More Norwich Knowledge

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'The Revelations of Divine Love', All Hallows Convent, All Hallows House, anchorage, bailey, bomb damage, Castle Gardens, Cell, chickory, Dame Julian, EDP Newspaper Group, Father Raybould, fortified bridge, Julian, Julian Centre, keep, Lady Julian, lady's bedstraw, moat, motte, Norwich Castle, Norwich Museum, St Julian's Church, Whiffler Theatre, wild flowers

Because I am taking E to college each day my routines have had to change to suit her time-table.  Up til now I have taken Mum shopping on a Wednesday but on Wednesdays E has a two hour Psychology class and that is all.  No time to take Mum shopping, so we have changed to Tuesdays when E is at college til 5 pm.  Eventually, we hope that E will be able to spend the rest of  Wednesday at college – with friends and working in the library – but as yet she doesn’t have much work to do and wants to come home again fairly quickly.  It is not worth my while doing anything other than stay on in Norwich after dropping her off at college – I would hardly get home before having to set off again.

Last Wednesday I had yet more college equipment to get for her and then a visit to the Body Shop was in order to purchase shower gel and other lusciously-scented products.  After doing my shopping I still had over an hour to go before I needed to meet E so decided to have another walk-about.

Norwich Castle is an enormous and imposing building.  It is built on a large mound or motte and looks so clean and undamaged it could have been built yesterday.

In fact, it was one of the first castles to be built after the Norman Conquest in 1066.

At least 98 Saxon homes were demolished from about 1067 onwards so that the earthworks could be dug within which they built a wooden fort (the Bailey).  The fort was surrounded by deep defensive dry ditches.  Once the land had settled they began building the stone keep in 1094 during the reign of William ‘Rufus’ II and, following his death in 1100, his brother Henry I completed the building in 1121.  It was built as a Palace rather than a fortification but no Norman King ever lived in it.  The only time Henry I is known to have stayed in it was at Christmas 1121.  The keep is constructed out of limestone imported from Caen in France.  Originally, the ground floors were faced in flint which would have been such a contrast to the almost white upper floors.

The grass mound has been planted with wild flowers – the blue ones here are chickory. The strange blue-topped structure on the right is the lift (non-Norman!) that transports to the top, those not able or wanting to ascend the slope by foot.

More wild flowers – the yellow ones are Lady’s Bedstraw

Wild Carrot and Bladder Campion grow there amongst many others.

The keep was used as the County Gaol from the 14th century onwards.  A new gaol designed by Sir John Soane was constructed in and around the keep in 1792-93 but this was soon found to be too small and outdated.  The outside block of Soane’s gaol was demolished between 1822-27 and re-designed by William Wilkins.  When the County Gaol was moved to Mousehold Heath near Norwich in 1883, work began to convert the castle into a museum which it still is to this day.  All the gaol building was demolished leaving the original keep.

I found this on the wall near the bottom of the lift shaft. Who can tell me where this quote comes from?

I walked through the Castle Gardens which are in the bottom of the dry moat.

This bridge is the original Norman fortified bridge over the moat but it has been refaced and has a 19th century inner brick arch.

The Whiffler Theatre

This is a small, simple open-air theatre in the Castle Gardens and was given to the people of Norwich by the Eastern Daily Press Newspaper Group.  Next to the performing platform is a small thatched building that is used as dressing rooms.  If you look at the first photo of the bridge, the dressing room building can be seen beyond the bridge on the left.  There is a Whiffler Road in Norwich as well, but I cannot find out anywhere if the road and theatre are named after a specific person.  The word ‘whiffler’ has a number of meanings according to the dictionary.

1.  One who whiffles or frequently changes his opinion or course.  One who uses shifts and evasions in argument, hence a trifler.

2.  One who plays on a whiffle; a fifer or piper.

3.  The Goldeneye duck is also known as the Whiffler probably because of the whistling sound its wings make in flight.

4.  An officer who went before a procession to clear the way by blowing a horn.  Any person who marched at the head of a procession.  A harbinger.  In the 16th century the whiffler was armed with a javelin, battle-axe, sword or staff.  An early form of steward involved in crowd control.

Shakespeare’s Henry V:  ‘…the deep-mouthed sea, which like a mighty whiffler ‘fore the King seems to prepare his way.’

