In a similar vein to the grave at Attleborough church that was overgrown, there’s something quite corporeal and spiritual (if something can be both these things) when graves get covered like this.
Category: UK
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Dereham – Town Sign
Dereham has a town sign which hangs over the High Street which was placed here in 1954, to mark the 1,300th birthday of when the town was founded. Realistically, this is probably a bit of a made-up date as there’s no historic evidence for this, but it’ll do as a best guess until someone can prove otherwise.
The story goes that the settlement of Dereham was founded by St. Withburga and there’s a tale that goes alongside this that the Virgin Mary guided her towards a stream where there were deer who provided milk to sustain her. Sounds about as likely as the more recent Castle Barnard story, but I won’t go there……
The next bit of the story, which explains the town sign, is that an evil local man didn’t like the deer being so generous to St. Withburga, so he tried to kill the lovely deer. Unfortunately, he was a bit inept and he fell off his horse and broke his neck. It’s not exactly a fairy tale story you’d tell to children, but that’s the imagery that Dereham wanted on its sign.
And here’s how it looked in 1960.
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Dereham – Former Guildhall
This is the former Dereham Guildhall and although heavily modernised, some sections from the sixteenth century remain in the wall and basement. It’s also been tidied up from when George Plunkett came to Dereham and took a photograph of it.
What is interesting from a heritage point of view is this, evidence of a separate property that is now joined with the main building. Those blocked up windows tell a story of their own, some are clearly evident, but there are a couple of harder to see blocked up windows on the first floor.
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Dereham – Name Origin
Since I had an afternoon in sunny Dereham, here’s what The Concise Oxford Dictionary Of English Placenames has to say about the history of the town name.
Dereham, Norfolk. Derham in Domesday Book, Estderham in 1428. Likely the Old English, Deorhamm, for an enclosure for deer.
There are two Derehams in Norfolk, the larger of the two is also known as East Dereham and West Dereham is around 25 miles away, nearer to Downham Market. A nice and simple town meaning, which has remained gloriously unchanged (well, nearly) for a millennium.
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Dereham – Church of St. Nicholas (Bell Tower)
When they wanted some new bells for Dereham Church they realised that their existing church tower wouldn’t be strong enough. So, they came up with a new plan in 1520, which involved building a separate tower within the churchyard. From the side, the tower looks as though it’s a church of its own, it’s a substantial affair.
The tower was built in the early sixteenth century, comprising of four layers and its height has made it useful as the location for the town’s public clock. The clock was added in 1902 and was designed by JB Joyce Clockmakers of Whitchurch, with their successor company restoring it in 2008 when they also added gold to the clockface. This separate bell tower set-up isn’t unique, but is rare in the UK, the most notable form is probably that at Chichester Cathedral, although Norwich Cathedral once had one.
During the Napoleonic Wars, the tower was used to house French prisoners of war. One such prisoner, Jean de Narde, tried to escape on 6 October 1799, managing to climb a tree and he refused to come down when requested. So they shot him out of the tree, which wasn’t ideal and it received some criticism from locals. He’s buried in the church’s graveyard, although he didn’t get a gravestone until 1858 when Anglo-French diplomatic relations had improved a bit.
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Dereham – Church of St. Nicholas
The Church of St. Nicholas in Dereham is quite a lumpy affair (this isn’t a proper architectural term and I imagine that Pevsner would be appalled at my language here) and there’s a separate bell tower arrangement (more on which in another post) because the previous one wasn’t strong enough to support the lovely new bells the church had acquired. There was a church here as early as the mid-seventh century (although the Danes destroyed that when they came to visit), although the current structure primarily dates from between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries.
What is left of the lantern tower is visible in the above photo, it was reduced in height in 1539 following the completion of the bell tower. It has been done neatly, but it means that to me the church doesn’t feel like it has enough height.
The southern side of the church.
The south-west porch, the inner door here to the church is the earliest part of the building, dating to the twelfth century.
The west end of the church.
The east end of the church, which is also the chancel end.
The north side of the church.
