It’s a defaced statue. But this is exciting, it was created in 1460s but was destroyed in the Reformation when the face was smashed up. It’s difficult to understate how evil the Catholic church had become, corrupt to the core and preying on the poorest in society, but it must have been devastating to communities to see their religious icons destroyed by the mob.
This is a time where I can mention the idiot that was Henry Brooke, Baron Brooke of Cumnor, who recommended in his report that several medieval churches in Norwich should be demolished. Fortunately, his report was so idiotic and simplistic that it galvanised a community against him, and the decision was not to demolish several city centre churches. That’s certainly a reputation to leave, that your work was so incompetent that upset enough people to change the situation and save these churches, with the City Corporation being forward thinking and brave in their offer to take on the leases.
One of the churches that he wanted to demolish was St. Laurence’s Church on St. Benedict’s Street, which is also where this defaced statue was found discarded in the porch. There’s enough of it remaining for it to be identified as a sculpture of St. Christopher carrying Jesus Christ across a river.
Here’s AI’s attempt at completing the statue once again. It’s quite an impressive restoration to be fair.
Located in Norwich Castle Museum’s excellent Gallery of Medieval Life is this reliquary, although the backing plate has fallen off and the relic lost. This was created between 1475 and 1500 and was at a time where the number of relics on the market had reached a ridiculous level, a situation not helped by the corrupt Catholic Church. Even as the church desperately defended itself as the Reformation spread across Europe, they still couldn’t bring themselves at the Council of Trent to end the veneration of relics.
But, I digress. This likely held a relic owned by St. Anthony and the reliquary is made from gold and is highlighted with black enamel. It was found between 1850 and 1852 by “a waggon driver who was pulling into a gateway” although I’m not entirely sure I understand that sentence from the information panel in the museum but elsewhere the museum says the driver “found it in a puddle” which is rather more relatable.
Matlaske is a village pretty much in the middle of nowhere in north Norfolk, located halfway between Holt and Aylsham. Richard and I visited the village’s church there a few years ago and rather lovely the building was too…. Anyway, it’s a beautiful reliquary and I wonder whether the owner popped into the village church in the late 1400s or the early 1500s with their new acquisition.
Located in the museum’s new Gallery of Medieval Life is this really rather lovely copper allow roundel, dating from around 1400 to 1530. It shows St. Mark’s winged lion (a symbol of the city of Venice) and it was likely part of a tomb slab.
It was once in St. Michael’s Church, Coslany which is a church that is still standing, located near to the rather wonderful White Lion pub on Oak Street. This is now a redundant church, having ceased religious services in 1971, which has been used by a variety of occupiers over recent years and it currently houses the Oak Circus Centre.
I find this sort of object fascinating because of the journey that it has been on. Originally funded by a family for their relative’s tomb, it was perhaps taken during the Reformation to either save it or by an opportunist wanting to keep it. It’s survived for several generations and it has been in the collections of Norfolk Museum Service since 1977.
This, for me, is the best part of the renovation of Norwich Castle and it’s the introduction of the Gallery of Medieval Life in conjunction with the British Museum. There feels like a massive step-up in terms of the curatorship here, the signage and explanation panels are just so much better than in the rest of the museum. There are lots of delights here in terms of the exhibits, more of those in other posts.
There are numerous structural things that are also in this exhibition space, which include the castle’s original well.
As my feet show, you can step on the glass which covers the well. It’s no longer possible to throw money into the well, that’s a change with the new renovation and it doesn’t impact me as I’m too tight to throw money down a hole. The money used to be donated to Friends of the Norwich Museums and they got several hundred pounds every year, so I’m not sure if they get money from other collection boxes instead.
Very pretty.
The well is 36 metres deep and it’s quite an impressive sight looking down. It was once 65 metres deep in the medieval period as it ran through more of the castle structure, allowing access to clean water.
This is a carving in the stone near to the new entrance of Norwich Castle Museum’s redesigned keep. The museum notes that it dates to the thirteenth century and has been retouched many times, so although they don’t know who it was, they suspect it was a revered local religious figure. I assume that there’s a possibility that it’s the Virgin Mary, but it’s quite possible that no-one will ever know. It’s nicely preserved though and very visible to visitors to the museum.
One huge improvement here at Norwich Castle with the extensive works is that the battlements have been opened up permanently, rather than only accessible for certain tours. The lift was already broken, which is entirely sub-optimal for those with accessibility needs, with no indication on when this will be resolved. One thing I find a little odd is that they’ve put glass between the battlements so it’s quite hard to look through clearly unless you’re tall, there’s a fair few negative reviews about that already.
I very much enjoyed looking over Norwich, there’s Rose Lane towards the bottom of the photo on the right, with Norwich railway station in the centre-right.
Norwich railway station.
Rose Lane and this was a useful time to test my phone’s zoom. At maximum zoom, I could read the Hollywood Cinema sign clearly on the soon to be demolished Anglia Square, so it’s fair to note that there were excellent views.
Mousehold Heath towards the rear.
The soon to be demolished Anglia Square at the left on the rear, and the white building is where I was able to zoom in on the cinema sign.
Norwich City Hall.
Looking from Castle Meadow at the front through to Norwich Market.
Norwich Market.
I’ll return to the museum a few more times in the year I imagine, hopefully to get more photos across Norwich when it’s a bit brighter. But, I am impressed at the work they’ve done to open up the battlements, that feels a real positive and I hope they can make it fully accessible again soon.
As I’ve managed to get an Art Fund pass at a discounted price, there will now be a year’s worth of posts about places that I can get in for free. One of them is Norwich Castle, recently re-opened following a substantial refurbishment and renovation. More on this later, but the changes weren’t as bad as I expected and there are some definite positives about the investment that has been made here.
Having noted that, this room seems to me though as something of an incoherent mess in terms of the history, it’s unclear to me what they’re trying to show here. They’ve put a throne into the chapel and the relatively undamaged original sanctuary is in the corner. I’m struggling to believe that the chapel would have once had a large throne looking at the window and no other furniture or religious paraphernalia other than a lectern. I know that we wouldn’t have had rows of pews in here, but the layout seems odd to me.
I’m also unsure why they’re suggesting that the Caen stone was painted white so it would have had the appearance of Victorian toilets. Unless this is their interpretation of what new Caen stone would have looked like, but that seems aspirational in terms of the brightness. In other locations it was just left as it was, it’s an off-white or cream coloured stone anyway and so why would they paint an interior wall with what I assume the castle is suggesting is limewash? They might have wanted to use bright colours in the way that Norwich Cathedral was decorated, but I’m not convinced they chose white. But, I’m sure they’ve done this for a reason, but it’s a shame they haven’t explained anyway (either in the room or online) their logic here.
The museum might have been better trying to use graphics to show what the room might have looked like, I just find it unlikely the Normans made their chapel in Norwich different to everywhere else. AI can be very over-rated, but I ran the images of this room through Gemini and ChatGPT, both of them concluded that this was a medieval function room where visitors would have been welcomed by the gentry. This is what it looks like to me, I’m very much struggling to understand this as a chapel layout.
Anyway, that aside.
This is the sanctuary, so the original Norman architects were using this as the chapel’s altar although it’s at an odd angle. But, when you’re the King, you have the option to do things as you want.
I can’t find out whether this is entirely new stained glass for the new project, but it’s rather beautiful.
What the project has delivered is some beautiful lighting so that graffiti is easily visible, here’s what I assume is Mary.
There’s certainly a variety of graffiti here, the museum thinks these date from a period of over several hundred years.
