Norfolk Corners

Norfolk probably has more than it's fair share of grand, country halls each with their own fascinating character and history. Houghton Hall is notable enough among these to have merited it's own section in Simon Schama's acclaimed BBC documentary "A History of Britain". As a devoted viewer back in the year 2000, I was surprised to discover that Britain's and indeed the world's first Prime Minister, Robert Walpole , commissioned a splendid new building here in Norfolk to be his residence. I promised myself that I would visit Houghton Hall at the earliest opportunity to educate myself. 23 years later we rolled through Houghton's imposing wrought iron gates to view it's famed sculpture trail which this year celebrates the work of Sean Scully . I'm exaggerating a little. I've been in the grounds of Houghton earlier than that to support Mrs. Corners running the Race for Life there a couple of t...

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...

The bitter east wind whipped up the sand and swept it across spiny grass dunes and the twisted, denuded limbs of the stunted shrubs that grimly clung to the shifting earth. Brother Stephen gathered the folds his robe and leaned into the gust. As he made his way across the uneven ground toward the sea, the dunes began to thin. A weak sun shone silver across the waters that seemed to retreat even as he approached. Without the defence of the dunes, the wind flayed at him still more cruelly and drew a salty tear from his narrow squint that stung as it dried on his cheek. The basket that he would fill with shellfish was an ineffective shield against the squall but better than nothing. Now the harsh screeching of gulls cut across the wind's droning whine and through his narrow field of vision he made out a flurry of movement at the seafront. It took a few moments for the clamour of wheeling and swooping to settle enough for him to se...

One of the inspirations for this blog was Will Giles' remarkable Exotic Garden in Thorpe Hamlet, Norwich. I was introduced to the garden by Jamie, an industrious student who had joined our group at the John Innes Centre for the summer to look after some plant populations. After a full day at work, Jamie would spend his evenings as part of a team of volunteers in the exotic garden turning Will's vision of a tropical garden in Norwich into reality. After all that, Jamie could retire to a treehouse within the garden itself. As a boy I used to watch a serialised version of Tarzan. To be honest, I could take or leave the stories and his yodelling call but I loved the romance of living in a treehouse. Perhaps there is potential for a Cbeebies Tarzan / Grand Designs crossover show. My younger self was in awe but my older self kept asking questions like: "isn't it cold?" I've been lucky to be part of various adventures as part of ...

Norfolk has an illustrious history in Circus as I discovered when I wrote about Pablo Fanque last year. Great Yarmouth proudly continues that tradition today by hosting the Out There Festival of outdoor arts and circus every September and also at one of Norfolk's finest institutions, Yarmouth Hippodrome . As the Hippodrome's web site says: The Historic Hippodrome is Britain’s only surviving TOTAL Circus Building, built in 1903 by the legendary Circus showman George Gilbert. An article in the Great Yarmouth Mercury describes how Gilbert escaped his poor origins in Norwich to join Hannaford's London travelling circus which took him to Yarmouth. Though he had mixed experiences of circus including injuries and abuse he was clearly inspired by it and achieved enough success with his horse riding, acrobatics and trapeze skills to build the Hippodrome in 1903. 'Hippodrome' is a French word which translates to 'ho...

Booton is a small village between Reepham and Cawston to the north of Norwich. Its population stood at 196 in the 2011 census and, for the most part, it is a fairly typical rural English village with a few houses and farm buildings interrupting the sprawling expanse of arable crop fields. It is charming and peaceful and the flat landscape affords panoramic views in all directions. As you scan the horizon, you may be surprised as I was, to spot an extravagantly ornamented church looming there. Having made its bold announcement the building invites a closer look so we made our way over on a footpath across a wheat field. The church is slightly obscured by trees so as we rounded those trees for a proper look it was quite a revelation. The two towers and central minaret look like they would be more at home in Westminster than this sleepy Norfolk village. As you enter the gate, the blackened, winged figure of St. Michael the Archangel regards you gravely from his plinth ...

  Buried deep in the University of East Anglia (UEA) campus in Norwich, sits The Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts , looking out across the Yare Valley. As well as hosting many art works of international renown, the building itself is a triumph of architectural design by none other than the young Norman Foster . It exhibits many of the features that have become his trademarks and anyone who has spent time in Stansted airport terminal building may experience a little deja vu when they set eyes on the arts centre for the first time. The Sainsbury Centre (which opened in 1978) served as a template for the later airport building. The exposed exoskeletal structure is one of the most notable similarities and has been much imitated, to the extent that its impact may have been dulled by familiarity. Stansted Airport Terminal (photo by Oxyman and used here under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License ) With great design co...