HOME | LAST 100 POSTS | CONTACT ME

Author: admin

  • Bristol – Hampton by Hilton – An Update

    Bristol – Hampton by Hilton – An Update

    A few weeks ago, I was in the stage of being very pleased at how efficient and honourable many hotels were being at cancelling hotel stays. A couple of hotels explained to me that they were struggling, so I’ve postponed rather than cancelled a few of my stays as I appreciated their honesty.

    As over 1,500 people saw judging from the page views number, I also posted positively about Hampton by Hilton in Bristol, they cancelled on me and confirmed promptly themselves they’d refund in full. Hotels.com also confirmed this, and explained that the refund had been completed. Then, and the story is quite long and I’m not repeating it in full just yet, hotels.com explained that the hotel had seemingly changed its mind.

    After weeks of confusion, hotels.com confirmed that the hotel is refusing a refund and is offering only a heavily restricted voucher instead. I’m not at all content at this sort of behaviour, it puts people off booking hotel rooms at a time when the hospitality industry needs all the support that it can get.

    So, I’ve asked the two press offices for permission to post from some of their e-mails, which are a convoluted mess of chaos and confusion. I don’t much mind long delays, as this is a difficult time when hotels are suffering, but this sort of deliberate obfuscation isn’t perhaps ideal and reflects badly on the hotel industry.

  • Lingwood – Lingwood Railway Station

    Lingwood – Lingwood Railway Station

    We meandered on a training walk for the LDWA 100 through the village of Lingwood, about eight miles from Norwich, which retains its railway service on the Norwich to Great Yarmouth line.

    Not much has changed in terms of the railway in Lingwood, although some of the associated buildings have fallen out of use.

    The station building survives and is now a B&B, remaining in use for passengers until the 1960s. The railway station was originally built in 1882 by the Great Eastern Railway (GER) and it sits between the stations of Brundall and Acle. The railway station building isn’t currently listed and perhaps it and the associated structures should be.

    The station’s only platform. In 1891, GER allowed the placing of a box at the railway station where locals could deposit information about the local workhouse, a building which had been constructed in 1837. It’s a reminder of the community value that the stations once had, with the workhouse buildings surviving until 1976, when they were demolished for housing for the elderly.

    The train line, looking towards Great Yarmouth. In February 1888, a man was killed when crossing the line to get home, leading to a bizarre situation involving a smacksman named William Benns. He saw the man, Richard Frosdick, had been injured and likely killed without the train driver knowing, but only mentioned this to a station porter after Benns had realised that he had missed his own train. Benns then went to the pub for three hours to wait for his next train and he made no inquiries as to what had happened.  The coroner referred to the behaviour of Benns as “extraordinary and inhuman”, with suggestions made that perhaps Benns knew more than he was willing to admit to.

    A short distance from the railway station is this building where the crossing operator would once have lived and worked from. A new crossing system has just been installed by Network Rail (not least because a train ran into it a few years ago), so it all looks new and shiny, with the crossing until very recently being operated manually. This three-bedroom cottage is still owned by Greater Anglia and is currently available to be rented for £5,000 per year, it would prove handy for those who use the railway frequently.

    Also looking new and shiny is the train itself, heading from Norwich to Great Yarmouth.

    Hopefully looking back on these photos in a few years, rules and requirements such as this will be just a distant memory. At the moment, we can’t use the railway network for the purposes of getting to and from walks, but hopefully that situation will change in the relatively near future.

  • Parish Clerks

    Parish Clerks

    From the Norfolk Chronicle of 15 January 1898, this struck me as being a rather intriguing snapshot of the period as what roles were valued in the community were changing. It reads:

    “A correspondence asks in the ‘Church Notes’ column for information concerning the sayings and doings of the parish clerks. It is much to be regretted that the parish clerk, except in a few solitary instances, no longer represents the third estate in the parochial realm. Time was when the three great men of the parish were the squire, the parson and the clerk; and of the trio, the latter, perhaps, was the greatest. He occupied the honoured seat in the bar parlour, at the village inn; he was the visitor most welcomed at the barber’s shop; and he was the one man in the community upon whom devolved the duty of reading aloud the contents of the weekly news sheet to the assembled rustic. The school-master was altogether out of the running; there were invariably too much pedantry and patronage about him – faults which militated against his popularity; but the parish clerk, who presence was indispensable at marriages, christenings and funerals, and in the ordinary services of the church, had greatness thrust upon him in social conclaves, and he thus maintained a position of considerable importance and dignity.”

