I must admit I felt like another lazy weekend. But we'd booked a bed for the night over at Great Yarmouth and Harry was keen not to be stuck inside the house for another two days. So early Saturday morning in the dark and the cold and the rain and the wind I followed him out the door for what was hopefully around a 3 hour drive over to the East of England (it turned out to be 3.5 hours both ways which was great especially since we had to negotiate traffic on the M25). In the end I was glad we made the effort as we had another fun weekend exploring new parts of England. Art comes alive for us when we see a painting of something we have visited (eg buildings, sea and land scapes, ruins, castles, gardens etc). There was a wonderful moment at Norwich Castle (which incidentally we weren't particularly enthused about as we couldn't go outside to see the view of the city from the top. The castle is a huge box built during Norman times and perched on top of a mound - they say the highest castle mound in England).
During our tour of the castle we came across the the art gallery and after wandering past many great paintings we didn't appreciate we turned and said "That's Yarmouth" - our interest suddenly increased ten fold. The first art work we came across was a painting by John Berney Crome - we'd never heard of him before (he was the son of a famous painter in the early nineteenth century called John Crome - we hadn't heard of him either). I went on to the website of the Norwich Museum and found a couple of his paintings as they depict the scene a little bit better than our photos do - rather a drab and wet weekend for photos (particularly the Saturday)!! The two paintings that gained our attention for more than a few seconds was the one of Burgh Castle and the one of a Windmill - both of which we visited earlier that morning. Burgh Castle overlooks the river and was built in the late third or early fourth century. It's actually one of many forts built along this coast by the Romans. It has 3 of its 4 walls still standing. The walls are a fascinating mix of flint (there are old flint mines around here which we will come and visit when they are open in summer) and mortar. There were round towers on the sides but most of them were collapsed. Around the area bird watchers were out for the day hoping for a look at some of the birds that live near and breed in the reeds. We saw some but didn't recognise them. They could have been bearded tits, reed and sedge warblers, water rail, yellow wagtail, marsh and hen harriers, bittern or Cetti's warbler (or some other breed we hadn't heard of). All these birds and others like the Broads presumably because the mudflats are a good food source. Across the marsh was one of the many windmills in the area and a little church. There are windmills all over the place - the Broads (sort of the marshy farm land that skirts the whole of Yarmouth) is flat and open to the sea so a great place for wind power (not just the modern turbines) and some of them are open in summer to have a look at. Not far away at Carstairs there is also a modern wind turbine farm (I have begun to realise that no idea is new). Scroby Sands is one of the first commercial offshore wind farms and it has stood proudly out to sea since 2004. It now provides power to around 30000 homes - and wait for it - saves the emission of 67802 tonnes of carbon dioxide, nearly 600 tonnes of sulphur dioxide and nearly 200 tonnes of oxides of nitrogen each year. It's got to be good - and not too visually intrusive out there in the distance. Anyway, the Norfolk Broads which is what we were wandering around is called a "wetland landscape". It looks all natural, but when driving through Harry and I remarked on how it looked like a peat landscape (a bit similar to the bit of land around Raumati). And funnily enough it was a result of peat digging in the Middle Ages (peat was used as a source of fuel). The empty peat pits were filled by rain and I am assuming some tidal water and now it has over 125 miles of navigable waterways which we intend to canoe around in summer some time. We also saw as many sheep over here, that we have probably seen in the whole country and some lovely draught horses.
Alongside the paintings by J B Crome were some from Joseph Stanard (or it might have been Alfred - sorry remembered the surname but not the Christian - but they are probably related so the credit can still go to the family). This painting was special - of a family with all their belongings - watching a fisherman. We could imagine the family just arriving to live in a row house and feeling very hungry at the sight of all the fish in the basket. The painting depicts Nelson's Column far away and in the foreground the wonderful golden sands of the Yarmouth beach. We'd been to see Nelson's Column the day before (rather a tall monstrosity really - funny how big isn't necessarily beautiful). The column was built around 1840 in memory of Admiral Horatio Nelson's death at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. It is 5.5 metres tall, cost £47,500 to build (that is a lot of money 170 years ago) is made from granite and one report says is hollow inside. In my opinion (which I have come to realise isn't really that important) it would look a lot better standing in the middle of a meadow with some flowers around it. But it is in the middle of an old industrial site with old buildings all around it. It was placed here because this is where Lord Nelson left on most of his ships. There are some funny stories going about this column
- In 1925 a man from Scotland "sold" the column to an American (he also "sold" Big Ben and Buckingham Palace) - not sure how much he got.
- If Hitler's plan to invade Britain (ie Operation Sealion) had worked Hitler was going to relocate the column to Berlin.
- The column has been graded as a climb and several people have climbed it.
- In May 2003 someone parachuted from the top of the column to draw attention to the Chinese occupation of Tibet.
And then there are some stories about Nelson as well which shows he had a sense of humour:
- When asked to place his right arm on the bible to take an oath to be given the freedom of the borough he said to the Mayor "that's in Tenerife".
- He stayed in an inn which the inn keeper wanted to rename Nelson's Arms - he replied "that's absurd I only have one".
