English: Somerleyton Post Office. The building houses the post office, a shop selling local produce, a gift shop, a tea room and an Internet hub. See > 1509772 for a close-up view of the George V postbox beside the door. Somerleyton is a village on the north bank of the River Waveney, about 7 miles from Lowestoft and 8 miles from Yarmouth. The population numbers approximately 300. The village is an example of 19th century planning of housing consisting of thatched cottages > https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1505686 and a village school > https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1505653 around a newly created green. When Samuel Morton Peto took over the Somerleyton Estate in 1844 he began to reconstruct the Hall > https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1506718 and to replan the village as a model village in the spirit of the times. The main road was diverted through the village which became centred on the village green, a horse-shoe shaped area with new houses around the perimeter, the school at one end and the village pump at the other > https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1505643. The new houses were designed by John Thomas, the architect of Somerleyton Hall. Peto also brought the railway to the village > https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1505968. In more recent times Christopher Cockerell at Somerleyton Marina > https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1506149 began his work on ideas to make a boat go faster which led to the invention of the Hovercraft - Hovercraft - the first patent being applied for in December 1955.