    I’m not sure many parish clerks would today think that they had “greatness thrust upon them”, nor would teachers be too pleased to hear of their reputation……

  • Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day Sixty-Seven

    Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day Sixty-Seven

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

    And catching up today since I’ve missed a few days over the last week.

    Caxon

    This word is defined as “an old weather-beaten wig” and it is apparently still in very occasional usage today, although I can’t say that I’ve ever heard anyone use it in general conversation. It seems though that the word was usually placed before the word ‘wig’ to signify that it was old and worn, rather than being used as a word on its own.

    The dictionaries don’t know how the word came into usage, one suggests it was probably just named after a person called Caxon who happened to have a worn a rather dilapidated old wig. This is what interests me most about the word, some poor sod from centuries ago has likely had centuries of people using his name in vain…..

  • Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day Sixty-Six

    Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day Sixty-Six

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

    With the move to a new server, I’ve got a little behind with these daily words, so there might be a little splurge of them to catch up.

    Cautions

    This is defined in the form of a short poem:

    “The Four Cautions

    1 – Beware of a woman before

    2 – Beware of a horse behind

    3 – Beware of a cart side-ways

    4 – Beware of a priest every way”

    200 years on, some people might perhaps say that this advice isn’t entirely out of place.

  • Accor Hotels – Platinum Welcome Gift

    Accor Hotels – Platinum Welcome Gift

    As Hilton, IHG and Expedia have obfuscated and delayed my refunds with the current situation, I’ve been genuinely impressed by Accor Hotels and the response from their hotels. And, I’m also pleased that the chain gave me Platinum status, which I would have reached anyway this month, without making the stays. Which is a little difficult at the moment.

    This arrived through the post today, and I like little surprises like this. Like a kid really.

    I nearly did an unboxing video, but that would have perhaps been a little excessive.

    Well, how lovely.

    And these wireless earphones are genuinely very useful as I don’t have any and was thinking of getting some. I’ve got them set up and although I’m not an expert in these matters (or indeed many matters at all) they seem decent quality.

    I can now definitely say that Accor Hotels are my favourite hotel company. I’m so easily bought with gifts…..

  • LNER Dining Facilities in 1939

    LNER Dining Facilities in 1939

    I hadn’t seen a list like this before, it details what catering facilities there were available in all of the London and North East Railway (LNER) stations.

    Strange to think that there was a refreshment room at Newmarket railway station, there isn’t even a station building left there now for those passengers passing through.

  • Brundall – Brundall Gardens Railway Station

    Brundall – Brundall Gardens Railway Station

    We went through this railway station on our third training walk for the LDWA, it’s one of two stations in Brundall.

    Brundall Gardens is a little unusual as a railway station as it’s a more modern station that was added to an existing line. It was built in 1924 on the Norwich to Great Yarmouth line, located around four miles from Norwich and less than one mile from Brundall’s main railway station. On the above map from 1900, the railway station is just above the field which is numbered 7.

    Standing on the southern platform, this is the line to Great Yarmouth. Operated by London and North Eastern Railway (LNER), the railway station opened on 1 August 1924 to allow access to the nearby 76-acre site of Brundall Gardens. It was originally known as Brundall Gardens Halt and was renamed as simply Brundall Gardens in 1948.

    The gardens that the railway station was built for had been purchased by Michael Beverley in the 1880s and he had laid them out to include waterways and lakes. Frederick Holmes-Cooper, who had made his money from the cinematic industry, bought them in 1921 and the gardens were being visited by 60,000 people in 1922. The installation of the railway station cost £1,733 and Cooper gave LNER £150 per year to fund a stationmaster. There’s a map of the gardens at http://www.brundallvillagehistory.org.uk/maps.htm.

