Old News

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Black Spleenwort, family, hazel catkins, primrose, Rumburgh Church, Sainsbury Centre, snowdrops, spring, St Michael and St Felix Church Rumburgh, Suffolk, University of East Anglia, witch-hazel

It is over a month since I last wrote a diary post.  We haven’t done very much in that time but the days are getting longer and there are signs of spring in the garden and hedgerows.

Witch hazel

Witch hazel

Witch hazel

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The central elements on our old toaster had stopped working so we have bought ourselves a new toaster and this new one manages to toast both sides of a slice of bread at the same time!  It has a ‘bagel button’ (though as I have never eaten a bagel I think I would prefer to call it a ‘teacake button’) which toasts one side and warms the other.  We can now re-live the old toaster experience, except in reverse.

Snowdrops in bud

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Another excitement has been the emptying and repair of the septic tank.  Only those of you who do not have mains sewage can truly relate to this.  The tank was well overdue for emptying and we knew it needed repairing a year ago but we have been let down by our usual contractor and have had to find someone new.  The new contractor arrived and did what he had to do and was efficient and professional.  An added bonus, as far as we were concerned, was the wind direction on the day.

Hazel catkins in the hedge

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We have decided to have all our internal doors replaced and a carpenter has visited and priced up the job for us.  He will be doing the work over three days next week.  Richard will then have to spend quite a lot of time painting the doors, as well as all the skirting boards and the banisters.  We hope to redecorate the hall, stairs and landing and get a new carpet some time in the next few months.

I’m not sure how many hazel nuts we will have on this tree this year. The female flowers have appeared before the male catkins have matured.

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At the very end of January we had a morning prayer service at our church of St Michael and St Felix at Rumburgh.  The day before the service Richard and I called in at the church to make sure everything was tidy and to set the heating to come on well before the service.  It was a cold day but inside the church was even colder than out in the open!

I found the first rather bedraggled primroses of the year in a sheltered spot in the churchyard.

I also found my first snowdrops of the year

Rumburgh gravestone

This gravestone has a skull engraved on it.  Richard was asked to see if it was still in the graveyard recently as there had been a report that it might have gone missing.

The west door, which isn’t used anymore.

The west window

Work will start on March the 20th on the new tower screen in the church.  We have been saving for years and years to get the work done and at last it is about to happen.  Once the screen is in place the tower will be shut off from the body of the church and we hope it might be less draughty and warmer.

Black Spleenwort (Asplenium adiantum-nigrum) growing in the mortar on the wall of the church

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Elinor has now left the City College but we hope this is only a temporary thing.  As I mentioned in my last diary post she wants to enrol on a one year Art and Design course for older students and has therefore filled out the application form.  We have been notified that the college has received the form and I hope we will hear that Elinor has an interview soon.  At the interview she will be expected to hand in a review of an exhibition she has been to see recently and with that in mind, we went to the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich and viewed an exhibition of 20th century Japanese photography.  Photography was not allowed in the exhibition hall but there is a large collection of world art on display in the main gallery, most of the exhibits donated by Lord and Lady Sainsbury.

Below are my favourites from the main gallery.

Edgar Degas – Little Dancer Aged Fourteen

Edgar Degas – Little Dancer Aged Fourteen

A beautiful Benin bronze – the Head of an Oba; early 16th century

Henry Moore – Mother and Child

Whistling bottles from Equador – one in the shape of an owl and the other is a bird sitting on eggs or pods.  Both 1000 – 100 BC

Another couple of exhibits from Equador

Sketch for a Portrait of Lisa by Francis Bacon

Standing Jizo Bosatsu – Japan (1185-1333)

The top exhibit with the ram’s head is a backstrap from a sword or dagger hilt – India late 17th century The lower exhibit is an archer’s thumb-ring in the form of a bird – India 17th – 18th century

Left rear – Image of the Goddess Kaumari, India 17th century.   Right rear – Shiva as Chandrashekharamurti, South India c. AD 1100.   Front centre – Figure of Chamunda Devi, Nepal/Tibet 17th/18th century

Walking Hippopotamus – Egypt c. 1880 BC

The Sainsbury Centre.  One of the first major buildings designed by Sir Norman Foster, it was completed in 1978.

It is a steel clad building with one face almost entirely glazed.

