Category: Norwich

Just to show how little attention I pay to things sometimes, this sculpture has been here since 2011 and I’ve never really paid it the slightest bit of attention. It was commissioned by the council as part of the process of modernising the site of the city’s war memorial.

The war memorial was first unveiled in 1927, when it was located outside of the Guildhall (photo here) and it was moved in front of Norwich City Hall in 1938 (photo here). In 2011, the war memorial was moved slightly to face the other way, looking at Norwich City Hall, with this bronze sculpture placed where the memorial had once stood. The move was requested by veterans, as the memorial wasn’t being treated with respect by those who found themselves sitting near to it, so it needed a more fitting location.

The stone on the pavement noting the sculpture. The bronze sculpture is meant to show the connection between life and death, although I have to be honest and note that I struggle to see what the artist had in mind here. However, I like the concept and the motto notes “the living honour the dead, only a breath divides them”. It was quite a brave commission though, and there is something in the thought that it was only chance that divided those who lived and those who died in war.

The official information about the sculpture notes:

“Breath is made up of two elements: a tall central slab, flanked on each side by seven ‘leaves’ whose geometry suggests growth. The central element reflects Lutyens’ stone of remembrance”.

The war memorial itself was designed by Edwin Lutyens, one of the great architects of his generation. What I hadn’t realised until today is that he designed Castle Drogo, which is I think my favourite National Trust property. Although this isn’t perhaps Lutyens’s crowning glory, the thing leaks terribly and it’s costing the National Trust a small fortune to fix.

Anyway, I digress. I like the boldness of this sculpture and the concept is one that’s perhaps worth pondering.

One of the locations that I wanted to visit was Old Lakenham parish church, so that was where Nathan and I headed today on a minor little walk.

The Cock at Lakenham is looking ever more derelict and it’s got easy access via that open window. Well, not necessarily easy access for me, but for anyone who can climb things.

This is St. John the Baptist and All Saints Church that I had been meaning to visit and it’s located on top of a hill in a prominent location. Unfortunately, the church is now surrounded all on sides by housing and feels a bit forlorn. It was also not the pretty building that I was expecting, it’s covered in render which makes it look like a house extension from the 1970s. Given the remote and interesting location on a hilltop, it was slightly disappointing.

One of the most unimpressive priest’s doors that I’ve seen on what is a medieval church.

This is perhaps the most beautiful angle possible for this church, but that aisle extension is out of place.

The church tower which is a fifteenth century rebuild, with the main part of the church dating from the thirteenth century, albeit with many ugly additions.

I found it hard to see behind the render to see the beauty if I’m being honest. St. Mark’s church was opened in the 1840s as a Chapel of Ease and that meant that St. John’s lost a little of its relevance. The two churches are relatively far away from each other, St. Mark’s is up near the Rose pub, but this was nearer to where the centre of Lakenham had moved to.

There were several interesting graves I’ll write about later on. There are six war graves here, although we could only find three of them. Some of them don’t have the distinctive war grave style, so finding them all would have been challenging.

Standing at the bottom of the hill, it all felt more of a castle site than a church. There have been some Roman finds at the top of the hill and I can imagine that the Saxons had some dealings here as well.

The River Tas at Old Lakenham, where it meets the River Yare a little further upstream.

Fancying a little adventure, we decided to see if we could walk down the riverside path and it did prove to be possible. Although, only just, and it did involve wading through some rather large puddles of water. And indeed some minor lakes rather than puddles. We agreed between us that we had been very brave and noted that no-one else seemed stupid enough to try and make their way along the flooded path.

Normally it’s possible to walk across this field, which connects back into Whitlingham Lane. We were able to walk some of it, but it had only just opened up as there was a closure order marked up which had just expired.

Despite having written about this structure earlier in the year, I forgot the history here, and this is the former Trowse Newton Hall and its associated chapel.

The fields at Trowse, which look quite peaceful. In reality, there were a lot of people around and it’s one of the reasons that I rarely go to Whitlingham now. Cars are given priority along Whitlingham Lane, making it quite hard to socially distance whilst walking down the pavement.

