I wrote a few weeks ago about Alan George Gibling and how his name was wrong on the CWGC web-site. I’m pleased that following the documents that I sent them that Alan’s details have been corrected on all of their systems and his information is now correct. It’s probably not really important in the scale of world problems, but I like that a long-standing error has now been put right.
Part of my Streets of Norwich project….
As can be seen from the graffiti over the signage, this isn’t the most salubrious street in Norwich. It connects White Lion Street with Red Lion Street and as the sign says, it used to be known as Castledyck Lane as is led to the castle ditches (now Castle Meadow).
The street isn’t marked on this 1870s map, but it’s the narrow street next to York Tavern, from which the street takes its name. The street layout here has changed, the building below York Tavern on the map has been demolished to allow trams to get through to Castle Meadow. The York Tavern opened in the late eighteenth century and continued trading until 1964, with the building still standing and now used for retail.
The tram line cut through the middle is visible in this later map from the 1920s.
This information board really isn’t the most usefully placed.
Using my camera to zoom in, it’s a reminder that on 17 June 1902 there was a meeting at the Criterion Cafe, where Norwich City Football Club were established.
This was our eighth walk in preparation for the 2021 LDWA 100.
WALK NUMBER: 8 (Finding the Source of the River Wensum Part 1)
DISTANCE COVERED: 15.1 miles
NUMBER OF NATHAN’S FRIENDS WE “ACCIDENTALLY” BUMP INTO: 1 (they didn’t recognise Nathan)
SUFFICIENT BEER CONSUMED: No (all the pubs are shut)
PUBS VISITED: 0 (not through choice)
WEATHER CONDITIONS: Sun
ATTACKED BY ANIMALS: No
NUMBER OF SNAKES SEEN: 0
Finding the source of the River Wensum. It’s not exactly the exploration of the Amazon I will admit and I’m not sure that Michael Palin will be making a television series of this. But, travel is limited at the moment and so Nathan and I had this plan to walk to the source of the Wensum which is off somewhere near Fakenham.
However, it became apparent that using public transport or getting a lift back from Fakenham isn’t really within the current rules on travel. So, we decided to split the walk up into different sections and today we followed the River Wensum from Norwich, where it ends when it meets the Yare, to a point a few miles away and then we planned just to walk back. I thought we saw more history and river than we had anticipated, so it was a useful exercise. It means that there will be a part two (and maybe part three) to this plan, but it won’t be until we’re allowed to use public transport again.
This was the starting point of the walk, part of the city wall and it’s actually not far from the River Wensum. We didn’t follow the Wensum for the first part of this walk, instead joining it further along as we wanted to avoid the city centre at the moment.
These photos are all from the river section at Wensum Park, which looks rather beautiful in the morning. Best known now as where Nathan dumps his unwanted bread into the river, this stretch of land was purchased by the city council in 1907. This was rather forward thinking of them, a useful amenity for the people of Norwich and they built a swimming pool, paddling pool and wading pools for the locals to use. The locals responded to this by using the swimming pool as a refuse tip, so a new plan was put forwards by the council to use the area as a public park. Designed by Captain Sandys-Winsch and constructed with unemployed labour, the park was opened in 1925 and it remains in use for that purpose today.
Just a little further along the river, this looks quite remote, but it’s actually next to the Recycling Centre at Mile Cross.
We did plan, many years ago, to come to the Gatehouse Pub at some point, partly as it’s on the CAMRA Regionally Important Historic Interiors list. Now that we finally get here the damn thing is of course shut, but we’ll go back when pubs re-open. The pub has a large beer garden which stretches down to the Wensum and it’s built on the site of a former toll-house.
A stretch of the Wensum just off Hellesdon Road. It was around here that I started to try and break the iced up sections at the side of the river like some kid…. I got bored of that quite quickly when I realised that I might fall into the mud.
I read the other day in the newspaper that there are parakeets flying about all over England, which is giving some concern as they’re not a native species. And there were several in the trees here, I think they’re rather interesting birds which add some character, but maybe their invasive behaviours upset seagulls or something. Nathan used his wooing skills, which seemed to be similar to the random noises he makes to his cat, to charm the parakeets down. It didn’t work. I pretended that I thought Nathan was like Bill Oddie and it was very surprising to me the birds didn’t flock down.
A little collection of cut down trees.
This is the river at the junction with Hellesdon Road, near to where Marriott’s Way is. We didn’t walk on Marriott’s Way (the former railway line that got shut down in the 1960s) on the way out, instead remaining on the other side of the river bank.
This was rather lovely for Nathan, back to where he got married last year.
The medieval standing cross in the churchyard. The lower section is thought to have been in situ for over 700 years.
The village sign.
It’s now been converted into residential properties, but this was Hellesdon Mill, a formidable building.
We did have a plan to investigate this area as it’s by the river, but it’s owned by the Environment Agency and they’ve kept their bridge firmly locked to discourage anyone from crossing it. We didn’t try.
