This paper concerns a group of educated women of independent means and their relationship to a Norfolk village and its people in the early 20th and mid-20th century. The focal figure is Marietta Pallis (1882–1963), ecologist and artist, who rented and then owned the marshland property of Long Gores, Hickling. In this paper we consider Pallis and friends' engagement with land and its management, their relationship to the locality as residents and employers of servants, and their literary consideration of local culture in terms of architecture and dialect. We emphasise the currencies of the local informing their actions, and reactions to them, and the related geographies of private life. Pallis and friends' relationship to land, their relationship to people, and their commentary on local character and identity make sense through and foster geographies of local life.
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