The ‘Whiffler’ pub in Norwich is named after the ceremonial character so perhaps the road and theatre are too.

All Hallows and Julian Centre

I left the Castle grounds and walked down Rouen Road to St Julian’s Alley, on the corner of which is the Julian Centre where books, cards and other merchandise associated with Dame Julian are sold.  There is also a reference library which keeps the main books and articles published about her and also a Christian lending library.   All Hallows House, also on the corner of the road is a small guest house belonging to All Hallows Convent, Ditchingham which is fairly near to where I live.  I went to Ditchingham for a day retreat a number of years ago and it was such a peaceful day.  All Hallows House in Norwich is somewhere else to stay for a retreat, as well as a place of study or just somewhere to stay to be near St Julian’s church.

St Julian’s church

The first time I came here was with A, my eldest daughter and at the time they were preparing for something in the church and had had all the pews removed.  A nun was in the church and welcomed us in saying how much she liked the large space left once the seating had been taken out.  She said it made her want to dance and she then proceeded to dance round the church.  I thought she was wonderful!

St Julian’s church

To explain who Dame Julian was I will quote from the information leaflet I picked up from the church.

‘Julian of Norwich was the first woman to write a book in English.  She wrote it while she was an ‘anchoress’ (a hermit) living in a small room attached to St Julian’s church.

It was quite normal for people to live like this in Julian’s day.  Some were monks and nuns, but many were just ordinary men and women who took vows to live a solitary life of prayer and contemplation.  They lived in a room beside the church and many people came to them for comfort and advice.

On 8th May 1373, when she was thirty years old, Julian suffered a severe illness from which she almost died.  During that illness she received a series of visions of the Passion of Christ and the love of God.  When she recovered, she wrote down what she had been taught – perhaps having to learn to read and write in order to do so.

Her book, ‘The Revelations of Divine Love’, took her over 20 years to complete and is today regarded as a spiritual classic throughout the world.  Her clear thinking and deep insight speak directly to today’s troubled world.

Her perception that there is no wrath in God, but that this is a projection of our own wrath upon him, is centuries ahead of her time.  And her understanding that God’s love is like that of a tender loving mother, as well as that of a father, is also one we can respond to today.’

The doorway into Julian’s cell from the church

The church is not what it seems.  During the Reformation the cell was totally destroyed by reformers who wanted to get rid of anything that reminded them of Papism – the Roman Catholic faith that England’s leaders had given up.  The church fell into disrepair during the 19th century and was on the verge of being pulled down.  The parishioners began to put money into a restoration fund in 1845 which saved the fabric but the money ran out quickly.  More work was done on the church in 1871 and 1901.  In 1942 the church was badly damaged in an air raid during World War II and again there was talk of pulling it down.  There are four other churches within less than quarter of a mile from St Julian’s and after the War the whole area was redeveloped.  It was awareness of the importance of Julian’s writing that led the rector, Father Raybould, with the support of the Community of All Hallows, to encourage the community and other interested bodies to get on with the restoration of the church as a place of prayer and pilgrimage.  The architect has done such a good job in creating this little church and re-cycling a number of features from the old church and others damaged at the same time.  The recreation of Julian’s cell is such a wonderful result of the terrible war damage.

The Norman doorway into the cell came from the church of St Michael at Thorn which stood nearby in Ber Street and was destroyed at the same time as St Julian’s.  There was no door here when the Cell was used as an anchorage.

A dish of hazelnuts with the quote from Julian’s writing. In her vision, she is shown a little tiny round thing, the size of a hazelnut and is told that it represents all that has been made. She thought it was so small that it would be destroyed easily but she was told that it never would be because it was loved.

