Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Author: admin

  • Fakenham – Fakenham Junior School (Heritage Trail 19)

    Fakenham – Fakenham Junior School (Heritage Trail 19)

    Part of the Fakenham Heritage Trail that I’m working my way slowly around, this is number 19. The school was built in 1913 as a school for boys, girls and infants, with a big dividing wall between the boys and girls. This was removed in 1935 and now serves as Fakenham’s junior school.

    This is part of the marvellous railings project that was designed by the children to mark their centenary and there’s a full text of the wording at the heritage trail’s page at https://www.flht.co.uk/19-junior-school.html. As a little side, I’m a little disappointed that the school’s web-site manages to make no reference to their history and a search term of the word ‘history’ produces no results on their pages at all.

    Another event to mark the centenary was the appearance of Michael Palin, whose grandfather Dr Edward Palin was present at the opening of the school on 21 May 1913. Palin’s father was also born in Fakenham, so there something fitting about his presence at the event.

  • Fakenham – Peckover Family (Heritage Trail 9)

    Fakenham – Peckover Family (Heritage Trail 9)

    Working around Fakenham’s heritage trail, this is number 9 and it represents the Peckover family. The property that the plaque is located on is 14, Market Place and was originally known as 14, The Square. Used today by the Nationwide bank, it’s an eighteenth-century building which was owned by the Peckover family.

    The Peckover family were Quakers who became important business people in Fakenham and Wisbech and owned much property in both locations. Peckover’s Bank was created in what is today’s the town’s Boots, which later became merged with Gurney’s Bank and then in turn this became part of Barclays Bank. Some of the family moved to Wisbech to set up banking operations there, with Peckover House being a large country estate which is now managed by the National Trust.

  • Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day 133

    Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day 133

    The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue was first published at the end of the eighteenth century, and given that the current health crisis is giving too much time to read books, I thought I’d pick a daily word from it until I got bored….

    Galimaufrey

    This hodgepodge of a word is defined by the dictionary as “a hodgepodge made up of the remnants and scraps of the larder”, something which would be familiar to many families today. It’s from the French word ‘galimafrée’, which is a stew that uses various ingredients depending on what people had available at the time.

    The word is more commonly spelled as Gallimaufry and it has remained in use over the decades.

  • Gorleston – St. Andrew’s Church

    Gorleston – St. Andrew’s Church

    There has been a church here since the Saxon period, although the current building primarily dates from between the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries.

    The church is relatively sizeable, with aisles on both sides of the building. The church is built with flint and pebbles, with an extensive Victorianisation taking place in 1872, as well as a long-needed repair to the dilapidated thatched roof, which was replaced with slates. There’s a modern-day extension to the building which is used by the parish, but it’s not particularly sensitive and it perhaps disrupts the feel of the churchyard.

    The church has put protection up on its windows, I assume due to past problems with vandalism. It’s sad to see a priest’s door with an iron grille up outside of it though, but best to be safe than sorry. On the left is the south porch, which was reconstructed in 1872. If I had visited this church 200 years ago it would have looked probably quite beautiful with its thatched roof, extensive churchyard and medieval feel, but much has changed since then.

    The three-stage church tower, which is from the thirteenth century and is quite understated with its relatively small windows.

    I have no idea what is going on with the churchyard, but there is some ridiculous spacing going on of the gravestones. Normally, gravestones are vaguely near to each other, but for reasons unknown to me there are sizeable gaps between them all. I can only imagine that someone has been moving them about, or taking some out, unless for centuries they seem to think that the dead are somehow anti-social.

    There was a theft here in 1909, when Edward Lighton of 20 Nile Road in the town wrote to the press to report that his books had been stolen from the box where he placed them under one of the pews. Although his box shouldn’t have been there, he found it convenient to store his prayer and hymn books. Not wishing to become a cold case crime detective, I just get the suspicion that another parishioner didn’t like him doing that. Lighton wrote in his letter that “two wrongs don’t make one right, and although I illegally left them, it cannot justify a thief in stealing them”.

    The church was open to visitors when I meandered around it, but there was a funeral taking place and so it hardly seemed an appropriate moment to pop inside.