I decided against going into much detail here, as the church is so complex I’ll need to break it up (the blog post I mean, not the church itself). Partly to ensure that I can understand what’s going on, but fortunately, there are some pretty complete histories available for this church.
I have visited the interior before, I’ll locate the photos, although hopefully I’ll get to see the interior again soon enough when things return to some sort of normality. I have though written about St. Withburga’s Well before, which is located in the churchyard.
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Acle – St. Edmund’s Church
The round tower of St. Edmund’s Church in Acle is from the twelfth century, although most of the rest of the structure is from the fourteenth century. The look of the church from this southern side shows the exterior of where the rood stairs were located, as well as the different heights of the nave and chancel.
The building was restored internally in the 1860s, with Richard Phipson (perhaps best noted for his work on St Mary-le-Tower in Ipswich) working on the nave and Ewan Christian (perhaps best known for designing the National Portrait Gallery and restoring Southwell Minster and Carlisle Cathedral) working on the chancel.
There was another major restoration that was completed in 1904, which primarily dealt with the roof, with the work being overseen by Herbert Green, the Diocesan surveyor. It was noted that before this restoration that the underside of the roof was plastered, but this was removed and replaced by oak boarding. Some work was also done to fix the floor of the nave, which had become dangerously uneven by this point. I’m not actually sure what happened to Richard Phipson’s 1866 plans, as he had planned to remove the plastered ceiling to show the oak cradle roof.
The thatching is in need of some repair on the north side (and the church is mid-way through a fund-raising campaign to sort this out, as well as to see what damage lies below), but I hope it’s rethatched rather than covered in something looking much more modern, as happened at Potter Heigham.
The north porch, which is now the main entrance to the church.
The south porch, which like its northern counterpart, also has a room above it.
The twelfth-century round tower, although that top section is later, probably from the thirteenth century. The tower is listed as being older by some sources, perhaps as early as the ninth century. Whatever its age, it is likely that there was a church here in around the ninth or tenth century.
Unfortunately, as with many churches at the moment, the interior wasn’t open to visit, so that’s yet another building that I’ll have to return to when some form of normality returns.
The church in 1955.
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Acle – Town Sign
The town sign in Acle was unveiled in August 1974 at what appears to have been a surprisingly well-attended event. On one side there’s a wherry, Acle bridge, the church tower, a windmill and a tree, whilst on the other side there’s a horse and cart going over Acle bridge, with the church making another appearance. I can’t suggest it’s worth a special trip from another country to see it, but it’s one of the better signs I’ve seen.
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Acle – Jubilee Memorial
Located on Monument Green, which is named after this stone (the monument bit, not the green bit), is the Jubilee Memorial. This was placed here in 1887 to mark the Queen’s Golden Jubilee and it supports a cast iron lamp-post, an element which does today perhaps look just a little out of place.
The face of Queen Victoria is visible in the stonework, along with noting that Acle was equidistant between Great Yarmouth and Norwich, something I’m sure Alan Partridge would have been pleased to note.
The depiction in the stonework is of a camera, which would have been something of an innovation when it was being sculpted.
In addition to the sign about the Acle Bypass, there’s also a depiction of a train on the stonework.
Unfortunately, the stonework has been eroded, likely because of the pollution from what was a busy road next to it for over a century. There’s also a sign noting the victory in the Best Kept Village from over 20 years ago, making me suspect something has gone awry in the town for the last two decades if they haven’t won anything.
The memorial is visible in this photo from 1955, where the green wasn’t in such a good state and it was a considerably less peaceful area with the main Norwich to Great Yarmouth road storming through the middle of the town.
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Acle – Acle Bypass
This plaque, marking the opening of the 3-mile long £7.1 million Acle Bypass, is on the town’s Jubilee Memorial. I’m not sure many towns put a sign up about the road which bypassed them, but I can imagine what a problem it was having large numbers of vehicles ploughing through the middle of Acle en route between Norwich and Great Yarmouth. As the sign suggests, the bypass was opened on 14 March 1989 and there was a well-attended street party, carnival and fete in June 1989.