There is another side to the beach front which we didn't see in any paintings - but it seems quite typical - we now know the difference between a beach and a pleasure beach. The latter has lots of buildings and piers with slot machines, games, side shows, miniature golf, mini villages, casinos, piers etc etc and seems to come alive in summer and closes for winter. Because it was dark and cold and wet we decided to play 10 pin bowling after our wander around Great Yarmouth - a game we haven't played since we came over here - so all good fun. I must admit that I was quietly amused by the young family playing next to us. There were two boys (aged 10 and 7 probably) and the older boy was losing - he was unimpressed - infact sulking quite a bit. The younger one was just playing (no skill) but he kept on knocking them down and the older one kept missing them altogether. I always wonder what makes some of us competitive (or bad losers) and others of us not. Anyway, I wondered who invented 10 pin bowling because England seems to be home to skittles. I never did find out the answer but many think that the Egyptians were the first bowlers (round about 3200 BC), some think it originated in Germany around 300 AD but we do know that in 1366 King Edward III of England banned his troops from playing bowls - it was distraction from achery practice (Golf was also). They think that Henry VIII bowled using cannon balls to knock over the pins and some 500 years later a Connecticut law was introduced to ban ninepin bowling lanes as they seemed to have become the home of gambling and crime - guess what - the ever creative Americans added another pin to get around the law and ten-pin bowling was a new game. Anyway, without that knowledge we enjoyed our game at the 'Pleasure Beach' grateful that the crowds had stayed away so we could have an alley.
The last artist to feature in the blog is a guy called Lodge (not Neville!! I think Warren - but I can't find anything on the web which proves he is a Warren). While wandering around in the cold and the wet and the rain we decided to stop off at the Star Hotel -built in the 1700's and oh so worth a look around even if you don't want to warm your hands on a coffee and have a bite to eat. We'd been past a few places by then and I must admit they looked pretty drab and uninteresting - even with our guide book (carefully kept dry under a jacket) we didn't find much that was inspirational. But the Lodge drawings on the wall of the Star Hotel made me take another look. With a few brushes and a little bit of watercolour the town scenes had turned from dreary and dingy into bright and alive. If they were for sale I would have bought one. So in his drawings were some of the things we saw:
- The city wall - which is quite derelict but circled the row houses (145 rows) back in the 18th century. The rows were built East to West so that the easterly wind could blow the stench from the sewage on the paths away and the cobbled paths were built leading down to the river so that the rain could wash some of the mess into the river. The row houses were built only a few feet apart, the narrowest about 18 inches apart and so a law was passed that the doors had to be hinged inwards (if they opened outwards they often attacked passers by). If you didn't rehinge your door, not only did you get a fine but you also had your door nailed in place - so I guess you had to climb out the window. Not many of the row houses still exist - many were bombed during WWII when 8000 bombs fell in this area (by my reckoning that is about 4 a day).
- St Nicholas Church - where it is rumoured that in the 19th century the Vicar presided over funerals and then in the night time exhumed the bodies and sent them to his nephew in a London hospital for his anatomy classes. Although rather a grim story, I guess we have people like that to thank for modern medicine today. And on a stone by the door of the church is the following inscription "That the said borough be a free borough forever and should have soc and sac toll and team and infangenthief and outfangenthief. Yes it was in English. After a bit of research I think it means that they were allowed to ask for payment for allowing people to set up a market and sell their wares and cattle etc.
- The cutest little house where Anna Sewell (Black Beauty Fame) was born in 1820 to a devout Quaker family. Her mother was apparently an author of children's books as well. When she was 14 she slipped while walking home from school and severely injured both of her ankles. They moved to Brighton in the hope that the weather might help to cure her but she was lame for the rest of her life. She only ever wrote the one book (when she was in her late 50's so there is hope for me yet) and dictated it to her mother as her health was not good. She described her book "It's a special aim being to induce kindness, sympathy, and an understanding treatment of horses." A quote from the book "There is no religion without love, and people may talk as much as they like about their religion, but if it does not teach them to be good and kind to other animals as well as humans, it is all a shame."
- Nine (yes 9) caravans selling chips (about a third of all the stalls in the market that day). If we hadn't had that coffee at the Star Hotel we would have succumbed to temptation like the many others huddled in groups eating hot salty chips from punnets. What surprised us was that the caravans only sold chips there were no hamburgers, sausages, fish - only chips and sauces - boy what a temptation - there was mayonnaise, garlic mayo, brown sauce, ketchup, blue cheese sauce, sweet and sour sauce, thai sweet chilli and if you really wanted a treat you could top them off with beans, pickled onions, gherkins, pickled eggs or make a chip buttie. The mobile chip shop has been going for a couple of hundred years now - we saw history that Saturday!!
- The hospital which had a plaque above the doorway "An Hospital for Decayed Fisherman 1702" - a reminder about how our language has changed over time. The hospital was originally built for retired fisherman and has now been renovated into apartments - looks great I might add. On one wall is a plaque stating "That no person would be admitted under 60 years. That fisherman only be admitted if married if their wives accompany them. That if any fisherman becomes a widow he should not marry outside of said hospital...that no person be allowed to lodge in any other house..."
And some bits from the weekend that don't really fit in anywhere else in this story...We had a look at Norwich Cathedral from the outside before wandering back to the car for the long trip home - and at the museum we saw a cabinet of custard cups ... never heard of them before - here is a quote that rather tickled my fancy..."Custard cups...are sometimes called cream cups, mustard pots, and even mistaken for bourdaloues, those ceramic chamber pots used discreetly by ladies in carriages and at the theatre...Custard, indeed! They were designed to drink from, and contained rich consommé made from the roast at royal banquets in France of almost unimaginable splendour. Among eighteenth century European royalty, following the re-invention of porcelain at Meissen, there was a mania for dinner services. Sometimes comprising more than 2,000 pieces, they took years to make and cost more than their weight in gold. They became symbols of power, gifts to foster international alliances, influence betrothals and reward loyalty. Napoleon gave them to friends and enemies alike. Catherine the Great of Russia owned 20 or 30.
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