Norfolk Corners

If you have ever driven to Norwich along the A47 from the west you will have noticed a tall concrete structure looming like one of H.G. Wells' aliens in the suburb of Easton.  It's a water tower. If you are wondering what they are used for, I can tell you: they are for storing water. You can thank me when that comes up in the pub quiz. East Anglia's flat landscape means that if one was to create a reservoir it would likely be on a similar level as the houses that it was supposed to feed so, without enough gravity, there wouldn't be the pressure in the system for distribution without a lot of pumping. The solution in East Anglia was to increase the gravity by building water towers to store the water so that water could be supplied even in the case of a power cut. The Easton tower is a brutalist design in reinforced concrete so probably originates from 1950s. In the photo at the top you can see three horizontal stripes where it looks like the concrete has had to be rei...

I must confess that I had never heard of Pablo Fanque until today. At least I thought I hadn't but I've listened to a song where he is mentioned countless times, walked past a blue plaque commemorating him almost as often and watched a building named after him be erected. I guess I just wasn't paying attention. Sorry Pablo! It took some rain smeared pavement art outside John Lewis in Norwich for me to finally get the message: Street art on 25th October 2021 when it was created. Photo credit:  Dave Guttridge . The street art from 29th October 2021 when I saw it. Pablo Fanque Born in Norwich 1810-1871 As I read it, something told me that we'd seen a plaque for him somewhere. It was my wife. "We've seen his plaque somewhere" she said. Actually it was just around the corner on the wall of John Lewis. Pablo Fanque, real name William Darby, the first black British circus proprietor, was born in Norwich and lived near to this site. He is immortalised in the Beat...

The infamous window of no. 15 With the clocks going back at the beginning of the week and Halloween approaching, we delved into a darker corner of Norfolk today. I was looking for something to chill the blood so I was excited to learn from a local expert (my wife) that there is just such a legend surrounding Kings Lynn's Tuesday Market Place. The Tuesday Market was one of the largest markets in England in the Middle Ages when it first came about. The market still exists though much diminished. Instead the square functions mainly as a car park. Today, you can book tickets for music, comedy and cinema at the Corn Exchange, one of many historic buildings that border the square. What passed as entertainment back then was altogether more macabre. The market place was the focal point for public punishments which would draw big crowds. The Corn Exchange This thirst for cruelty contributed to a culture where justice was routinely overlooked. In 1590 Margaret Read was one of the many wome...

St. Nicholas is tucked away a little bit off the main road that passes through Brandiston. As we approached it, we passed the police car that had checked us out at Haveringland parked on another old section of concrete airfield just off the road. There isn't a signpost to the church from the road that it is on so initially we drove straight past it. There is however a footpath sign which happens to point to the church. Following the sign takes you down a short track that ends with Church Farm on the left and St. Nicholas church on the right. One of the farmhouse dogs came out to let me know that it thought I was  up to no good but it stayed behind the fence and then one of the owners came out to calm it down. Bravely, I continued. The path to the entrance is lined on either side by Verbena which was looking a bit straggly but pretty healthy for mid October. It sounded like there were a lot of rooks gathered behind the church cawing loudly and I idly wondered if that was how nearby...

If you squint you may be able to make out the turbines on the horizon   If you asked someone to name five things that they associate with Norfolk, there is a good chance that windmills would come high on the list. For most, windmills are icons of a lost but yearned for rustic way of life. For me and doubtless many others of my age, they trigger traumatic childhood memories of Windy Miller of Camberwick Green running the gauntlet every time he wanted to get through his front door. It is the toddler equivalent of Indiana Jones grabbing his hat microseconds before he would be horribly crushed by the stone trap door in Raiders of the Lost Ark.   Windy had the misfortune of working in a windmill whose sails swung sickeningly fast immediately past his front door forcing him to play a type of Russian Roulette every time he needed to come or  go. Camberwick Green ramped up the peril further by making Windy a slow moving fellow with a cider habit.   To be fair, the 6 year ol...

St. Peter's stands in isolation on the very edge of Haveringland village surrounded by farm fields and the remains of an old airfield. The round, Anglo Saxon tower stands out dramatically against the remote Norfolk skyline. Despite the largely clear horizon I couldn't see any houses for miles around. Access to the church is via an old concrete track which is presumably a remnant from the days of the airfield. It feels almost as though the site was chosen to test the faith of the parishioners. The Domesday book lists Haveringland as having 22 households and by 1801 that number had dropped to 14 . There is a map of Haveringland from 1885 available at the National Library of Scotland website which shows a post office, lodge and school to the south of St. Peters. It still looks a significant walk to me but priorities were obviously very different back then. That leaves a few hundred intervening years from when the church was built. The Haveringland community WordPress site says...