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I think that this is really rather lovely, it’s an altarpiece that once stood at the east end of a church. The doors with the decorated wings are missing, but it has retained much of its colour although some of this appears to have been through restoration (not that I claim to know what I’m talking about, but it feels over-restored to me and a bit too new). The museum simply notes that this is from around 1450, it’s from South Germany and they don’t know what church it’s from.

Unfortunately, it’s not clear who owns this as it’s not listed in the collections of the British Museum or Norfolk Museums Service, but it’s probably the latter.

The museum doesn’t know who this is, other than it’s a female saint. I asked AI for ideas and it claims that this is St Mary Magdalene with “extreme confidence” which is rather strong. It also notes that it is likely to be from Germany and dates to around 1490, so it’s not much disagreeing with the museum on that.

Obviously, I asked AI what the statue would have once looked like. Yet again, I am surprised and delighted at this.

Not much doubt about the Virgin Mary, the central figure.

The museum notes that this is “probably St. Barbara”, and I’ve felt the need to ask AI and it agrees. I’m conscious that AI isn’t necessarily always accurate, but it generally ties into what knowledge is known, so I’m getting ever more confident.

As the sculpture looked a bit surprised, I asked AI to bring this one back to life as well, and it now looks more pious.

On this, I wanted to know whether this would have been in a German church or an English church. AI has given me a series of references to show that this was highly likely made in Germany, as many altarpieces were, and shipped to England. It is confident on this as apparently the three saints portrayed were the ones most commonly requested by the English market.

Even if AI is wrong on some details, I like the background knowledge that it gives me on nearly every exhibit. I do rather think that the museum could be doing a little more here, adding depth

These are bits of the tomb belonging to Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk (1425-1485), who had a rather decadent set-up at Thetford Priory. Unfortunately for him, the monastery was dissolved in 1540 and despite the pleadings of numerous nobles, the church and tomb were destroyed in 1547. I’ve been to the remains of Thetford Priory a few times, but it seems that I have failed to take a photo of where the tomb once stood. I’ll pop back at some point….

Some praise to AI here, I asked it to bring the statue back to life with the angel that might once have been here. AI thinks that it was a monk and not an angel, and I think it might well be right. Once again, I rather like what AI has done here.

The grieving family, who remained Catholic, decided to create a new tomb at St Mary-at-Lambeth, but this was recklessly destroyed by the Victorians when they decided to rebuild the church. In turn, that church was nearly demolished in the 1970s when it became redundant, but fortunately, that at least has been saved.

I understand that these bits of the tomb were recovered in the 1930s, although I can’t find the items in the collections of either Norfolk Museum Service or the British Museum to be able to discover more about that.

There was certainly some decorative effort made with this tomb, which must have been of a substantial size. I really rather like that these bits have survived as if the story had been different and the church not demolished, then it’s likely that the tomb would still be there today. I wonder what the work crew tasked with smashing up the tomb would have thought…..

No, this isn’t a Travelodge with the sofa removed which gives it large amounts of floor space with a bed shoved in a middle, this is the third room that has been recreated at Norwich Castle, the other two being the Great Hall and the Chapel.

I’ve visited what Historic Royal Palaces say about this and they write about rugs on the floor, large wooden pieces of furniture placed around the room, probably a table, a roaring fire (I do accept that Norwich Castle can’t do this) and maybe even more decorative and colourful (although Norwich Castle has done this to some degree) design.

Far me it for me to moan, but all told, I think this is a generally a slightly shoddy arrangement where the museum hasn’t provided many information boards at the site, or details online (unless you hunt back through a really rather excellent site transformation blog they wrote several years ago whilst the work was ongoing and which isn’t linked from their website anywhere that I can find), about how they’ve decorated these rooms.

The craftspeople they’ve had do work on the bed, the doors and numerous other elements have all been done to a very high standard, but there’s little mention of the work that’s gone into this so that visitors can find out more or gain an understanding into the quite expensive projects. As an example, there have been thousands of hours of work on the tapestry by volunteers, but you wouldn’t know that from the museum’s website, although they have referenced it on their blog.

I rather get the impression that the museum ran out of time (and probably money and enthusiasm), so they’ve done their best in the time that they’ve had available. Anyway, I’m pleased that they’ve created the The Gallery of Medieval Life downstairs, but I was a little underwhelmed with these three rooms as I like information and attention to detail in explaining the history. Hopefully, as they have all this information, it’ll be added to their website in due course.