I have read Julian’s book a few times and each time I read it I understand it more, I love it more and I marvel more at this woman, who lived so long ago, being able to write and think so profoundly and able to speak so clearly to me today.  The best translation I have found so far is that done by Father John-Julian, an Episcopal priest and monk.  According to the blurb on the back of my copy, he has been a parish priest in Wisconsin, New Hampshire and Connecticut, was the founding Dean of the Seminary of the Streets in New York and has taught at the University of Rhode Island and Hampshire College.  In 1985 he founded the Wisconsin-based contemplative, semi-enclosed monastic Order of Julian of Norwich.  He has read and studied Julian of Norwich each day for over a quarter of a century.  After much research he believes that Dame Julian was Julian Erpingham, the elder sister of Sir Thomas Erpingham, friend of the King, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports and who fought at Agincourt.  This Julian married a Roger Hauteyn and was widowed in 1373 (the same year as the ‘Revelations’) when her husband was killed, presumably in a duel.  She re-married in 1376 a Sir John Phelip of Dennington in Suffolk.  They had three children, the last of which was born the same year that her second husband died in 1389.  John-Julian believes that if this was the Dame Julian of the ‘Revelations’, she wrote the book before she became an anchorite and in about 1393 she fostered out her youngest child, dictated the Long Version of the book and then entered her anchorhold.  It is possible.

The cell, photographed from the doorway

The cell had been used by solitaries before Julian and also by others after her.  When she lived there, there would have been a window onto the street so that she could counsel people, a window into the church and a window or door into an adjacent room where a servant would live.  The servant would remove rubbish etc and bring food from the market and do any other tasks for Dame Julian.

The shrine in the cell

The wooden platform marks the original floor-level and the stone memorial above it used to be on the outside wall of the church before the Cell was rebuilt.  The window above that is in the place where Julian’s window into the church would have been.  She would hear Mass through the window and receive Holy Communion there.  She would have been able to see the Sacrament (the consecrated Bread) hanging in a Pyx (a special vessel/container) before the High Altar.  There are two pieces of flintwork near the ground which formed part of the early foundations, one of which can be seen in this photo.

This glass is in a window opposite the shrine and is a memorial to Father Raybould

This is the High Altar in the Church

The High Altar Reredos (the ornamental screen covering the wall behind the Altar) was made in Oberammergau, Germany and dates from 1931 and was a gift.  It survived the bombing.

The font is the finest thing in the church and one of the great architectural treasures of the City of Norwich.  It used to belong to All Saints Church and when it was declared redundant in 1977 the font was brought to St Julian’s as both churches had been pastorally linked at various times.

The church is dedicated to Saint Julian bishop of Le Mans.  Lady Julian has never been declared a ‘saint’ although she is now included in the Church Calender of 1980.  Many people think that Lady Julian took her name from the building where she had her anchorage when she entered her Cell.

Dunwich Flora

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asters, Bird's-foot Trefoil, boat winches, common green grasshopper, common restharrow, dock, Dunwich beach, fish-and-chip café, Going to college, hare's-foot clover, harrowing, hop trefoil, humming-bird hawkmoth, parsley water-dropwort, prickly sow-thistle, sea campion, sea mayweed, shingle, yellow horned poppy

Monday was a strange and busy day.  I was up much earlier than of late – 6.20 am to be precise so that I could wake E at 6.30.  It was her first day at City College Norwich and to get there on time we needed to leave home at 7.30.  R was travelling to Scotland later in the day and we wouldn’t be seeing him until Thursday.  He went into work for a few hours and then drove to Norwich airport to get a flight to Edinburgh where he got a hire car so he could drive to his hotel in Dunbar. E had three hours of English and then I would be collecting her again at 12 midday.  We got to the college through fairly heavy rush-hour traffic with twenty minutes to spare before her lesson started.  I dropped her off and then returned back home to continue with the washing which I had already started.  Home at 9.15, rushed about a bit, back in the car at 11.15 and was outside the college again just before midday.  E was already outside as her tutor had let them out a little early.  Thankfully, she had enjoyed herself and had met up with the Irish girl she had met on her ‘taster day’ last week.  They had joined up with another couple of girls and had got on very well in their twenty minute break.  We stopped off in Bungay on the way home so that I could buy birdseed for my mother and some art equipment for E.  This resulted in my purse being quite a few pounds lighter by the time we got back in the car.  This college business is very expensive! After lunch I realised that I needed some groceries and also had to collect my medication so got back in the car.  It was a lovely afternoon and after I had finished in town and as I was in need of a little quiet reflection time, I drove to Dunwich beach adding another eighteen or so miles to my driving tally for the day. The light was perfect, the breeze light and the air warm and balmy.  I walked on the beach for a while looking at the sea.  My small point-and-shoot camera doesn’t do justice to the colour of the sea which was true aqua-marine and much greener than in the photo. After wandering about on the shingle for a while I then decided to go a little further inland and look at the plants and flowers.  The shingle rises up from the waters edge and then flattens out for a couple of yards.  This is good to walk along when it isn’t too windy as it provides a good view seaward and landward. Beyond this ridge it then descends quite sharply to a lower sheltered area of sand and gravel which then becomes marshland and then woodland.  As the shingle gets further from the sea it supports some hardy plants like Sea-kale (Crambe maritima) and Yellow Horned-poppy (Glaucium flavum).  I was too late to be able to photograph the poppy flowers but the clumps of leaves were everywhere.