By the late 80’s the collection had grown so much that Foster was asked to design an extension. He decided to build underground and this is one of the entrances to it.

The new basement has a curved glass frontage that emerges from the slope underneath the original building overlooking the man-made lake.  This new wing can only be seen from the lake but as it was very muddy there and beginning to go dark on a very gloomy day, I was unable to photograph it.

The University of East Anglia’s grounds looking towards the lake

Part of the university. There are many items of sculpture to be seen here.

Another Henry Moore sculpture

The University has an excellent creative writing department and many well known writers have studied here. Tracy Chevalier; Kazuo Ishiguro; Ian McEwan; Rose Tremain – to name but a few.

My music choice today is a song from Katie Melua.

Thanks for visiting!

Highlights from 2016 – Spring

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bluebells, flour, mill, mill pond, Minsmere, Pakenham Watermill, sculpture, The Albert Memorial, The Royal Albert Hall, The Victoria and Albert Museum, This is How it Feels Inspiral Carpets, wedding, wild flowers

This, as promised in my previous post, is the first of my ‘highlight’ posts in which I will let you know some of the things we managed to do this year and will provide photos and links when and where necessary.

Just after Easter we went to the wedding of my dear friend Wendy and her husband John’s daughter Jennifer to her fiancé David.  The wedding took place in the lovely church of St David in the village of Groes Faen in south Wales.  We were delighted to be included in their family celebration, just as we had been when Jen’s older sister Vicky (my God-daughter) was married a few years ago.  The reception was at the Pencoed House Estate, a beautiful manor house in lovely grounds.  I was fortunate to be seated next to Wendy’s mother-in-law, Rene; she and her late husband Don had been so kind to me and Alice when my first marriage broke up.  I was so sorry to hear that she died just a few weeks ago.  I had been unable to take any photos at the wedding so was very pleased to receive a thank-you card from Jen and David which had photos from their wedding on it.  I have scanned it and chosen one of the photos but it hasn’t come out very well.

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This next gallery of photos is just a reminder of what we have to look forward to in the  spring!

Bluebell wood

Bluebell wood

Bluebell wood

I love bluebells (Hyacinthoides non-scripta) so I took a little detour on my way home from my mother’s house at the beginning of May so that I could see the flowers just outside the village of Withersdale Street.

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I have mentioned Pakenham Watermill before in my blog.  It is where we go to buy the best wholemeal flour which I use to make bread.

Pakenham Watermill

The rear of the building.  We visited on a perfect morning in May.

The mill with mill-pond

There are lots of House martin (Delichon urbica) nests under the eaves

Bird sculpture in the garden

The mill pond

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At about this time I visited Minsmere RSPB Reserve as I wanted to buy something from their shop.  While I was there I thought I would quickly walk through the woods to see what I could see.

Bluebells again!

Bluebells

Blue bluebells and white bluebells!

Common vetch (Vicia sativa)

Common stork’s-bill (Erodium cicutarium)

I don’t remember ever having seen this flower before despite it being ‘common’.  The seed-heads can be seen next to the flowers and their shape gives the plant it’s name.

Changing forget-me-not (Myosotis discolor)

The flowers are tiny and very difficult to photograph.  When they first open they are yellow but soon change to blue.  The plant especially likes to grow on sandy soil.

Shepherd’s-cress (Teesdalia nudicaulis)

This is another plant I don’t remember having noticed before, but that is not surprising because it is very low growing and not especially exciting to look at.  You can see a wood-ant (10 mm long) towards the bottom right of the photo which gives you some idea of the size of the flowers which are about 2 mm across – two of the four petals of the flower are longer than the other two.  The seeds are heart-shaped and a few can be seen at the top of the photo.  The leaves in the basal rosette are lobed and can also be seen at the top-centre.  Their shape reminds me of pasta servers.

Common sorrel (Rumex acetosa) creating red patches on the rising ground. Gorse (Ulex europaeus) can be seen flowering in the bushes on the sky-line.

Wavy bitter-cress (Cardamine flexuosa) – so-called because it’s stem is wavy rather than straight!

Rhododendron (Rhododendron ponticum)

Rhododendron has naturalised and become invasive in many places.  It is unwelcome as it reduces biodiversity and is very difficult to eradicate because it produces new shoots from its roots.  This link speaks more about the plant.

