Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Category: Norfolk

Food from Every Stall on Norwich Market (2025 Edition) – Week 14 and Thai Bubble

This is week 14 of James and I eating at every food stall at Norwich market, for the second time. We did extra visits in May so I had something to write up whilst away, we are very good at forward planning like that, which means that my two loyal readers won’t go short on posts from this series. I rather liked Thai Bubble when we visited last time, although the service time was a little excessive.

It’s not necessarily the easiest menu to understand in terms of the ordering process, but the helpful team member was pro-active in talking me through the whole arrangement. There’s certainly plenty of choice to be had and the stall takes cash and card.

After you order, then you are shown where to wait for the drink on the side of the unit. This time, we didn’t have a long wait, with the drinks being served after a couple of minutes. They’ve changed things a little since we last visited and you can’t sit in the unit now, it’s takeaway only. It all seemed clean and organised, with something of a welcoming vibe to it.

We relocated to the Castle Mall and this is the mango bubble tea with cherry. Sealed at the unit, it kept its chilled temperature and it had a depth of flavour to it. I really rather like the tapioca ball as they add texture to the whole arrangement, although I’m always worried when James has a bubble tea as he ends up choking on one of the balls. It’s also quite a filling drink, there’s plenty of it although I did opt for the larger version.

Talking of which, this is the one that James got and he spent quite a long time trying to work out how to get his straw in. I have to be careful, as otherwise he’ll tell me that I’ve made him sound like an idiot instead of the executive that he is.

This is a slightly light review as it was a drinks visit only, but I liked it here and felt welcome. I’d say that the concept is slightly complex for anyone who doesn’t know what they’re doing, which is so often me, but the service was engaging and warm so that resolved that. I think that we agreed that we’d both go here again (although we say that and then promptly march over to get chips from Lucys), my drink was £4.50 and that’s comparable to a coffee now and my inner child likes the whole concept behind these drinks….. We didn’t order food this time, but they do offer waffles as well.

June 1, 2025
Foulsham – Holy Innocents Church (Grave of William Mays 1720-1805, Mary Mays 1733-1797 and Ellen Colville)

This is the ledger stone of William Mays (1720-1805) at Holy Innocents Church in Foulsham. There are a collection of these stones in the church from this date, but that’s perhaps likely as a huge fire in 1770 gutted much of the interior and so many older ones might have been badly damaged.

William was baptised in the church in Swanton Morley on 8 March 1720, the son of John Mays and Margaret Mays and he married Mary (nee Brown) in Thurgarton, Norfolk on 25 April 1756.

William died on 16 January 1805 and he was buried on 21 January 1805, his wife Mary having died on 8 June 1797. The name of their daughter has been completely mauled about on the grave, it’s Ellen Colville and it’s quite clear in the church records.

This is another instance where I suspect I’ll find out more at some point in the future, but as there are no newspaper articles about him and he pre-dates the census, there’s not much more of excitement that I can find at the moment.

May 23, 2025
Foulsham – Holy Innocents Church (War Grave of James Austin Armour)

This is the Commonwealth war grave of James Austin Armour located in the churchyard of Holy Innocents Church in Foulsham.

James was born in 1922, the son of William Robert Armour and Dorothea Armour, who was a Corporal in the RAF (service number 573750). He was educated at Hamond’s Grammar School in Swaffham and he had joined the RAF as an apprentice in August 1938.

James died at King’s Lynn hospital on 1 October 1947 and he was buried on 6 October 1947. He received a war grave from the Second World War shortly before the official end date of 31 December 1947, so this must be one of the last ones issued.

The death wasn’t directly war related, the Lynn Advertiser reported on 3 October 1947

“Motor-cycling fatalities

The second fatal motor-cycling accident in West Norfolk this week involved Corporal James Austin Armour (25), R.A.F., of Foulsham. He was involved in a collision on Wednesday near Modney Bridge, Hilgay, with a motor-car driven by Mr. A. W. Underwood, 3 Crown-lane, Littleport.

Dr. W. J. Tavendale (Downham) attended Corporal Armour, who was removed to Lynn Hospital by the Downham motor-ambulance. He had been stationed at Oakington, Cambridgeshire. The first fatality involved Percy Hewitt (27), Freebridge-terrace, Middleton, who died in Lynn Hospital on Monday.”