Leaves of Yellow Horned-poppy (Glaucium flavum)

All parts of Horned-poppy are poisonous and if they are eaten can affect the brain.  One of my plant reference books quotes from old records a strange story from 1698 concerning the Horned-poppy.  ‘A man made himself a pie of horned poppy roots under the impression that they were the roots of sea holly.  After eating the pie he became delirious and fancied that his white porcelain chamber pot was solid gold.  He broke the pot into bits in the belief that he owned a great treasure’.

Once down off the shingle bank there were many plants to look at.

Prickly Sow-thistle (Sonchus asper)

A bee on Prickly Sow-thistle

Sea Campion (Silene uniflora)

Not a brilliant photo I know, but it shows clearly the similarity between it and Bladder Campion (Silene vulgaris) with the swollen calyx and also shows the grey-green, fleshy almost waxy leaves.

Probably a male Common Green Grasshopper (Omocestus viridulus)

As I walked, grasshoppers were leaping out of the way; there were so many of them.  I tried to photograph one but the shot was not successful.  I was wishing I had brought our better camera with me.

Sea Mayweed (Tripleurospermum maritimum)

Common Restharrow (Ononis repens)

Common Restharrow

This is a very pretty pea flower though, as its name suggests, it wasn’t popular with ploughmen as it has deep roots and matted stems that root as it trails along the ground.  It also taints milk if eaten by cattle.  The leaves when crushed smell a bit like goats do – not nice!  Children in the north of Britain in the past dug up the roots of Restharrow and chewed them like liquorice – another name for this plant is wild liquorice.   The leaves are a little sticky to the touch and have an attractive crimped edge to them. As an aside, while I am typing this (Thursday lunchtime) the field at the back of our house is being harrowed.  I don’t think the large machines of today are much hindered by plants anymore. The weather today is gloomy and misty, as you can see.

Common Bird’s-foot Trefoil (Lotus corniculatus) with Dock seed-head (Rumex obustifolius)

Hare’s-foot Clover (Trifolium arvense)

I love this little plant!  The flowers are so soft and furry and tinged with pink.

Here it is again, growing with Hop Trefoil (Trifolium campestre)

These are either naturalised Michaelmas Daisies (Aster sp.)  or Sea Asters (Aster tripolium).  I cannot identify them properly.

Parsley Water-Dropwort (Oenanthe lachenalii)

The next series of photographs are terrible but with only my small camera with me I couldn’t do any better.  They are of a Humming-bird Hawkmoth (Macroglossum stellatarum) which flies very fast and to the naked eye usually looks like a blur anyway.

Humming-bird Hawkmoth with Sea Campion

Humming-bird Hawkmoth with Sea Campion

Humming-bird Hawkmoth with Sea Campion

I decided it was time to return home and just took two more pictures, this time of the car-park.

These little wooden shacks contain winching gear to enable the fishermen to pull their boats up the steep shingle beach

This is a fish-and-chip café that is so popular that in the summer, coach parties of visitors come to savour its delights

I am finishing this post off on Friday evening.  E has managed to attend college every day this week and though it has not all been at all easy for her she has kept going and has enjoyed a lot of it.  I am exhausted from all the driving I have done and my feet and ankles are very painful.  It has been worth it and I am so pleased with my daughter and very proud of her.

Norwich Knowledge

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Augustine Steward house, beguinage, Blackfriar's Hall, Briton's Arms, Christian Resource Centre, City College, Edith Cavell, Edith Cavell Monument, Elm Hill, elm trees, Erpingham Gateway, Forget-Me-Not Café, Fye Bridge, hair appointments, Norwich, Norwich Cathedral, Norwich Hippodrome, Paston family, Princes Street, Quayside, River Wensum, St Andrew's Hall, St Giles, St Giles car-park, St Michael at Plea, Stranger's Club, timber-framed buildings, Tombland, Tombland Alley, walking

Norwich is a very beautiful city and we always look forward to visiting it.  (Norwich is pronounced ‘Norridge’ or, if you are a local, ‘Narge’).  For the next few months I will be going there every day of the week so perhaps the shine may wear off a little, though I don’t think it likely.

