeding in Britain on the Norfolk Broads, has been a distinct subspecies for at least 200,000 years, according to a study.

Smaller, darker in colour and much rarer than the continental swallowtail, britannicus was previously considered to have developed its distinctive form during its confinement in the wetlands of eastern England over the last 8,000 years, after the flooding of Doggerland.

Norfolk: My dad said they hadn’t been on this street for 20 years – so where have they been?

Looking out of my bedroom window, I kept seeing movement – something fast and blurry. I went outside with my dad to see what it was. He couldn’t believe it – they were house martins.

He told me that house martins were all around these houses 20 years ago, but then they all left and never came back, and we don’t know why. This is the first summer that they have returned to this street since then, and they were building a nest right next to my bedroom window.

Junk speak, like junk food, encourages verbal littering. It has to be one of the worst things about life in Britain

I live in the Norfolk countryside, and what irritates me most about living here is the deluge of litter that gets thrown out of car windows in the lane outside my house. It is always from junk food outlets, so the question arises as to which way round things are: does junk food turn you into an antisocial moron, or is it that only antisocial morons eat junk food? Could it be an unfortunate confluence of both?

I never eat it, and never throw litter out of my window. QED. I do find other ways of being antisocial, I suppose, but farts disperse on their own and don’t have to be picked up by passing dog walkers and irate householders.

Louis de Bernières’s fourth novel, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, became a worldwide bestseller in 1994

Bodies were buried in Happisburgh after HMS Invincible sank in 1801 on way to join Nelson at Battle of Copenhagen

A mass grave for 119 sailors who drowned more than 200 years ago could be exhumed to avoid their remains being exposed by coastal erosion.

HMS Invincible sank off the Norfolk coast in 1801 on its way to join Horatio Nelson’s fleet at the Battle of Copenhagen. The recovered bodies of those who drowned were buried at St Mary’s church in Happisburgh, the nearest village to the shipwreck.

Female muntjac given nickname of ‘lucky’ Lucy after being freed from department store’s moving staircase

“There’s a deer trapped in an escalator” was not a phrase anyone at Hillside Animal Sanctuary in Norfolk was expecting to hear when staff at a Marks & Spencer department store in central Norwich called last Tuesday.

“In Norfolk, deers often get themselves in trouble,” said the sanctuary’s founder, Wendy Valentine. “They get stuck between walls and sheds, and in gates. It’s quite common for deer to get trapped … but ‘trapped in an escalator’ was a first.”

Wife of Pawel Bukowski criticises care husband received over depression he suffered following failed procedure

A man who took his own life was suffering from depression after a failed dental procedure in Turkey left him without any teeth, an inquest has heard.

Pawel Bukowski, a 48-year-old forklift driver, had travelled to a private clinic in the country in January 2025 to have his teeth replaced after suffering from periodontal disease, a chronic bacterial infection that can erode the gums and lead to tooth and bone loss.

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

Industry fears strait of Hormuz closure could disrupt shipping of crucial parts for UK and German North Sea projects

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A string of large offshore wind projects in Europe are facing potential delays as the Iran war threatens to disrupt shipping of crucial parts manufactured in the Gulf.

Alford, who also appeared in Grange Hill, was jailed for eight and a half years in January for sexually assaulting two girls

An investigation has been launched into the death of the actor John Alford after he died in prison two months into a sentence for sexually assaulting two teenage girls.

Alford, 54, was jailed for eight and a half years in January after he was found guilty of the assaults, which occurred during a party at a friend’s home.

First of the trusts, formed with 12 people in a Norfolk pub in 1926, buys swath of farmland to restore to nature

The place where Norton Wood once stood is now a vast field of decaying wheat stubble. The ancient wood was grubbed up during the second world war. No trace of it remains – on the surface, at least. This ghost in the landscape lives on only in the name of the local village: Wood Norton.

But trees will soon be bursting upwards again and the wood will regrow after Norfolk Wildlife Trust celebrated its 100th birthday by buying a swath of farmland to revive for nature.

Exclusive: Pensthorpe was believed to be home to just one individual but pair have been filmed grooming each other

No one knows where they came from or how they ended up in Norfolk. But one thing is certain: now, there are two of them.

Until last week, experts believed there was only one wild beaver living in Pensthorpe nature reserve, about 20 miles outside Norwich. But just in time for Valentine’s Day, two were caught on camera going for a late-night swim together and grooming each other by the riverbank.

Bereaved relatives say delays over risks at village churchyards are causing distress and call for council action

Families of people buried in graves vulnerable to coastal erosion say indecision over how to tackle the problem is causing them avoidable anguish about the final resting places of their loved ones.

North Norfolk district council (NNDC) has identified three church graveyards in the villages of Happisburgh, Trimingham, and Mundesley as being at risk of being engulfed by the sea in the coming decades.

When BT earmarked the kiosk for closure in January, Derek Harris began to campaign. The fight gave him purpose at a difficult time in his life

• ‘I don’t want it to die’: one man’s battle to save the last phone box in his village

The caller display flashes up: “Derek in the K6” it reads. On the line is Derek Harris, ringing from the red phone box he saved for his village. When he saw, on the agenda for the parish council meeting, that BT had earmarked it for closure, Harris knew he had to fight it. “It’s fighting for what is valuable, cherished,” he told me when I went to meet him in February, sitting over coffee in a cafe near Sharrington, the Norfolk village that has been his home for more than 50 years, and the phone box for longer. It’s a K6, for Kiosk No 6, designed in 1935 by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott.

For a few weeks, Harris, then 89, became a media star. One of the criteria for keeping a phone box in use is that at least 52 calls have to be made from it in a year (fewer than 10 had been made in 2024). As the campaign picked up speed, one day a queue of people made more than 230 calls from the K6. Harris sparked a national conversation about the continuing need for kiosks in an age of mobiles. Behind the scenes, he was a tenacious activist, sending constant emails to his MP, councillors, and of course, BT. Some of them included photographs he had taken of BT vans whose engineers were working nearby, as proof the phone box could be easily maintained. In March, BT decided to reverse its decision.

As part of the Guardian’s Against the tide series, readers aged 18 to 30 share what they love about living in their coastal town, the challenges and why they often choose to leave

Megan, a 24-year-old from the Isle of Wight, is very familiar with saying goodbye. She decided university wasn’t for her and remembers how, one by one, she waved off her friends who left the island to study. Many never came back.

The first ever mass deployment of mother reef bricks aims to rebuild habitats – and could reshape the North Sea

Allie Wharf’s career unfolded amid conflict. As a senior foreign producer for Newsnight, she reported on Iraq and Afghanistan. Just two years ago, she was filming mass graves in Ukraine.

But burnt out by wars, and after a detour farming ducks in Tanzania, Wharf has now settled on the quiet north Norfolk coast. Here, alongside her life and business partner, Willie Athill, she has embarked on a different kind of mission: the creation of Europe’s largest natural oyster reef.