Bugloss (Anchusa arvensis)

This plant is very hairy and has interesting wavy-edged leaves.  The flowers are a lovely intense blue colour.

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Elinor wasn’t able to join her art and design group on their trip to London in April so a few weeks later Richard and I took her there ourselves.  We visited the Victoria and Albert Museum and Elinor chose to study the exhibits in the cast works gallery and the sculpture galleries.

Trajan’s column – lower

Trajan’s column – upper

Someone took a plaster-cast of the whole of Trajan’s column!  The column is 30 m / 98 ft tall (with the pedestal it is 35 m / 115 ft tall).  Its diameter is 37 m / 12.1 ft.  This cast is now invaluable to scholars because the original column has become very weathered and the figures cannot easily be studied.

I love this medieval carving from Germany! The details of the knight’s journey are exquisitely worked. There are trees, people and small creatures, buildings, a dragon and a princess to be rescued! It was difficult to get a decent photo because of the reflections off the glass case.  I also forgot to make a note of the artist and couldn’t find the piece when I went on the museum’s website.

‘A Bishop Saint’ by Sir Alfred Gilbert 1899.  This bishop’s gentle expression appealed to me very much.

‘The Virgin with the Laughing Child’ probably by Antonio Rossellino ca. 1465.  I could look at this statuette for ever! It is so intimate and loving! Look at the way the mother is holding her little boy on her knee with his leg between her forefinger and middle finger, her other hand on his tummy and his hand on hers.

After leaving the museum we decided to walk to Hyde Park and relax there for a short time before catching our train home.

The Royal Albert Hall – a beautiful building and an excellent concert hall

Opposite the Royal Albert Hall is the Albert Memorial

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That’s it for the time being!  I will leave you with my music choice, ‘This Is How It Feels’ by Inspiral Carpets, remembering Craig Gill (drums) who died on Tuesday 22 November 2016

Thanks for visiting!

St. Peter Mancroft Church, Norwich

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carving, churches, flushwork, medieval, Norwich, St Peter Mancroft church, stained glass

St Peter Mancroft Church

This large church is close to Hay Hill where my last Norwich post came from.  It is the largest of the thirty-one Church of England churches in Norwich and is often mistaken for one of the two cathedrals.

The building was begun in 1430 and was consecrated in 1455, a twenty-five year single phase of construction which gives the church its unity of style.  There have been only a few additions to the exterior of the building since then, notably the little spire on top of the tower (a fleche), the parapet round the top of the tower and the ‘pepperpots’ on the corners added by the architect A E Street in 1895.

St Peter Mancroft before the Victorian additions to the tower.

St Peter Mancroft Church. Beyond it on the left of the photo you can see The Guildhall featured in a recent post of mine.

This church wasn’t the first to be built on this site.  One of William the Conqueror’s barons, Ralph de Guader, Earl of Norwich, had had a church built there in 1075 but shortly afterwards he lost everything he had after rebelling against the Conqueror.  Fortunately he had already bestowed the church on one of his chaplains, Wala, who fled to Gloucester after the rebellion.  Wala passed the church on to the Abbey of St Peter in Gloucester and so for 300 years this church was known as ‘St Peter of Gloucester in Norwich’ – quite a mouthful!  After pressure from the citizens of Norwich in 1388, the church was passed to the Benedictine Community of St-Mary-in-the-Fields in Norwich whose church (long since destroyed) was where the Assembly Room and the Theatre Royal are now.  The Dean and Chapter of St Mary’s found the old church dilapidated and in very poor condition and so decided to re-build.  It took them 42 years to save enough money through gifts, legacies and donations to be able to start the construction work.

Norwich Castle can be seen beyond St Peter Mancroft church

St Peter Mancroft on the right and the Forum ahead

St Peter Mancroft

I include here a link to an aerial map of St Peter Mancroft (marked in purple).

http://www.heritage.norfolk.gov.uk/map-record?UID=MNF257&BBOX=622901,308412,622961,308442&CRS=EPSG:27700&count=1&ck_MON1=true&ck_MON=false

During the Reformation the College of St-Mary-in-the-Field was suppressed and the patronage of St Peter Mancroft was passed through several families until 1581 when it was acquired by trustees on behalf of the parishioners.  The church was originally the church of St Peter and St Paul but the name was shortened to St Peter after the two saints were given independent saints days during the Reformation.  ‘Mancroft’ probably came from the ‘Magna Crofta’ (great meadow) on which it was built.