    Still standing on the south platform, this is the line to Norwich. A booking office was placed on the north platform, with a waiting room and passenger accommodation installed on the south platform. Only the booking office now remains, other than for a basic shelter on the south platform.

    On the footbridge, looking in the direction of Great Yarmouth.

    On the footbridge, looking in the direction of Norwich.

    There’s a footpath that goes from Postwick towards the station.

    A section from the 1939 LNER railway timetable.

  • Brundall – Church of St Michael and All Angels

    Brundall – Church of St Michael and All Angels

    We visited here on our third training walk for the LDWA 100 next year, and it’s the Church of St Michael All Angels on the edges of Brundall, in what is the deserted medieval village of Braydeston. Although nothing now remains of Braydeston, this settlement was listed in the Domesday Book in 1086 and it’s known that there were ten households here in 1428. The date of this means that the village wasn’t abandoned due to the Black Death, it was probably just a change in either the fishing or farming needs of the local community.

    The village of Braydeston was located in the field by the church and this building dates to the thirteenth century, although has some Saxon structure within it. For such a relatively small settlement, it’s a substantial church and the tower was added later following a bequest from John Berney in 1440. The roof line of the church was also lifted at the same time at what appeared to be the height of the building’s fortunes.

    Due to the current situation, there was no access to the interior of the church, but it does hold one of the few bread ovens which remain in church buildings.

    An early medieval doorway which was bricked up in the nineteenth century. The church had fallen out of usage in the seventeenth century, but as part of the Victorian resurgence of religion, services were again held here and a new organ was installed.

    One of the railed-off tombs.

    I’ve seen many grave markers like this, although they’re normally older. This one commemorates the life of Elizabeth Mary Theobald and Harold Thomas Theobald.

    At the front of the church, there was a footpath query in the early twentieth century, something a little rarer then. This related to the meadow path which crosses into Brundall and although it was defined as a footpath, cars started to use it, not least hearses getting to the church. The local council said that cars could use the track, although wiser heads have since prevailed and it’d be quite difficult to get a hearse along that track today.

  • LDWA 100 – Training Walk 3

    LDWA 100 – Training Walk 3

    This walk was socially distanced….. And is the third walk in preparation for the 2021 LDWA 100. But isn’t an LDWA walk in itself, because these have all been suspended until the troubles are over.

    WALK NUMBER: 3 (Norwich to Lingwood)

    DISTANCE COVERED: 22 miles

    NUMBER OF NATHAN’S FRIENDS WE “ACCIDENTALLY” BUMP INTO: 3

    SUFFICIENT BEER CONSUMED: No

    PUBS VISITED: 0

    WEATHER CONDITIONS: Moderate

    ATTACKED BY ANIMALS: No

    NUMBER OF SNAKES SEEN: 0

    It’s taken me over a day to be able to upload this due to some faffing about with moving servers, but here we are, the walk we completed on Saturday 23 May 2020. There’s a bit more history to this walk as nothing overly eventful happened, but hopefully enough to remain sufficiently readable. I’m going to struggle to ham this up enough to make it a rock n roll type story, and certainly we didn’t smash anything up on our travails, but I shall dredge what memories out that I can.

    The walk started near to Rosary Cemetery, which is notable for being the first non-denominational graveyard in the UK.

    It’s a beautiful setting, peaceful and quite expansive, with nearly 20,000 people buried here.

    Lion Wood, some of which is ancient woodland. Nathan seemed to think that I got lost in this wood, but I was just looking at some of the trees which weren’t on the path.

    What’s left of Pinebanks, formerly used by Norwich Union. I’m not sure that I’ve seen these buildings and grounds for the best part of 25 years, despite it being relatively near to where I live. Not sure what’s going on here, but there should be some redevelopment of the area over the next few years.

    This route took us back onto the Yarmouth Road. Nothing exciting happened here.

    The Buck in Thorpe St. Andrew, which was closed before the current situation and it’s had a difficult few years. It’s a seventeenth-century building, with numerous extensions and an internal layout that I find quite disjointed.