The probate issued in 1948 showed that he had assets of £127 which went to his mother. His parents are also listed on the war grave, his father died on 2 June 1932 at the age of 42 and his mother died on 16 February 1966 at the age of 74. This must have been a very difficult time for his mother given the early death of her husband, then seeing her son survive the Second World War before dying in a motorcycle accident.

May 23, 2025
Twyford – St. Nicholas Church (Barbara Savory)

This grave at St. Nicholas Church in Twyford commemorates the life of Barbara Savoury, the daughter of Coulsey and Elizabeth Savory. Coulsey seems an interesting person, he was a small-scale landowner who found himself in a financial situation later in life that was sub-optimal, although like Alan Partridge, he bounced back. He was to die in 1837 and was buried in the church, although his gravestone is no longer extant.

At first, I struggled to read the name on this grave, but the death at a young age was visible and I was intrigued. It was easy to work out by going to do the burial records of the church from that year and this is the only death in 1800. Barbara died on 6 December 1800, aged just two years and three months. Although there’s quite a lot of media attention about her father over the decades, there’s no mention of Barbara other than the birth and funeral record. A few years after her death, her parents had another girl who they also named Barbara, although she also died young and was buried on 4 February 1829 at the age of 20. Her parents also had a son called Edward who was born in 1807 and he grew up and lived in the village, later naming his own child Barbara Savory and I’m pleased that she had a much longer life. So, in some form, the name of young Barbara did live on.

May 22, 2025
Twyford – St. Nicholas Church

St. Nicholas Church in Twyford feels both remote, but also heavily impacted by the heavy road going right by it. The village currently has fewer than thirty residents, which has inevitably made this rather challenging to run as a viable church. The name of the village, meaning ‘double ford’ is Saxon, but there’s no evidence of a religious building here from before the Norman period. It’s thought that the nave dates to the early twelfth century and the chancel is a little later, although they are now under the same roof, which I’m not entirely sure has always been the case. George Plunkett came this way in 1992 and since that visit, the render has been removed from the chancel so that the historic stone is visible.

There’s scaffolding up as there was a little incident a couple of years ago when a tree fell down during a storm and hit the church and some gravestones. This porch, which could arguably be called a tower, has been added to the church in 1732 and I’m not sure that it was ever the most congruous of arrangements.

Work on the porch, which is expected to be completed by the Autumn of 2025. Unfortunately, the church was locked and so it wasn’t possible to look inside.

The news update about the matter.

It’s not clear that there was ever a tower to this church, although it would have likely been where the porch is located if there had been, which I doubt was the case. There looks like a bricked up door here into the nave, although it’s hard to make out.

The end of the chancel. There was some remodelling during the Victorian period, but I suspect it was more tidying up than anything more substantial.

This former doorway is thought to date from the fourteenth century and it’s another church that I’d like to go inside, but I suspect arranging that would be relatively difficult. It’s positive that there is funding to repair the damage to the porch, but I can imagine this is a tough one to fund raise for given the limited local population size.

May 22, 2025
Bintree – St. Swithin’s Church (Grave of John Gill)

This grave is located at St. Swithin’s Church in Bintree and I took a photo of this gravestone as some sort of record given the perilious state that it’s in. It has transpired to be older than I had realised as the only evidence I can find of a burial at this church of a John Gill was on 15 October 1773. He married Anne Brooke at the church on 4 June 1759 and they had a son also called John Gill, but I’m not sure that the younger one was buried here. Looking at the photo in some detail does seem to suggest that the 1773 date is still visible, but it is very hard to read.

I thought that the gravestone looked early nineteenth century, but ChatGPT thinks:

“This style of headstone—with its scrolled “shoulders,” rococo shell-and-cherub motif at the top, and the deeply incised lettering—was most popular in the mid-18th century. My best guess is that this grave marker dates to around 1740–1760, making it roughly 260–280 years old.”

Google Gemini comes in with:

“I would estimate the gravestone likely dates from the late 1700s to the early 1800s.”

So, this sandstone gravestone is something of a survivor, dating back to 1773, although I’m not sure how many more decades it’ll hold out for.

May 22, 2025
Bintree – St. Swithin’s Church (War Grave of Ernest George Vince – Deserter)

Located at St. Swithin’s Church in Bintree is the Commonwealth War Grave of Ernest George Vince.