On Tuesday E and I had to be at City College Norwich at 8.30 in the morning so that E could meet her mentor before her ‘taster day’ began at 9.00 am.  I had a hair appointment at 9.45, my second one with my new hairdresser.  When my local hairdresser went on maternity leave and I found the replacement hairdresser wasn’t to my liking I decided to look for a new one in Norwich where I would be spending some time each day.  I rather like the young woman who now does my hair.  ‘Oh Clare!’, she said the last time I saw her, ‘Don’t start colouring your hair again.  Your shade of grey is really lovely!’.  There aren’t many women who wouldn’t fall for that one.

So, after leaving E at the college I drove to the city centre and parked my car in my usual car-park at St Giles.  This is rather an ugly multi-storey car-park built in the 1960’s so is quite difficult to park in if you have a modern car – it’s very narrow and full of pillars.  The car-park is on the site of the Norwich Hippodrome, an extremely ornate theatre built in 1903 and demolished in 1964.  Apparently many inter-war stars performed there – Charlie Chaplin, Marie Lloyd, Gracie Fields, George Formby and even Archibald Leach (Cary Grant) made his acting debut there at the age of twelve.  After the Second World War it continued to be popular for a while with acts like Laurel and Hardy visiting in 1954.

I had about an hour to kill before my appointment and, as the morning was bright and sunny I decided to have a short walk and visit some of my favourite places.

I walked up past my hairdressers in London Street to the junction at the top of the hill.  On the corner of Redwell Street and Queen Street is the redundant church of St Michael at Plea.

St Michael at Plea church

The church ceased to be a place of worship in 1973 and opened in 2008 as a Christian Resource Centre.  Before that it had been used as an antiques market.  We call in quite often as we buy things for our church here – candles, communion wafers etc – and it is a good place for Easter and Christmas gifts.  The bookshop is very good and stocks new and second-hand books.  There is also a really nice café in what was the chancel, with extremely tasty and cheap food, all supplied by volunteers.  The café is called the Forget-Me-Not Café after the wording on the clock on the tower.

The Forget-Me-Not clock

The battlements and spirelets were put on the top of the tower during a 19th Century restoration.  The tower had been lowered for safety reasons some time before that.  I think it had been much taller with bells.

The rather truncated tower with its pretty pinnacles

The porch is probably early 16th Century and rather strangely gives access to the base of the tower rather than the Nave.  Most of the church’s furniture and valuable decorations were removed when it was made redundant but it still has a beautiful memorial in it, some medieval glass high in the east window and some carved angels in the roof.

I then went down Elm Hill, one of the most lovely streets in the country.

Elm Hill. Blackfriars Hall is on the corner of the street on the right of the photo.

Elm Hill is a cobbled street full of timber-framed buildings and virtually unaltered since the 16th Century.  There have been people living in this area since at least 1200.  (Probably before that time, as it is close to the river and to Tombland, the site of the Anglo-Saxon market.)  It is called Elm Hill after the elm trees that used to grow there next to the Briton’s Arms, all of them killed by Dutch Elm disease.  This was a wealthy street in medieval times where many merchants lived.  By the 20th Century it had seen better days and there were plans to sweep it all away.  Fortunately, the authorities thought better of this idea and now most of the buildings have been restored and look wonderful.

Briton’s Arms, now a restaurant and coffee house.

The Briton’s Arms was built in 1347 and became an ale house in 1760.  It is three storeys high and was the only house on Elm Hill to survive a fire in 1507.  It stands in the corner of the old churchyard of St Peter Hungate and the only reason it survived the fire was because it stood apart from the rest of the houses.  The fire destroyed 300 houses and shops.  There are two rooms per storey of the Briton’s Arms and each floor is reached by a side staircase.  The top floor is jettied out on three sides and it also has an attic – a rarity in Medieval buildings.  It is perhaps one of the oldest inhabited attics in England.  It began life as a beguinage associated with St Peter’s church.  A beguinage was the home of a group of single women who devoted their lives to prayer and community work, like a nunnery.  However, unlike a nunnery which accepted the daughters of wealthy parents, beguines were usually from poor backgrounds.  They earned a little money from spinning and begging for alms and did charity work in the city but their main work was regular worship in the church next door which was reached through a stone arched door in the rear wall of the building.  Beguinages were common in Europe but there are no known other examples elsewhere in Britain.