    This is Thorpe St Andrew Parish Church and I’ll have to write more about this elsewhere, otherwise this is becoming a history blog post. In short, this is the tower of the abandoned church which is now the gateway to the new 1866 church structure which stands behind it.

    We walked by here in the morning and it was already open, so we knew that we could get chips on the way back and we looked forwards to them throughout the day. More on this bloody debacle later though.

    And another derelict building, this time the Griffin pub which had been licensed premises since the middle of the eighteenth century. Formerly also known as Griffin & Pleasure Gardens and the Hungry Fox, it also took the perhaps ridiculous name of Gunga Dins Old Colonial House between 1984 and 1986. It looks like the building will avoid being demolished and since it comes with a chunk of land, there might be a fair amount of redevelopment around here.

    The name of a property on Griffin Lane.

    I have some friends that might get a sticker such as this just to avoid social contact after the current crisis is over.

    Just as we were wondering how we were supposed to join the Southern Bypass, these steps appeared. They were much steeper than they look in the photo and reminded me just how hilly Norfolk is.

    Here’s the beautiful and peaceful site of what was once Postwick Grove.

    This is marked red and white to stop cars driving down the pedestrian path. This worries me, as it’s likely some bloody idiot has tried it.

    The thirteenth-century All Saints church at Postwick, which we would have missed if it wasn’t for the Komoot app sending us down here.

    Back into countryside, there were numerous woodland areas on this section of the walk.

    Brundall Gardens, our first of three railway stations in the day. More on this station in another post, but this was originally known as Brundall Gardens Halt and was opened in 1924 to serve the increasingly popular local lakes and gardens. The station was inserted onto the existing line, just a short distance from Brundall’s main intermodal hub (well, the local bus).

    Into Brundall, it was time for lunch. The staff here have turned their shop into a slalom type affair, which is an Ikea style effort which means you have to walk along every aisle, so the four poor staff stacking shelves had every single customer go by them. Although this amused me when Nathan got trapped in an aisle with four staff on all sides. Anyway, the store’s attempt to force staff to meet every customer within 3 inches aside, the meal deal arrangement proved satisfactory and the staff seemed helpful and friendly.

    The lunch-time meal deal. I use this photo partly because anything food-related gets uploaded, but also so I could whinge on about the poor quality of the pork pies. I think Nathan agreed with me when I mentioned the quality, although I suspect he lost interest when I commented on the subject a few more times. I like to have things to get annoyed at.

    The Ram Inn. It was shut.

    The train at Brundall railway station, which opened in 1844. I hope that Greater Anglia haven’t realised that there’s a lovely station building here, as otherwise they might want to rush over to knock it down to build a car park.

    This is about as much sense as I’ve got out of Greater Anglia information team about how much of the Brandon railway station’s frontage they can save. Anyway, I digress and this was a cheap dig. Which is actually probably what Greater Anglia will be doing at Brandon with their bloody car park.

    The Huntsman. It was shut.

    Mr Motivation excited me by telling that he knew that this pub was open.

    It was shut. Although, it was open if we’d have timed it differently, so we were nearly there…. It was at this point that I realised I had made a mistake not to carry a bag, which could have contained a couple of delicious beers.

    Nathan knew this area well, as he worked around here and so he was able to tell me quite confidently that there was no path and only a narrow verge on this stretch of road. Anyway, we enjoyed walking along the path that was unbroken and you can see just how treacherously narrow the verges were in places. But, I didn’t say anything as it’s not worth causing any upset.

    Whilst walking down this road there was a surprise. Nathan’s friend Ben appeared driving down the road as if by an amazing coincidence. Let’s be realistic, Nathan’s slipped him £5 to drive up and down for an hour for this magic meeting. Let’s remember Nathan “doesn’t know many people”, but frankly, it’d be easier to walk around with the Pope the amount of times we’re stopped on walks. But more on that later.

    Strumpshaw church, more on this another time….