Ernest was born in 1888, the son of George Vince and Susanna Vince, the younger brother of James and Emma. George and James worked as bricklayers and this is also the trade that Ernest went into a few years later and he’s listed on the 1911 census as being the only child of the family still living with his parents. I can tell he struggled at school as his records are on-line and he was last in the class and on 11 July 1900 it was reported by the school that he was working illegally and I can imagine that he was being inducted into the bricklayer trade early on.

And herein lies what is likely a tale of woe and an individual probably not really given a chance before things went wrong. Over the next few years there was a constant run of criminality, including stealing a watch on 20 March 1907, stealing a bicycle on 1 July 1916, stealing a bicycle on 28 August 1916 and, once again, stealing another bicycle on 4 April 1917. He was also found guilty of larceny with intent to defraud, obtaining food and lodging by false pretences and numerous other cases of cheating. On 24 March 1917, the press reported that he had deserted from the British Army and when arrested by soldiers he had managed to escape from them. He lied about being a soldier to a lady in order to get food and accommodation, deciding not to mention he was a deserter.

He was a private with the service number 13442 in the Machine Gun Corps (infantry), formerly 18316 in the Norfolk Regiment, but his service records don’t seem to exist in any useable form. Ernest died on 28 December 1917 and was buried on 4 January 1918.

May 21, 2025
Bintree – St. Swithin’s Church

Next on the tour that Richard and I took around was to visit St. Swithin’s Church in Bintree, which was unfortunately another one which was locked up which achieved protection against anyone stealing anything and also protection against anyone seeking religious solace. Its dedication to St Swithin isn’t the most common and there’s a fascinating list of the numbers at https://www.blanchflower.org/cgi-bin/qsaint/qsaint.html, showing Swithin at 47th. The village of Bintree is listed in the Domesday Book, so it’s likely that there was some sort of religious building in the village during the Saxon period.

The bulk of the church dates from the fourteenth century, but there are some twelfth century elements so perhaps that was the date of the first stone building on this site. It’s all quite clean and ordered without the usual mismatch of windows and features that are evident in churches. Whether that’s because it was all constructed at the same time, or rebuilt in the late nineteenth century, I’m not entirely sure. George Plunkett has a 1992 photo of the church taken from a similar angle to this one.

The chancel is quite stubby and not very interesting from the exterior, but this is primarily as it fell down in 1806 and a smaller replacement was completed in 1815, which was then faffed about with by the Victorians in 1865. It was mentioned in the local media in 1903 that the church was in a poor state of repair, but enough money had been found to reroof the nave, so this feels like it has been a slightly neglected arrangement at times and I wonder whether it wasn’t given the same extensive modernisation (effectively often entire rebuilds) that other buildings were given by the Victorians. It has been a rather High Church arrangement in the past, but I’ll come to that separately as there are some interesting stories relating to that.

This is quite exciting, it’s a grave cover that is thought to be that of Richard de Langbrigg, a parish priest who died in 1270. It’s an impressive survivor and it has its own Grade II listing, although he’s a little unlucky as he was located within the former larger footprint of the chancel and he’s now stuck just outside of it.

The end of the chancel, representing the rebuild after the previous one fell down. It’s all neat and tidy to be fair.

Helpfully dated, but I don’t yet know who those initials relate to.

I don’t know what this is, perhaps a stone-mason’s mark?

This church has seemingly endless contradictory dates in various sources and there doesn’t seem to be as much information about its history in common sources as some other nearby churches, even taking into account that it was historically often called Bintry Church to add extra confusion. It appears that they’ve been reluctant to routinely open this church for some time, but it is now operated by the Diocesan Churches Trust which is effectively a sign that it has fallen out of use but they just don’t want to deconsecrate it. It’s an intriguing building, hopefully I’ll be able to get to see inside at some point. This is one of those churches that I have a suspicion I’ll find out a lot more about at some stage, but at the moment it feels like something of an enigma.

May 20, 2025
200 Years Ago in Norwich : Great Hospital Expanded

In my latest occasional series of newspaper articles from 200 years ago this week, this was published in the Norwich Mercury in May 1825.

“A special assembly of the Corporation was held on Wednesday last, to consider of making an increase to the Great Hospital. In the Commons, the following proposition was made by Mr. Goodwin, and seconded by Mr. Bennett—“That a new ward should be erected capable of containing twelve beds.”