These photos are of Drayton Green Lanes, an area of walking that we hadn’t noticed on the map, but which let us get close to the river. It’s really nicely looked after and some volunteers from Norwich Fringe Countryside Management Project recently fixed some damaged boardwalk under the supervision of Drayton Parish Council. This bit of land, which it appears no-one ever claimed ownership of, was a quite welcome surprise.
The walk into Drayton along Low Road, which meant that we could see the river on our left. I must admit to getting quite into this whole project by this point as although I live near to the River Wensum, it suddenly seemed to be quite magical as we walked along it towards its source. To be honest, I think I need to get out more……
I had hoped that E Pratt and Co were doing some delicious sausage rolls as their reviews looked rather positive. They’re a local butcher, but the situation was confused (well, I was confused, which doesn’t take much) and I came to the conclusion they weren’t selling hot food as despite a carvery sign the menu boards were all for raw meat. Delicious as that probably was, I thought better of it. Marginally disappointing, I was hoping it’d be as good as Greggs.
I did try and find some food in the Applegreen petrol station instead, but it appeared to me from the pricing that Harrods had done a take-over of the premises. There was a Tesco next door, but I didn’t want to go shopping for the sake of it at the moment when all I had wanted was chips or a sausage roll. So, I bravely left Drayton with no food.
This is the stretch of the Wensum between Drayton and Costessey Mill. The river has been diverted, likely a very long time ago, so there are two stretches here, one which is likely the original course of the Wensum and another which is what powers the mill.
The mill here has gone, destroyed in a fire in the 1920s.
Nathan navigating a minor tributary of the Wensum.
This is St. Edmund’s Church in Costessey, which I visited briefly on Steve’s walk last year. The building’s history puzzled me, I’ll have to read up about it as there seem to be numerous additions from different periods. In short, there has likely been a church here since Saxon times, but the current one is mostly from the thirteenth century, albeit with a Victorian restoration.
I hadn’t noticed this before, in memory of 10 members of 564 Bomb Squadron who crashed in Carr’s Hill Wood in Costessey on 7 March 1945. There was a campaign for the footpath to this site to be kept open, as it was on permissive land and the owner wanted it closed off. I don’t know what came of that, as the permissive path ceased in 2017, but I’ll find out.
An unusual positioning of some of the older graves.
Nathan was fascinated with the grave of Wandering Wal, and it sounds like this man had an eventful and interesting life.
I assumed when walking by this building that it was a Victorian school, but it’s actually a hall which I think is linked to the Our Lady and St Walstan Roman Catholic Church which is located opposite.
Although we had to walk back to Norwich at this point, nothing of huge interest happened although we discovered just how many people are walking along Marriott’s Way. And, the point of this walk was to follow the route of the River Wensum, so in a future blog post, we will continue our trail from where we finished and pick up the story again as we head off from the Taverham area. For anyone who looks on a map, they might notice that we didn’t get very far along the River Wensum, but there’s no need to rush adventure….
As for our training for the LDWA 100….. This seems to be creeping up on us if I’m being honest and I’m not entirely sure that we’re filled with optimism. We’re confident of completing 60 miles, but more than that will be down to the Gods. Well, I say Gods, but I more mean our feet. Anyway, we’ll see what happens, but we’ve been very brave so far. There were no injuries today, other than Nathan’s slightly dodgy knee, and at least that bodes well (the no injuries part that is)
I might mention now that I can’t pretend that this is necessarily my most interesting blog post, but this letterbox is Grade II listed so there is definite heritage value to it. It dates to around 1870, so it’s only around a decade later than the first post boxes to be introduced in the UK, and it has only been closed up recently. It’s located on Howard’s House (97, King Street) in Norwich, a remarkable survival in itself which has so nearly been demolished on a few occasions.
George Plunkett once again doesn’t let me down, the post box is visible (just) in this photo from 1934. Even given that it has recently been closed up, there’s something quite intriguing about anything that has remained in use for so long, this would have served the postal needs of thousands of local residents in the Victorian period.
This pathway doesn’t appear to have a name on either old or new maps, but it separates Bridewell Museum from St. Andrew’s Church. And indeed, it appears that if we could go back 500 years to take a photo, this would look nearly exactly the same. Well, other than for the paving, that might not have been as good.
OK, this is just a flint wall on the north side of Bridewell Museum, but it has gained a reputation for being one of the finest walls of its type in the country. And I think that deserves a blog post all of its own….
What is today known as the Bridewell was actually built as a residential property in the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century. It was upgraded by William Appleyard in 1386, and at a guess, I think that this was when this wall was constructed. The building’s use changed after 1583, when it became used to house the city’s poor and unemployed, putting them to work, which is when it became the Bridewell.