    After we had got over the ‘shock’ of Nathan’s friend driving by, we were rewarded with this sign showing that it was just 1/4 mile into Lingwood.

    One mile later we arrived into Lingwood.

    It was shut.

    The former Methodist chapel at Lingwood. Again, to avoid this quick walk report turning into a major epic, I’ll write about this another time.

    The Lingwood & Strumpshaw reading rooms, more another time….

    When we heard the gates come down I explained, using all my knowledge and experience of the railways, that it would definitely be the train going from Great Yarmouth to Norwich. So we looked out for it coming from the Great Yarmouth direction. Anyway, the Norwich to Great Yarmouth train then appeared from the Norwich direction. We swiftly moved on.

    I can’t recall ever going to Lingwood, so this is a first for me, the delights and excitement of Lingwood railway station. I really can’t make that sound interesting, although there’s some heritage to the station building (not yet knocked down by Greater Anglia), which was opened in 1882 by the Great Eastern Railway and is now in use as a B&B. More on this in another post though.

    Looking down the line towards Lingwood’s sole platform.

    After taking in all that Lingwood had to offer, we meandered back a different way to Brundall, taking a more scenic countryside route from Lingwood. Although not until we bumped into the second person that Nathan knew.

    This is the thirteenth century St Michael and All Angels in Brundall, although it was once the parish church of Braydeston, but that settlement was abandoned in the medieval period.

    After we had left the church, the next friend that Nathan had phoned up to make up an appearance came randomly cycling along with his family. With a conversation that was skilfully scripted to ensure that I could gather how competent Nathan was at his previous job, I pretended that I didn’t think this was another rigged effort.

    Hmmmmm. We bravely went into the field full of danger, but we didn’t see the bull.

    Back in Brundall, this is a glorious building and it dates back to the seventeenth century, now sadly lost as a pub, but it was the Old Beams and before that the White Horse.

    A quick snack from the town’s other Co-op on the way back.

    Free books outside a charity shop. I’d add it said that they were free, I hadn’t just assumed that, but I decided against carrying anything back.

    As mentioned earlier, we had been looking forwards to chips, and in my case, sausage & chips, since we walked past this fish & chip shop, the Thorpe Fish Bar, earlier on in the day. So, I stroll in after nearly walking in the exit door, and checked if they accepted cards. Which they didn’t. Now, this situation just very slightly annoyed me. I spent 5 weeks in Poland earlier in the year and every single shop, bar, restaurant, hotel and newsagent accepted cards. But here we are in the customer service driven UK and a few outlets here stick rigidly to cash. This wouldn’t matter, but the pair of us walking professionals had one credit card and one debit card between us. But, anyway, that’s their choice and they did tell us that there was a cash machine at Sainsbury’s which was nearby. The service was incidentally excellent and friendly, so I was quite impressed by that.

    So, Nathan very kindly offered to run to Sainsbury’s. I had already upped my order to jumbo sausage and chips in anticipation and I noticed Nathan meandering slowly over to the ATM without much running involved if I’m being honest. Given he’s told me that he’s the park run king, I had expected a little more eagerness. Then he messages me about half an hour later saying that the ATM is out of order. Since neither of us carried cash, this proved to be a disaster. I was a little disappointed that this could have potentially been a regular new source of fish and chips for me, but I’ll never know now. I seem destined to always eat at the wonderful Grosvenor fish and chip shop in the city centre. Some things are just destined to be though and this is fine, as the Grosvenor has delectable and succulent delights that I haven’t tired of for over twenty years.

    That meant we had to walk the last miles back hungry. Other than Nathan mentioned a couple of times (9 times I think) that his wife would be putting a pizza in the oven that would be waiting cooked when he got back. So, I popped into Aldi and managed to buy some half-price rice pudding. Really living the culinary dream there….

    And, that was that, the walk ended after 22 miles (it’s a bit shorter on the Runkeeper file as we did a bit before I turned it on, and some after I turned it off) and there were no injuries. This training programme is definitely flying along. And for anyone wondering, Nathan said his meat feast pizza was delicious. As indeed was my rice pudding.