Looking further down Elm Hill from outside the Briton’s Arms.

I cropped the photo above to make it easier for you to see the pink house on the left.

The house just in front of the man in the photo is the Strangers’ Club built on the site of the Paston’s House which was destroyed by the fire.  The Club is said to be haunted by a man who died in the fire of 1507.  Queen Elizabeth I stayed here and watched a pageant in her honour from one of the upstairs windows.

The Pastons rose from peasantry to aristocracy in two generations.  They also left a record of private correspondence (The Paston Letters) which is the first example of such correspondence to survive in Britain.  To quote my on-line source ‘The letters show first hand testimony of the social benefits of the plague brought to the peasantry, the chaotic effects of the War of the Roses on the general populace and the individual impact that the Black Death could have on a family’.  I have a copy of the letters and they are a really good read especially the letters from Margaret Paston to her two sons and theirs to her.  Her husband had managed to be bequeathed Caister Castle by John Fastolf who was a knight during the Hundred Years War, became a loyal servant of Henry V and fought in the Battle of Agincourt.  He was also the knight that Shakespeare based his John Falstaff on.

Quayside from Fye Bridge

At the bottom of Elm Hill I turned left along Wensum Street and crossed halfway over Fye Bridge so I could look at the River Wensum.  Wensum comes from the Anglo-Saxon word for ‘winding’ – wandsum or wendsum.  The river winds in two large loops through the city and is a tributary of the River Yare despite being the larger of the two rivers.  It is chalk-fed and the whole river is a Site of Special Scientific Interest and a Special Area of Conservation.  Fye Bridge is built over the oldest river crossing in Norwich and is the gate to the North of the city known as Norwich Over the Water.  The bridge is also the site of a former ducking stool.

The River Wensum

Norwich Cathedral seen from the Erpingham Gate

I didn’t cross right over the bridge but returned to Wensum Street and walked along it to Tombland and stood by the Erpingham Gate so I could look at the Cathedral.  Though it doesn’t look it from this angle the cathedral is immensely long (407 feet) and the top of its spire is 315 feet from the ground.  The construction of it was begun in 1096 and finished in about 1145.  The Cathedral was also a Benedictine Priory.  The Erpingham Gateway was built in 1420 by Sir Thomas Erpingham who was the commander of Henry V’s archers at the Battle of Agincourt.

Just to the right of the Erpingham Gateway is the Edith Cavell Memorial.

Edith Cavell is buried near the east end of the Cathedral.  She was born in 1865 and grew up in Swardeston, south of Norwich and was a vicar’s daughter.  She became a Matron of an English teaching hospital and was also an influential pioneer of modern nursing in Belgium.  She was in England visiting her mother when World War I broke out but returned to Belgium as she felt it was her duty so to do.  Her hospital became a Red Cross hospital and so wounded soldiers from all nations were treated there.  She was a devout Christian and this motivated her to help all those in need, both German and Allied soldiers.  When a group of wounded British soldiers arrived who had been cut off from their comrades she decided to help them despite knowing that that she was putting at risk the neutrality of the Red Cross and endangering others working with her.  She then joined a Belgian underground movement and helped more than 200 Allied soldiers to escape to neutral territory.  The network was betrayed, she was arrested, tried by a court martial, found guilty of treason and sentenced to death.  Her execution was carried out at dawn by a firing squad on 12th October 1915.  She was still wearing her nurses uniform.  On the eve of her execution she said, “I am thankful to have had these ten weeks of quiet to get ready.  Now I have had them and have been kindly treated here.  I expected my sentence and I believe it was just.  Standing as I do in view of God and Eternity, I realise that patriotism is not enough.  I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone.”