St Peter Mancroft – the tower is 146′ high

The church is almost completely faced with limestone which was brought many miles over land and sea at great expense.  (There is no local free-stone in Norfolk).   It was a deliberate display of wealth on the part of the 15th century citizens of Norwich.  There is some knapped flint flushwork decoration most notably on the tower which is well buttressed and was probably intended to carry another lantern stage  The tower also carries a peal of 14 bells.

There are two fine porches to the church on the north and south sides.  The North Porch has a parvaise (a room over the porch).

This is a view of the interior of the church from the back looking towards the East window.

It is 60′ from floor to roof and has eight arched bays with slender columns.  The church is also very long at 180′.

The Crib was about 5′ tall and 5′ wide. I could have got into it easily – if I had so wished!

Richard, Elinor and I visited the church on a very rainy day last week.  Amazingly, the church was warm inside!  Even the cathedral doesn’t get as cosy as St Peter Mancroft.

Font and Font Canopy in the Baptistery

The font was a gift to the church in 1463 by John Cawston, a grocer from Norwich.  The Seven Sacraments were carved on panels round the font basin and an eighth panel showed the ‘Sun in Splendour’, the badge of Henry IV.  Eight saints were carved on the shaft of the font.  Sadly, the Puritans hacked off all the images, plastered the font with lime and daubed it with black paint.  It was found in the crypt with other rubbish in 1926 and was cleaned and put in its present position.  The four pillars and the base of the canopy over the font were made in the 15th century but the upper part of the woodwork is 19th century Victorian work.

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I apologise for the poor quality of the photos in the slideshow but all of the objects were in glass cases in the St Nicholas Chapel.  These objects are just a few of the many treasures owned by the church and known as the Mancroft Heritage.

The Jesus Chapel.

This chapel is normally used for weekday services.

The tomb of Francis Windham, Recorder of Norwich in the reign of Elizabeth I

The Chancel or Choir

The Reredos (the panel behind the High Altar) has some beautiful carved figures made in 1885 and gilded in 1930 to mark the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the building of the church.  At the same time the lower line of larger figures were added by Sir Ninian Comper.

The Chancel roof

This roof (and the roof of the Nave) is of open timbered construction supported by hammer beams.  Most hammer beam roofs are ornamented and uncovered but this one is covered by fan tracery or vaulting in wood.  Most fan traceries are made from stone so this roof is very rare.  It is also an angel roof – there is a single row of small angels on either side of the Nave roof but a double row on either side of the Chancel.  There are also gilded suns in splendour on the ridge bosses.  The roof was restored in 1962 -64.  Some amazing work was done then by the restorers who raised the roof on jacks and then pulled the walls straight which had been driven outwards by the weight of the roof over the centuries.

Here is the memorial to Sir Thomas Browne, the subject of my previous Norwich post

I have discovered a quote of Sir Thomas Browne’s from his treatise ‘Urn-Burial’ at the beginning of Edgar Allen Poe’s ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’.

 

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The most memorable sight in the church is that of the Great East Window.

The East Window

It has 39 tracery lights (windows/panes of glass) and 42 main lights, all of which are 15th century except seven main lights which are Victorian.  The Victorian ones are the lower five in the centre colomn and the two bottom ones either side of the centre colomn.  This window contains some of the finest work by the 15th century School of Norwich Glass Painters.  Most of the church would have originally been full of glass like this but during rioting between Puritans and Royalists in 1648 there was a gunpowder explosion nearby in a house in Bethel Street which left many people dead and much of the glass in the church blown in.  It wasn’t until four years later that the glass was gathered together from around the church and most put into this window.

Please click on this link to see each light in detail.

I am obliged and indebted to the Church Guide I purchased in St Peter Mancroft for some of the information in this post.

Thanks for visiting!

Norwich – Sir Thomas Browne

Tags

Anne and Patrick Poirer, art, Norfolk, Norwich, polymath, sculpture, Sir Thomas Browne, street furniture

As the weather hasn’t been conducive to photography recently, I decided to find and use some more of the pictures I have taken over the past year on my walks through Norwich.