  • Cromer – Offences Against Decency

    Cromer – Offences Against Decency


    I liked this very Victorian letter I found on the British Newspaper Archive which was sent from an anonymous contributor in Cromer to the Norfolk Chronicle, who published it on 19 September 1863. The railway didn’t reach the town until 1877 and the contributor was clearly worried about the “profane vulgar” rushing in….

    The letter:

    “Sir, Is there no summary way of dealing with the offences against decency that visitors at the sea side are compelled to witness: or must we do nothing and consent to place among the social evils that are inevitable the practice of nude bathing at mid-day on our public promenade? I am writing this from a small and much frequented watering place, not at present accessible by railroad, and, therefore, comparatively speaking, unknown to the class commonly called the profane vulgar. The objectionable practice is, however, not the less in full force here, and ought to be remedied.

    What adds to the culpability of the local authorities is the fact that there is an almost unlimited extent of sea beach, and therefore no obstacle to a wide separation between the machines set apart for the use of the sexes. The fact is that fifty yards at furthest is the space dividing them, the piles of the breakwater running between, affording convenient seats for the lady visitors who, strange to say, select that portion of the beach as the spot most agreeable to work and to read in. The naked male figure is doubtless an interesting object of contemplation, but although we have seen the paint brush in the hands of some of the fair visitors on these occasions, we cannot suppose that they posted themselves exactly on this spot at this hour in the interests of high art. Let them be told that apart from the inconvenience caused by their proximity to the machines set apart for men, but which gentleman naturally avoid – the sober sense of English husbands and brothers revolts at the spectacle of women of all ages seated within speaking distance of naked men, disporting themselves in the water.

    Things may be, and I believe they are worse, in some parts of England, than they are here. Nearer London a certain reciprocity prevails in this species of libertinism, making the sea-beach, which is meant for all, forbidden ground to modest women. We do not want French manners and customs over here, but surely there is some safe, middle course which might be adopted in the matter of bathing. As things are it is common decency that is outraged. It is morality that is endangered. Even a New Zealander has some sense of propriety in his ablutions. If what we daily witness here were seen on the continent of Europe, the person offending would run the risk of being flogged and imprisoned. The evil with us is of long standing, so are many other abuses – but that is not the point. We must mend our bathing manners. A word from you would suffice to remedy the evil, and cause some regulations to be adopted (for there are none at all now) with regard to the placing of the machines, and the proper time and place for bathing from the beach.

    I remain, Sir, yours obediently

    A visitor.”

    The newspaper replied under the letter, saying that they agreed, adding:

    “We have ourselves witnessed with amazement the preference shown by some ladies for the break-water during bathing hours, and have been reminded often of the old usher’s shrewd remark, when ordered by the judge to clear the court of all women during the hearing of a particularly objectionable cause, and when, in spite of orders, a few still seemed inclined to “sit it out” – “My lord, all the modest women are out of court” – Editor.

  • Happisburgh – St. Mary’s Church

    Happisburgh – St. Mary’s Church

    Located on a windy hill overlooking the North Sea, the current Happisburgh church was constructed in the fourteenth century and then finances allowed in the fifteenth century for a substantial rebuilding. There has though been a church here since the early Norman times and perhaps even the late Saxon period, with a few traces of early Norman architecture in the church tower.

    The roof of the nave is slate, whilst the chancel roof is lead.

    The north side of the church, which Household Words (a journal edited by Charles Dickens) said in the 1860s was “calculated to be engulfed [by the sea] before the close of the nineteenth century”. The church has avoided a watery fate, but the erosion issue was still of great concern in the early part of the twentieth century.

    By chance, and I should try to ensure in future that this is more by design, I took a photo in nearly the same location as the marvellous George Plunkett. It’s evident that since his photo in 1977 that a few gravestones have gone missing from the churchyard, no doubt distributed around the exterior somewhere…..

    The four-stage tower isn’t leaning, that’s just my photographic skills, and it was restored following the Second World War due to bomb damage. The church perhaps made itself a bit of a target to enemy bombers as there was a military aerial placed on top of the church tower, which is one of the highest in the county. Its height has certainly given it some trouble over the centuries, it has also been hit by lightning on numerous occasions with some considerable damage caused in June 1822.