Mr. Skipper moved, as an amendment, “That an addition be immediately made to the Great Hospital, by the erection of forty cottages.” This was seconded by Mr. Edw. Taylor. On a division the numbers were,

For Mr. Skipper’s amendment 27
Against it 9

—Majority 18″

I took my exams in the Great Hospital, so I feel some sort of connection with the place. The institution dates back to 1249, when Bishop Walter de Suffield set it up to care for “twenty poor folk” – a mix of aged, infirm and needy townspeople. Over the centuries it grew into a complex of almshouses, a chapel, a schoolroom and a small infirmary. The beginning of the nineteenth century was a challenging time for Norwich in terms of the number of people struggling, the clothing industry was becoming less financially lucrative and the population of the city grew from 37,256 in 1811 to just under 50,000 a decade later.

But back to the expansion of the hospital, as during a special assembly of the Corporation, held on a Wednesday in early May, the matter of increasing the hospital’s capacity was brought forward. Mr. Goodwin proposed the erection of a new ward capable of housing twelve beds, a proposition that was seconded by Mr. Bennett. However, an amendment was swiftly introduced by Mr. Skipper, suggesting a more substantial addition in the form of forty cottages. With regard to “the Commons”, the city of Norwich possessed a civic structure where freemen, individuals who had either inherited the status, completed an apprenticeship, or purchased the right, could participate in civic matters within a common assembly. By 1790, the electorate in Norwich included both freeholders and freemen who held the right to vote for key municipal officers, including the mayor, sheriff and members of the common council. They had some more money to spend from the rental income that they were generating and this was an early form of the social care that slowly evolved.

Matters seem to have changed a little in the planning, as there were twenty cottages erected in 1826. They’re still there today, known as the White Cottages, although they’re mostly used as offices today.

May 19, 2025
Food from Every Stall on Norwich Market (2025 Edition) – Week 13 and Bun Box

This week’s attempt to eat at every food stall at Norwich Market was Bun Box, which we visited in 2023 when we last embarked on this little project. Last time we visited, I wasn’t entirely sure about the value for money when I ordered a chicken katsu bun and I thought that the pricing was towards the higher end of the scale for the market.

The menu board. Incidentally, I didn’t take as many photos of the stand generally as I didn’t want the police to think that I was trying to capture them in my little arrangement. Neither James or I remembered that they did these more substantial meals which are listed on the lower menu, but having checked on the menu board from last time, not a great deal has actually changed. The price increases here over the last two years are relatively small, mostly either 50p or £1 on the price of a meal.

The list of sides. The service was friendly and personable, with the queueing system clearly signed as it might not otherwise be entirely obvious. The stall was busy when we were there and the team member was warning customers that they might face a ten or fifteen minute wait. The stall has clearly built up something of a loyal following judging by the numbers of customers who were coming here, with the menu being quite broad.

We had an eight minute wait for the food, but that seemed reasonable given how busy it was. They prefer cash, but they do accept cards as well. They give customers a numbered ticket and also try and batch together food orders so groups get their food at the same time.

I ordered the spicy chicken don which cost £9. This was pieces of panko chicken with sticky rice, teriyaki sauce, lettuce, spring onion, sriracha sauce, sesame seeds and Japanese mayo. This surprised and delighted me much more than when I had the bun a couple of years ago. The chicken was very slightly dry, but the coating added flavour and the sauce added some extra taste. The sesame seeds and spring onions added texture and the rice was suitably sticky. The large pieces of lettuce covered in sauce were a bit of a faff to eat and could have been smaller, but I felt that the whole meal was filling and represented decent value for money.

James sashayed excitedly towards the counter and went for a spicy chicken bun which was £5.50 and he seemed pleased after ordering. When the two meals arrived, with his looking like a little side to mine, he then promptly spent the next half an hour complaining about how small his selection was. He received one piece of chicken, mayo and lettuce, which didn’t seem to me to be quite as good value. I wonder if they’d be better charging a little bit more and giving customers two of the buns, as James didn’t find his selection as filling as mine. Indeed, he complained about numerous things about the bun, but he was centred on that he finished eating it in about twenty seconds. I think he spent longer taking a photograph of it rather than eating it, but I didn’t say anything. I’m apparently meant to explain that he was disappointed about the amount he received compared to how many chips he got last week, but I feel that I’ve done that now.

Basing this on just my experience, I thought that this was all quite agreeable, with the service being friendly and the food having a suitable depth of taste and flavour. However, for value for money, I’d personally go for one of the larger meals.

May 17, 2025