Next to the Guildhall (mentioned in my recent Norwich post) is Norwich Market and on the further side of the Market Place is Hay Hill.

Statue of Sir Thomas Browne

Sir Thomas Browne, born 19th October 1605 in London, lived and worked in Norwich from 1636 until his death on 19th October 1682.  He was a polymath; a physician, a botanist and a writer.  He was well-educated, well-travelled, religious and very well-liked and respected in his time.  He wrote several important books and in doing so, coined many new words in the English language.

ambidextrous, antediluvian, analogous, approximate, ascetic, anomalous, carnivorous, coexistence, coma, compensate, computer, cryptography, cylindrical, disruption, ergotism, electricity, exhaustion, ferocious, follicle, generator, gymnastic, hallucination, herbaceous, holocaust, insecurity, indigenous, jocularity, literary, locomotion, medical, migrant, mucous, prairie, prostate, polarity, precocious, pubescent, therapeutic, suicide, ulterior, ultimate, veterinarian.

Sir Thomas Browne lived in the Hay Hill area nearly 400 years ago.  His house (which no longer stands) was in Orford Yard and he is buried in St Peter Mancroft church.  Both these places are next to Hay Hill.  He lived and worked slightly earlier in the same century as Samuel Pepys, who lived in London.

In 1671 King Charles II came to Norwich and viewed the city regiments from the balcony of the Guildhall.  Whilst he was in the city he knighted Thomas Browne and then dined with him on the first dolphin to be caught off the Norfolk coast.  This dolphin had been sent to Sir Thomas for his interest and dissection.

The statue of Sir Thomas Browne (see photo above) is by Henry Albert Pegram and it was commissioned to celebrate the 300th birthday of Sir Thomas.  The statue was unveiled on 19th October 1905 and huge crowds turned out to witness the ceremony. Pegram was also commissioned to make the memorial to Edith Cavell which stands outside the gate of Norwich Cathedral.

Edith Cavell Memorial

In the early years of this century the Hay Hill area of the city was looking a little run-down and untidy.  The authorities had wanted Anne and Patrick Poirer, a French husband and wife team of artists, to create a sculpture for the Marketplace when it was renovated but this hadn’t worked out.  They were therefore then asked to consider a commission for a sculpture on Hay Hill.  The couple researched the area and decided on a homage to Sir Thomas Browne.  This was a major public art commission, paid for by The Arts Council England East and Norwich City Council with a contribution from Norfolk County Council.  It was commissioned in 2005 and installed and opened officially in 2007.  The work was intended to be a set of street furniture; a living room for the city.

Homage to Sir Thomas Browne – street furniture

The sculpture was made in Pietrasanta in the foothills of the Carrara mountains in Tuscany, Italy.  This area is famous for it’s beautiful white marble; the granite used in this sculpture came from Zimbabwe.  (We visited Pietrasanta a couple of years ago while on holiday and enjoyed the best pizza and bruschetta we have ever tasted in a little café in the market place.)

There are twenty pieces of sculpture and twenty-two lights and all the pieces relate in some way to Sir Thomas.  Some of the pieces are made of marble and some of granite.  Some are polished and shiny and some are rough and matt.  All are intended to be sat upon.

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These pieces are arranged in a pattern known as a quinconce or quincunx, a five-pointed diamond shape which Sir Thomas believed existed throughout nature.  The pieces are also arranged in line with his home in Orford Yard and the place of his burial in St Peter Mancroft church.  Many of these pieces are inscribed with quotes from Sir Thomas using the original spelling.  At night the sculptures are lit with coloured lights set in the ground and which are part of the art-work.

The largest pieces are a marble brain and an eye carved in the classical style and refer to Sir Thomas as a thinker and to his approach to philosophy, religion and science.  There are five granite chairs,  two benches, three tables, six conical seats and two smaller pod seats which represent Sir Thomas’ interest in Botany.  The gold design on the back of some of the seats is the artists’ interpretation of the rooms of the brain – memory, creativity and intellect and the way they are linked together.

This area is well-used and in the summer many people sit here and eat their lunch or rest after doing their shopping.  Sadly, not many people understand its relevance or know who Sir Thomas Browne was!

Thanks for visiting!