Augustine Steward house

Opposite the Erpingham Gateway in Tombland is this rather lop-sided medieval building.  This is Augustine Steward house which was built in 1530 by Augustine Steward, a cloth merchant.  A merchant’s mark can be found in the passage next to the house.  A merchants mark is a symbolic sign or design used by artisans, merchants and townspeople to identify themselves and authenticate their goods.  The alleyway next to the house is called Tombland Alley and in the alley is the burial ground for the adjacent church of St George.  The high-walled churchyard contains mainly victims killed by the plague.  The name ‘Tombland’ has nothing to do with tombs but comes from an Old Scandinavian word for ‘open space’.  It was the area used for the Anglo-Saxon market and the administrative centre of Norwich before the Norman Invasion.

Another ancient building and the best antiquarian bookshop in Norwich.

This is a 15th Century timber-framed building also in Tombland.  I like the way the gable-end of this house leans outwards.

It isn’t as easy to see how much it leans out in a photo as it is in real life.

Princes Street

I turned off Tombland into Princes Street.  Again, this street is cobbled and is full of a mix of beautifully restored 16th and 17th Century buildings with some modern offices and homes.

St Andrew’s Hall

Princes Street becomes Hall Plain after passing the top end of Elm Hill.  St Andrew’s Hall is in Hall Plain.  It and Blackfriar’s Hall at the top of Elm Hill are part of the most complete medieval friary complex surviving in this country.  In 1538 during the reign of Henry VIII they passed into civic hands.  The roof beams for Blackfriars and the hammerbeams in St Andrew’s roof were the gift of the Paston family together with superb 15th Century doors bearing the Arms of the Pastons and Mautbys in the South Porch.  The nave of St Andrew’s Hall was repaired and renamed The New Hall and has been used for civic ceremonies ever since.  The first recorded event was the mayor’s feast for Henry Fuller in 1544.  The Hall has been used for many things – Guild meetings, an assize court, a corn exchange and a corn hall.The Earl of Warwick stabled his horses here when he came to crush Kett’s Rebellion in 1549.  Sir Thomas Browne, the physician and polymath, was knighted here in 1671 by Charles II.  The Norfolk and Norwich Festival was started here in 1824 and still continues. The largest regional Beer Festival in Great Britain was started here in 1978.  I believe the Blackfriar’s Hall is used as a museum and art gallery.  The old east and west ranges of cloisters have also had many uses – granaries to store corn for Poor Relief, places of worship for Presbyterians and Baptists, a mint where £259,000 of coins were produced in 1695, the City Workhouse, schools and colleges.  They are now part of the Norfolk Institute of Art and Design.

I was now in time for my hair appointment and when that was finished I made my way home via Bungay where I bought some bird seed for my mother.

May I thank everyone for their kind thoughts and wishes.  My husband is in good heart though not looking forward to brain surgery.  My mother seems a little better too.  We will see how E gets on on Monday and the rest of next week.  I will keep you informed when I can.  God Bless you all.

 

 

 

A Publishing Error

For some strange reason while trying to insert a photograph into the previous post the post was published in error.  I really don’t know how it happened.  I have finished and edited and re-published it and most of you will read the finished version.  However, those of you who are e-mail followers may find that the only version you have is the unfinished one.  If so, please re-visit my blog and read the complete post.

Clare

Could Be Worse

Tags

Alpine Pasque Flower, anxiety, black-headed gulls, college, cowslip, fungi, horse chestnut, illness, job seeking, Knopper gall, muck spreading, oak, pleated inkcap, seagulls, shaggy inkcap, snowy waxcap, unpredictable weather, viburnum bodnantense

This has been a very strange summer.  The weather, for one thing, has been very unpredictable.  British weather is always unpredictable but this year it has outdone itself, I think.  Torrential rain, gale-force winds, mini tornadoes ( they are called willies in East Anglia!).  Lots of humid, stormy days in July and the coldest August for many years.  The plants in my garden have got very confused.  It became quite cool and wet at the end of June and the beginning of July (just in time for our holiday) so my Viburnum Bodnantense thought Autumn had arrived and started to flower.

Viburnum Bodnantense is supposed to flower from Autumn through to Spring.

My Alpine Pasque Flower thought Spring had come back and began flowering again.

Alpine Pasque Flower flowering for a second time this year

We found them blooming when we got home from our holiday on the 9th of July.  The poor things then got a bit of a shock as the temperature rose from about 15 degrees C to 28 degrees with high humidity.  August temperatures dipped again and last week I found cowslips in flower in the garden.

