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:
Many medieval structures have not survived. Mountjoy Priory,
founded by the Augustinians in the 10th century, has disappeared,
though medieval pottery and tiles have been found in the area. Large
quantities of medieval and post medieval pottery fragments indicate the
existence of a medieval house. It is also possible that an entire
medieval settlement in the parish has vanished; aerial photographs taken
to the west of Great Wood show an area of cropmarks that are probably
the traces of a village, now partly covered in farm buildings. Medieval
objects found in the parish include pottery fragments, coins, a pilgrim
bottle, brooches and buckles. A flint-lined medieval well which was
excavated in 1958.
At the top of the track is a sign warning that police make regular checks of the site following recent acts of vandalism. Sure enough, minutes after we arrived, a white car turned in to check us out. I sweated for a moment that my biro theft from 1993 was flashing up on their console but to my relief the car turned and drove away.
The church was on the site of RAF Swannington while it was active and serves as a reminder of the base and those who worked there.
The track leading to the church is an Avenue of Remembrance.
At the beginning of the avenue is a colourfully painted model of a Spitfire mounted on a post like a totem.
At the other end is an elegant stone monument dedicated to the memory of all units and personnel based there.
Given the problems they have been having with vandalism, its unsurprising to find that the gate that leads into the church yard is locked and chained.
When you get closer to the church building there are some notable architectural differences between the tower and the rest of the building. The round tower has narrow windows and rounded arches that are typical of Anglo Saxon churches. The tower looks like it has been made with all kinds of stone held together with generous amounts of mortar.
The main body of the church (the Nave) is built largely of knapped flint. By knapping (sculpting) the flint the builders could make sure that the stones fit together better so they don't need so much mortar and the walls are neater and stronger. The pointed Gothic arches and more angular appearance of the nave look Norman but according to the Haveringland community site were actually built in the 19th century. The top of the tower with it's neat crenellations are another more modern addition dating from 1858.
We didn't see any Haverings at all on this visit. It must have been the wrong time of year.
After visiting St. Peters I had Spitfire by Public Service Broadcasting going around my head.
The Nestle factory seen from Chapelfield Road (2002) Photo credit: John Fielding . One of my most abiding memories of Norwich as it was when I moved here in the 90s, is the aroma of chocolate wafting past our house in NR1 when the wind was in the right direction. The factory where they made the chocolate was owned by Nestle at that time and stood on the site of what is now Chantry Place . I've heard it said that we often remember smells and sounds better than sights and that is certainly true for me in this case. I only have a vague recollection of dour looking buildings with steel tanks and pipes emerging at various points sitting unobstrusively behind the city wall as I cycled round the inner ring road to get to Blockbuster Video. On one hand, writing about renting videos from a shop makes me feel like a bit of a sepia tinted relic. It also makes me boggle at how long the old Blockbuster Video shop has stood empty. Despi
As you arrive in Norwich from the south, the A11 turns into Newmarket Road and just before you reach the city centre you pass the site of the old Victorian hospital that closed in 2003. Its domed spires (or maybe spired domes) and dutch gabled front still stand today though much of the building was rebuilt as the hospital was converted to flats. A little way behind the flats and the housing that has replaced the rest of the hospital, is a green square that includes a playground for young children and some outdoor basketball courts. On the other side of the path this marble arch stands as an entrance to a small open grass field. The playground, courts and field form Jenny Lind Park. The name 'Jenny Lind' will also be familiar to many parents whose children have needed medical attention in or around Norwich since 1854. The Jenny Lind Infirmary for Sick Children was the UK's second children's hospital after Great Ormond Street and
Queen's Hills Country Park is situated in the Tud Valley to the west of Costessey which is itself a western suburb of Norwich. It was created at the same time as Queen's Hills housing estate around 15 years ago. The park is roughly delineated by the estate at its north and the River Tud to its south. Over the past year we have all become more familiar with our immediate surroundings than we would ever expected and I have enjoyed discovering how much the park has to offer. The geography of this part of Costessey has been heavily influenced by gravel quarrying. The clatter of gravel travelling through the steel tubes of Longwater Gravel's processing plant on the other side of the Tud valley is familiar enough to have become part of the ambient noise here. When the plant restarted after England's first lockdown in 2020 however, the renewed noise and light came as quite a shock. To the east lie Costessey Pits which have been repurposed as watersports and fishing lakes
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