    In 1903, an architect was called as a substantial crack appeared in the tower and his report stated that the situation was “very serious”, which would certainly worry me if I was the vicar. The architect noted that “the walls consist almost entirely of flints and chalk lime mortar, and, the upper stages being comparatively thin for so lofty a structure, subject to the tremendous stress by winds and frost”. The church authorities would be pleased with his comments that a Victorian restoration of the tower likely saved it from destruction, but the architect’s suggestion of the addition of rolled steel joints in the structure that was now necessary must have been a worry financially.

    The sizeable south porch.

    The end chancel wall and this window led to a slight war of words in the local media in 1863. I moderately enjoyed going through the exchange, one reader called it “monstrous” and not holding back on his words, saying it was “a large blank space with a small window in the middle and a child would detect its glaring incongruity”. This caused John Henry Brown some problems, as he was the architect responsible for the west window and he wrote to the Norfolk Chronicle and stated that the Ecclesiastical Commissioners were responsible for the chancel end. He noted that the original reader’s comments had proved “injurious to my reputation” and wanted it clarified there were two different architects, for reasons no doubt seeming sensible to the church at the time. The original author wrote back to apologise for the lack of clarity and he compared the quality of the “beautiful restoration” of the west window and doorway to the “wretchedly mean restoration” of the chancel window, which is certainly a passionate argument to make.

    In the graveyard is a memorial to those men lost on the HMS Invincible in a shipping disaster that took place in March 1801.


    The church in 1955.

  • Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day 132

    Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day 132

    The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue was first published at the end of the eighteenth century, and given that the current health crisis is giving too much time to read books, I thought I’d pick a daily word from it until I got bored….

    Furmity (or Fromenty)

    This sounds like quite a jolly word and it’s defined as “wheat boiled up to a jelly. To simper like a furmity kettle: to smile, or look merry about the gills”. I prefer the smile element to this definition although this is sadly no longer in common usage, but the culinary meaning survives to this day, usually now spelled as ‘frumenty’.

    The meal was usually a dish for the poor, wheat boiled up with some milk or broth and it doesn’t sound entirely delicious, although there are now modern variations with some more exotic ingredients (not least including rum). The word comes from the Latin ‘frumentum’, meaning grain and this dish was usually the starter in medieval English feasts. I think I’d prefer a prawn cocktail to be honest….

  • British Airways – Seat Changes

    British Airways – Seat Changes

    This is progress….. In the past, if BA changed seats for operational reasons they had a habit of never telling anyone. Well, they told some people, but not the customer. This was relatively common for those in emergency exit row seats when they switched to a different aircraft, thereby either leaving the customer in a non-emergency exit row seat or shoved somewhere random near to the back of the aircraft.

    I received the above e-mail about my flight to Poland in September, and BA had switched my seat number, but they moved the seat to where the emergency exit row now was. I accept this is of limited excitement, but it’s a better system than they used to have.

  • Ingleton – Old Post Office (July 2020 Interview)

    Ingleton – Old Post Office (July 2020 Interview)

    Not with any great degree of seriousness, but I compiled my favourite pubs of 2019 last year, primarily in a bid to remember where I’d been. One of those pubs was the Hop & Vine in Hull (or the Hop & Vibe as I managed to call them on Twitter) and last week Tony answered some questions about how things are going in the current challenging climate.

    And, another one of my favourite pubs was the Old Post Office in Ingleton which, as its name suggests, is a conversion from a former post office into a cosy little arrangement which has a decent choice of beer and welcoming atmosphere, but above all, excellent customer service. Excuse the quality of my photos, I took them on my previous visit although I was intending to visit the pub again in a few weeks to take more. Unfortunately, accommodation is proving difficult to find given the number of staycations being booked, but I’ll get there sometime over the next few weeks.

    Adam and Rob from the pub kindly answered questions about how things are going with them and it gives me an idea of a place to go that I haven’t been, which is Preston. And I haven’t heard of Se7en Brothers brewery (Nathan will tut at that, as I probably should have done and I’m sure they’re on his spreadsheet), but their marshmallow stout looks marvellous!