A cowslip in flower at the end of August. Cowslips usually flower in April and May.

This week the temperature has risen at last from 12 degrees C and grass frost at night ( in August!) to a pleasant 20 degrees today.

I have found a few fungi recently.

Pleated Inkcap

I photographed a better specimen in May

Pleated Inkcap

which is when I saw this one which is ( I think ) a Snowy Waxcap.

Snowy Waxcap

Coming home from church on Sunday we saw  this

Shaggy Inkcap

The oak tree in our garden is covered in galls as usual.

This is a Knopper Gall on the acorns photographed on 26th July

The same gall photographed on 5th August

As you can see, it had grown quite a lot in ten days.  They are now turning a darker colour.

Our Horse Chestnut is suffering from the fungus infection that causes blotches on the leaves.

Blotches caused by the fungus Guignadia aesculi accidentally introduced into Britain from North America in the 1930s

Muck spreading and ploughing was delayed for a few weeks but was eventually done in the field behind our house last week.

Muck spreading. Mmmmn lovely!

Ploughing

Muck spreading and ploughing. The local farmer is very considerate and doesn’t leave stinky pig-muck on the fields for long as you see.

Skillful and speedy tractor work

The seagulls love following the plough and then stay around for a day or so feasting on all the grubs and worms.

A mixed flock of seagulls

These gulls are Black-headed Gulls with their winter plumage ( no black heads only black smudges on the side of their heads)

Another reason I think this has been a strange summer is the anxiety and worry we have all had has caused the time to pass by in a kind of haze.

My elder daughter has been trying to finish her PhD and find work and now has a large overdraft with the bank.  She has been able to do some proof-reading recently which has helped a little.

My mother was disappointed to find she had another bleed behind her left eye when she went for her check-up at the hospital.  She has started another course of injections.  She has been unwell with a bad upset stomach this last week and when I saw her today she had lost a lot of weight and had become very frail and vague.  She only told me about the upset stomach when I rang her yesterday – she hadn’t wanted to worry me!

My younger daughter, after two years out of education because of chronic anxiety has had the courage to apply for a place at college to do some GCSE exams.  She has been accepted and yesterday she went there for a ‘taster day’ – a practise run-through and a chance to meet her tutors and get time-tables etc.  She came home exhausted and tearful after spending seven-and-a-half hours in college – the longest time away from home and/or family for years.  Her term starts next Monday and she is so very nervous.  I will be driving her into college and then picking her up again when she finishes which will mean nearly 100 miles a day for me.  Eventually we hope that she may be able to get the bus into Norwich but she probably won’t be able to manage it for some time.  We are all holding our breath and hoping that she doesn’t lose her nerve.

My husband has had a problem with his throat since April.  He has had a recurring painful ulcer at the back of his throat that comes up when he eats.  He has pains in his neck too.  He has found that taking anti-histamine seems to control the ulcer.  He has visited his doctor three times and the first two times was told it probably wasn’t anything to worry about and to come back in a month. The third time the doctor referred him to the Ear, Nose and Throat specialist at the hospital.  He eventually got an appointment to see the specialist on the 5th August.  The specialist didn’t know what was causing the problem so arranged for R to have an MRI scan which took place on 18th August.  R got a letter from the hospital last week asking him to see the specialist again yesterday.  R has been getting more and more anxious as the summer has progressed, as is only natural, and the long delays in between appointments have been difficult to cope with.  The specialist began by saying that she couldn’t find anything in the scan to account for the problems R has been experiencing, however she had found something else which will need dealing with before any more investigation into the throat business is done.  There is a growth on his pituitary gland at the base of his brain and this will have to be operated on soon before he becomes really unwell.  He will have to take some time off work and won’t be able to drive for some time before and after the operation.  The specialist is referring my poor husband to another specialist who will contact R in about a month.  R is very relieved it isn’t cancer but is very nervous about having a brain operation.

If my posts have been sporadic, if I have written a load of rubbish or made a rather stupid comment on your blogs it is because of all of the above.  I can’t think straight and I can’t concentrate on anything.  My arthritis is playing-up in my hands especially and I am so far behind with everything it is shocking!  However, I am a strong person and with God’s help I will be able to support all the members of my family and all will be well.