Nathan had brought a few beers with him, which we had sitting on a bench drinking out of KFC cups. Not the most decadent and I think we rather gave false hope to some people that there was a KFC nearby. The cafe at Whitlingham Lake is still open, although there was a long queue, and rather helpfully the toilets were also open. Drinking on a park bench isn’t ideal, I’ll be pleased when pubs are open once again.

And the sun which was starting to set…..

This wasn’t a long walk, just under nine miles, but we have agreed that we will have to rather up our walk distances in preparation for the LDWA 100….

There is some flooding further down the River Wensum following the recent rain in Norfolk, but it’s not overly high in the city centre. I shall brave the Norfolk countryside over the next few days to see how sodden that is.

Taken from Foundry Bridge, at the end of Prince of Wales Road, the river is high but hasn’t burst its banks.

The still closed Red Lion on the left.

Taken from the other side of Bishop Bridge.

Looking towards Riverside Road.

The bench is now quite moist….

Water on the Norwich School playing fields, with the middle patch of water being where the tennis courts were 100 years ago.

This was the queue for Primark in Norwich just a couple of days ago, when the city was in Tier 2. Below are photos from today, Boxing Day, with a Norwich in Tier 4. Much quieter than I had anticipated, with little open other than Five Guys and Costa.

Thanks to Google and archive.org, this short book from 1848 is available on-line. The book contains a proposal to turn land at Mousehold Heath into a cemetery, something which wasn’t enacted, although Earlham Cemetery opened in 1856 to deal with the issues raised in this book.

The author of this book isn’t given, but it was addressed to the Lord Bishop of Norwich, who was then Edward Stanley. The author painted a clear picture of the situation in Norwich churchyards at the time:

“In many of the Norwich churchyards the soil is now almost level with the windows; piled up four, five or six feet above the original surface with the ashes of the dead, which are allowed to lie undisturbed for a period far too short for total decay of the corpse and its tenement”.

That’s not an ideal situation and nor was the outbreak of cholera in 1848, which strengthened the author’s case. Indeed, the Home Secretary actually forced the council’s hands, saying that churchyard burials in Norwich must stop by 1855 because of the cholera issue.

The author of the book suggested:

“There is lying, hardly beyond the precincts of Norwich, within half a mile of the Cathedral, a tract of land, which I can hardly be wrong in stating as comprising from 100 to 200 acres, not only uncultivated but wholly unproductive; bearing only thorns and briers; the stones and gravel extending to the very surface”.

He added that the owners of the land, who were the Church of England, had granted permission for it to be used, but they wanted in recompense:

“Funds to be appropriated towards the establishment and maintenance of a National School in the neglected, and wellnigh near heathen, district of Pockthorpe”.

This is a slightly blunt way of describing the area of Pockthorpe…. (it’s around where Norwich Puppet Theatre is, Silver Road and the area at the base of Mousehold Heath).

The author’s vision of how the new cemetery should turn out was modern and indeed the basis of how the new wave of burial grounds were built. The Rosary Cemetery had already opened by this time, with a chapel and plenty of space allocated for burials. The author noted though the necessity for two rooms to place the dead body before burial, saying a requirement was:

“Two large rooms for the dead, to which a corpse may be removed shortly after death, till the time of interment; one being set apart for those who have died of a fever or other infectious disease. I would make this a very principal point. Nothing can be more distressing than the state of many a poor man’s family after a death has taken place, and before the body can be interred. I speak only from what I have myself seen in country parishes: often is a man and his wife and a large family of children – some perhaps nearly grown up – living in two rooms, or perhaps even in one, with the corpse of one of its members occupying one out of the two or perhaps three beds, and this perhaps in the hottest weather of summer”.

There was also an interesting observation about the difference between English graveyards, which the author noted were “little else than a passage leading to it, or a large enclosure overgrown with weeds and rank grass”, compared to European graveyards which were more spacious and were destinations in their own right.

The proposals for this cemetery were that it should be primarily for the Church of England, along the lines of Mill Road Cemetery in Cambridge where each parish received its own chunk of land. When Earlham Cemetery was opened, there was though much more room provided for dissenters. So, although the burial needs of the city of Norwich were resolved in the 1850s, this was an interesting proposal. There had been suggestions of using Mousehold Heath as a site for burials since the late eighteenth century, proposals which were never enacted.