As an aside here, a Bridewell is a prison, and it took its name from one which was set up in London that was next St. Bride’s Holy Well. The name stuck there and was then used throughout the country, although these buildings were often also referred to as Houses of Correction. Anyway, the building was badly damaged by fire in 1751, the prisoners were moved out and it was then used as a factory, warehouse, storage unit and anything else the locals could think of. In the early twentieth century, it was given to the city to be used as a museum and it is now known as Bridewell Museum, the Museum of Norwich.
The quality of this wall is pretty impressive and I’d hardly call myself a flint expert.
This intrigued me and I could think of only one person I knew that could tell me what this was, and that’s my fellow NORAH trustee, David Stannard. I hope he won’t mind me quoting him:
“The Bridewell wall is a classic example of knapped flint, and the picture of the circular feature is just that, flint. Flint is amorphous, i.e. it has no crystal structure to determine the way it breaks, and this block of flint, when broken in half by a hammer has produced this curious bulb…..it is termed conchoidal fracture.
Curiously, if you look at the picture upside down you get an optical illusion of a hole rather than a cone….so there may be a corresponding ‘hole’ somewhere else on the wall….the courses above and below show similar bulb features.”
And he’s quite right, look at the photo upside down!
I’ve learned something new today….. These are the gates of St. Stephen’s Church in Norwich where it meets Chapelfield (Chantry) shopping centre. I hadn’t given them much attention before, but they are finely made and add some character to the entrance to the churchyard. Anyway, what I didn’t know is that the stones set within the gate are there for a reason, they represent the stones that killed St. Stephen, who was stoned to death for his Christian beliefs.
I admit that this probably isn’t the sort of fact that someone will want to rush to tell others, but I’ll look out for similar such projects when I visit churches dedicated to St. Stephen. As an aside, if the UK had remained Catholic, it’s unlikely we’d have anything called Boxing Day, we’d be like many other European countries and have a St. Stephen’s Day on 26 December.
Part of my Streets of Norwich project….
This court connects St. Stephen’s Church to St. Stephen’s Street and isn’t the easiest of pathways to socially distance on, although fortunately I didn’t see anyone when walking down it.
There is very little visually that is of much interest along this court, but its survival is quite remarkable as nearly every building along its route has changed over the last century. This was once where people lived and worked, but is now the rear of shops which stretch along St. Stephen’s Street. Norwich once had hundreds of courts and yards, although relatively few of them have survived in anything like their original form.
This is the original width of the path and it has always been a thoroughfare and not just a court which has been opened up.
This is looking towards St. Stephen’s Street and there is now a connection between the two properties which joins the buildings.
Looking at the entrance to Barwells Court from St. Stephen’s Street, where there is now a Superdrug on one side and M&S on the other (formerly an H Samuels before M&S kept making their shop bigger).
The court takes its name from Barwells Wine Merchants, which had been set up by John Barwell (1798-1876) and he was married to Louisa Barwell, the musician and educational writer. As ever, George Plunkett has a photograph here of interest, which shows damage from the Second World War and also what was underneath what is now Superdrug, but was then the premises of Barwells Wine Merchants.
Part of my Streets of Norwich project…. I hadn’t forgotten about it, and perhaps in 2021 I might finish it.
This is Fishers Lane (Fisher Lane on the above map) which is between Pottergate and St. Giles Street. The map above is around 100 years old, the one below is around 150 years old and maps in general alternate between Fisher and Fishers Lane (as well as Fisher’s Lane).
Clicking on the image will make the map larger and it’s possible to see there were two courts off this street, the Bear & Staff Court and Roache’s Court.
The police didn’t like the pub called the Bear & Staff and in 1908 they complained to magistrates that the customers were of a lower class and criminals frequented it. Its location, tucked away in that court, does give it a feel of being somewhat of a vibrant location. The pub sadly closed in 1910, if it had survived I imagine it would have been one of Norwich’s quirkiest drinking options. Unfortunately, the entire street has been lost, although George Plunkett was able to get a photograph of the southern side in 1938.
The entrance to Fishers Lane from St Giles Street and that is St Giles Hotel on the left hand side.
Sadly, most of the historic interest of this street has been lost, the entrance to Bear & Staff Court would have been around where the two buildings on the left hand side join. The ugly cladded building is Vantage House, which was used as offices by the council, but the owners have been granted permission to turn it into 44 flats. That cladding was added by Harley Facades, better known now perhaps for their work on the Grenfell Tower refurbishment. I’m not sure why the council have granted permission for it to be turned into flats (although I think they might have had limited powers to stop it as it’s a conversion), it’s not a pleasant building and I’d have thought it would have been better to demolish it and replace it with something more uniquely designed and purpose built for housing.
Looking back to St Giles Street.
The buildings on the other side of the road are older and are former warehouses, although nothing on the street is listed (other than the properties facing onto St Giles Street).
Standing on Pottergate looking back up the hill.
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….