    Anyway, onto the questions:

    You’re back open again, was it a successful re-opening for you?

    We reopened on the 4th July, as soon as we were given the green light by the government. From the word go we have been overwhelmed by people’s support. We find that most days we are open all our tables are full which is fantastic.

    How easy has it been to implement social distancing in the space that you have and have customers been prepared to come back?

    As a microbar we are naturally limited for space, so the distancing has been challenging. We have tried different layouts in the bar, and we have ensured that the 1m plus rule can be stuck too. Our main concern was that as a customer you would feel safe to come in and have a drink. We sat in each seat and measured the distance and tested the mitigations we had put in place. We have found a large number of our regulars come back which is fantastic to see, there are naturally going to be some who don’t feel safe and that’s fine. I’m sure they will return in time.

    When I visited, I didn’t notice your back room of the Armoury. It looks marvellously quirky in the photos, what inspired that theme?

    We have always been interested in history, from the Roman era, medieval to Napoleonic and the world wars. We used to own an older property in Cumbria, the style of the property suited that theme. We decided to create ‘the armoury’ to show off our collection and to create something different. (you certainly wouldn’t expect that in a small village).

    What do you see the future being for pubs in North Yorkshire, is there cause for optimism?

    I think the future is uncertain but I hope the industry makes a full recovery from recent events. With less holidays abroad and people staying in the UK this year we all hope to be busy. We are lucky to be in a touristy area surrounded by beautiful countryside, everyone likes a well earned pint after a day in the hills!

    It was clear from my visit that you have a real community feel. Were the community and your regulars supportive during the period of closure?

    During lockdown we offered a takeaway and delivery service to the local community and upto 10 miles away. We had repeat customers most weeks and they were fantastic at supporting us. It was great to get out on the deliveries and check in and see how our regulars were and have a chat. It brought a bit of normality in what was a very strange time.

    I liked the choice of beer that you had in the fridges. Given your small serving space, you offer a wide selection of options. Do you think some pubs with more size are missing out by not offering craft beer options?

    I think at the moment the craft beer industry is booming, you only have to look at the amount of small breweries in the UK. There are some fantastic beers out there. Everyone likes a choice and at times wants to try something different and unique, other venues should give it a go and see if it works for them.

    How do you go about choosing the beers? Are you guided by wholesalers, customers or inspired by extensive travel to other pubs?

    We like to conduct a lot of research and product testing! In all honesty at the start we stocked what we liked to drink, it just grew from there. We like to try the more quirky beers that you cannot find easily. That’s one positive to come out of our lockdown experience. We looked at other suppliers and stockists and broadened our search for beers. We certainly found some great breweries to work with that’s for sure.

    It’s not all about the beer. You’re big on gin, is this still a popular spirit, or is something else becoming more in favour?

    Gin has been a big seller for us since we opened but rum is catching up! There are so many different rums out there now, some really fantastic small batch bottles too.

    Would you be willing to name your other favourite pubs, whether in Yorkshire or further afield?

    Too many to mention but a bar we really want to visit as soon as we can is Applejacks Microbar in Preston, we follow them on social media and have been in contact during lockdown offering each other support. We can not wait to meet them in person and try their selection of cakes and ales.

    And, finally, do you have a favourite beer and/or spirit?

    This changes weekly! But at the moment our favourite beers are ‘Honeycomb pale ale’ from Se7en Brothers brewery and ‘Pump up the Jam’ from Tiny Rebel. Spirits wise we quite like the Salford spiced rum.

  • Fakenham – Fakenham Mill (Heritage Trail 12)

    Fakenham – Fakenham Mill (Heritage Trail 12)

    Slowly, but surely, I’m getting around the Fakenham heritage trail by visiting a few locations on it every time I come to the town. This is Fakenham Mill and there has been a mill here since at least 1240. A new building was constructed in 1620 and the route of the River Wensum was altered to suit the new structure.

    The current building dates to 1720 and is now converted into residential properties. There’s plenty more about this mill at http://www.norfolkmills.co.uk/Watermills/fakenham.html.

    Marked as the corn mill in this 1900 map, it was nearby to the town’s now closed railway station.