Just some photos in this post….. This is from our group walk which covered part of the lake at the UEA and some of their sculptures. More of these next week when we explore the rest of the lake and sculptures area.
Incidentally, the dog was rather sweet. He just sat in the lake like that for some time, the owner said that he was wondering if his dog thought that he was a crocodile.
West Lynn’s war memorial is located within the churchyard of St. Peter’s church and was unveiled in 1920. It is made out of Bath Stone and there were 25 names from the First World War and 4 names from the Second World War. Over recent decades it has become harder to read the names on the memorial, so new black plaques have recently been installed to make the names clear. When these new plaques were added, historic research meant that 10 additional names were added from the First World War, bringing the total to 35.
Whilst looking at something else about King’s Lynn, I noticed this print (© The Trustees of the British Museum) in the collections of the British Museum.
This moderately bizarre image (click on the image to make it bigger) is an attack on Robert Walpole (1676-1745), and suggests that Edward Taylor was an illegitimate child of Walpole. I’m still slightly surprised, as this trick was commonly used in electioneering at the time, that the law allowed “W-lp-le” to hide the fact that the creator of the image wanted to highlight that he was referring to “Walpole”. Walpole, effectively the country’s first Prime Minister, was known to have had other mistresses, so the allegations aren’t necessarily false. The connection to King’s Lynn is that Edward Taylor was born in the town in 1703.
It’s not known who created the illustration, but it is dated to 1744 and the British Museum acquired it in 1868 from the estate of Edward Hawkins, a long-time curator of the museum. The term ‘Norfolk dumpling’ usually refers to someone who is a bit dense, although it’s also a culinary treat….
Yesterday, I posted some photos of King’s Lynn which were taken from West Lynn.
This 1928 etching (© The Trustees of the British Museum) was drawn from along the riverbank of West Lynn and shows the main buildings in King’s Lynn. It was drawn by Henry James Stuart Brown (1871-1941) who was known for this style of drawing and although he was overlooked during his own lifetime, his works have become much more collectable in recent years. He made numerous etchings in this part of the country and the British Museum have a relatively substantial collection of his prints, with Brown donating this work to the museum in 1930.
I posted about the Whitefriar’s Gate, or Carmelite Gate, yesterday, and today I found this etching in the on-line collections of the British Museum (© The Trustees of the British Museum).
Dating from 1843, it’s quite atmospheric with children playing and chickens eating, and it couldn’t be much more different than the surroundings of the gate today, which is just quite a lot of barrenness. The image was drawn by William Pickford and was etched by William Taylor, with Taylor also being the publisher of the image. The plate isn’t on display at the British Museum, but they’ve owned it since 1876 when they purchased it from the art dealer Robert Jackson.
There has been a church in West Lynn since the late Saxon times, but it appears that the previous one was badly damaged by flooding and a decision was made in 1271 to abandon it. This means that this church was built in the 1270s, likely using materials from the previous church, and the tower is from the fourteenth century. There were reconstructions during the fifteenth century and the chancel is a more modern rebuild, from 1934.
The four-stage west tower.
The tower and the north porch.
The south porch.
The churchyard, with the chancel visible at the east of the church which looks quite squat, but which was once a little longer. In the early nineteenth century, a local author noted that the chancel was roofed with reeds, whilst the main church was roofed with lead, which would explain why that section became harder to look after.
The church did appear to be open when I visited, but given the current health situation I think they were trying to provide somewhere from locals to pray quietly rather than have people traipsing around looking at the older monuments, so I’ll go back at a more opportune time in the future.
Unfortunately, King’s Lynn appears to have been hit with a wave of vandalism and crime over recent weeks judging by the newspapers. And, this week someone smashed a load of new trees in one of the town’s parks, meaning they have to be dug up and removed.
There are also countless shopping trolleys dumped in the River Great Ouse.
Walking along the quieter of the two road bridges across the River Great Ouse (the other is visible in the background of the above photos), I wondered what the supports next to it once held up. I assumed it must be the rail bridge that I knew went near here, although that didn’t make sense as there were no signs of a former railway line at either end.
Two of the bridge supports.
This is the support on the north side of the river.
And, the answer is here (click on the image to see a clearer one). There are two bridges in the same place on the two maps, the first map is from the 1950s and the second map is a current one. On the first map, the top bridge is the A47 road and the lower bridge is the rail bridge. On the second map, the top bridge is now Wisbech Road bridge and the lower bridge is the A47 road. Confusing…. But, that’s why the remnants of the bridge are there, it was another carriageway of the A47, which was taken down when a new road was constructed when the rail bridge was taken down following the closure of the rail line in 1959. The route of the A47 was then changed to follow much of the former rail line, leaving the bridges as they are now.
Just photos in this post. I walked from King’s Lynn to West Lynn, with these photos showing what King’s Lynn looks like from the other side of the River Great Ouse.
I’m not sure how I haven’t noticed this before on Hardings Way, but it’s the gateway to Whitefriars, a Carmelite Friary which stood here between around 1260 and the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the late 1530s. Although the rest of the monastery has now gone, the street names here reflect the past, there’s The Friars, Carmelite Terrace, Whitefriar’s Terrace, Whitefriar’s Road, All Saints’ Street and Friars Street.
Over the last couple of centuries, buildings have surrounded the gate, but these have mostly been cleared and the structure now looks quite exposed. This area around this gate, inside the former monastery, was also used as a graveyard and some local residents (as well as Anglian Water staff digging in the area) have uncovered bodies.
George Plunkett has a photo of how the gateway looked back in 1935 and there’s an etching of the gate by William Taylor and William Pickford.
