Ye Olde Buffer
Posts: 327
Joined: 7 Dec. 2003
From: Maldon Essex United Kingdom
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This city had 57 churches during medieval times of which 31 remain today and it did feel when we were walking around the city that we came across a church about every 100 yards.
So which city is this ? It's Norwich in Norfolk where we spent a week in June 2006.
Monday 12th June saw us leave home and arrive at our hotel, before lunch, in Norwich after a completely uneventful 2 hour journey.
I had intended posting daily details of the trip as they happened on my own Blog but that didn't turn out very well for two reasons. First was that although the hotel had advertised that wireless broadband was available to guests it proved to be very unreliable. I had a lot of trouble today trying to connect and the receptionist could not give me any advice on what might be wrong. The manager wasn't in today so I remained un-connected for the rest of the day. The other reason is that after a long active day I didn't always feel like writing an article about it late in the evening.
The hotel is situated near the inner ring road which encircles the city centre and we are probably within walking distance for most things. We transferred our luggage to our room and went straight out into the sunshine. Making our way towards the cathedral we went via Elm Hill.
 
Elm hill is a perfectly preserved medieval cobbled street. We found The Britons Arms here, a one time pub but now a coffee house and resturant, where we had lunch. We both had Home Made Pork Pie with salad and it was the best pork pie we had ever had. If you have had a pork pie from your local shop then forget it - this was absolutely streets and streets ahead of that (cobbled or otherwise). On that meal alone we would strongly recommend this resturant.
After lunch we walked onward and into the Cathedral Close. This cathedral has the second highest spire, after Salisbury, in the country at 450 feet and certainly looks impressive especially looking up at it from the base.
 
The Close was very pleasant with large areas of grass and some of it's own roads and houses. This first visit to the cathedral was intended to be only a short exploratory trip as we intended to return for a longer visit later in the trip so we went down to have a look at the River Wensum.
Leaving the cathedral close we walked along Bishopgate (a street) to the Medieval Bishop's Bridge over the river.
The Norwich Society was formed originally to oppose the Norwich Corporation's plan, in 1923, to demolish the Medieval Bishop bridge at which they were thankfully successful. Imagine wanting to demolish a bridge like this - the local government must have consisted of a bunch of loonies back then. This above view is from the Bishopgate side of the bridge.
We didn't cross the bridge but turned left to walk along the Riverside Walk. After a quarter of a mile we passed by Cow Tower - one of the few remaining medieval towers which formed part of the old town wall. The original wall had 11 fortified gates, 40 towers and 1,630 battlements (I wonder who counted them?). It was probably allowed to fall into disrepair and eventually most of it was demolished leaving a few remaining fragments. What a sight that must have been when it was complete.
After passing Cow Tower the Riverside Walk passed through a short section with gates at each end (No I don't know why). You probably can't see the gates in this picture but you can see the gate posts.
A little further on we went through an area near Whitefriar's Bridge which had a significant amount of modern building but still had attractive views.
Reaching the end of Riverside Walk we turned back into the city centre where we passed the castle. A castle visit was scheduled for later in the trip. Remember we've been here only a few hours so far.
I have to say that Norwich seems to be very good shopping centre where one could so easily be encouraged to spend lots of money. We haven't succumbed - yet! There are lots of little back lanes as well as the main streets and most of them have good attractive shops.
Today was very warm but much too humid for our liking although there was plenty of sun and blue skies.
Tuesday 13th June, 2006
Today dawned cloudy with a forecast of possible showers so 'inside' looks good. We made our way over to the cathedral to look round the inside as we saw only the outside briefly yesterday.
The Nave is the second longest, after Winchester, in England.
We started down the South Aisle and a short way down I noticed, on a small ledge near the top of one the main nave pillars, something odd. Changing position gave me a better view and it turned out to be a bird! I don't know how it got in but it apparently couldn't find the way out - either that or it was a very pious bird.
A little further on we discovered a set of arches with elaborate carving on the underside of the ceiling and some medieval wall painting on another of the arches.
 
There is a lot to see in this cathedral and I couldn't possibly cover it all here including the Medieval Despenser Reredos in St. Lukes Chapel and the Skeleton of Thomas Gooding
A little later we noticed a strange rushing noise had started and suddenly realised that it was heavy rain - an excellent time to be inside. We decided to have a break and retired to the Cathedral Refectory - very bright, very modern and built alongside one wall of The Cloisters. You can see part of the Refectory on the left and the Cloisters wall on the right.
Back into the cathedral after lunch we went first to the quire near the main crossing under the tower.
 
You can see, from within the Presbytery, the Quire and organ looking into the nave where the roof bosses can be seen running the whole length of the nave roof. The row of arches at the very top of the picture is within the main tower. The second picture above shows a close-up of the roof bosses; each one showing a different biblical or historical scene.
We moved over to the North Aisle and I set my camera up on the tripod to take a picture and just as I went to release the shutter all the lights went out. That gave a very good idea of what it must have been like in medieval times - very gloomy. No wonder many churches were originally brightly painted inside with such a low level of light.
A short while later the lights came on again. It transpired that some of the cathedral staff had opened a side door to the outside, then turned all the lights out to encourage the bird to fly towards the light and out it went - hooray. It could happen only in Britain. They did remember to put the lights on again.
Back outside the weather had improved and we had a look around the cloisters which were built between 1297 and 1318 and are, you may notice, two storeys high and second only in size to those at Salisbury Cathedral. There is a large grassed area enclosed by the cloisters which has a modern labyrinth laid out to celebrate the millenium which you can see in the first picture.
 
The ceiling bosses, to be found all along the cloisters ceiling, were all different and quite varied. This, of a so called 'Green Man', is just one example. Doesn't the face look lifelike?
We decided to move on to Dragon Hall - a medieval merchants trading hall. We had a street plan with us and, believe me, you would never find your way around the maze of city streets without one so we managed to find King Street and there was Dragon Hall!
Dragon Hall was a trading hall built in 1430 by Robert Toppes, a wealthy merchant and, having been restored, is now open to the public. This is the only trading hall built by a single person, rather than an organisation, to have survived in England.
However, despite its grandeur Dragon Hall was a working building not a home and Robert Toppes and his family lived in the centre of Norwich near the market place. Compared with Strangers' Hall which we visited later the entry fee for this is expensive compared with what you see.
After this we went back to the hotel to un-emcumber ourselves, well me really, of the rather heavy tripod used to support the camera inside the two buildings and after some refreshments and a short rest I decided to walk along to Carrow Hill to look at part of the old city wall whilst Amanda decided to stay in the hotel.
There is a significant length of the old wall running down Carrow Hill which includes some towers. The Carrow Hill section is probably the best of what remains and the above is a relatively small part.
Wednesday 14th June, 2006
The day dawned cloudy - boooo, hiss! The weather forecast was for better weather in the north of Norfolk so we decided to travel up to Sheringham by train. Norwich Station is an interesting and impressive edifice itself.
Our train was a little late in arriving at the Norwich terminus but did manage to make up some of the lost time on the journey to Sheringham. Not a long journey and, by the time we arrived, there was blue sky about although not everywhere. When we came out of the station we immediately noticed, in the distance, a plume of steam - woohoo it's the North Norfolk Heritage Railway. It was only a few hundred yards to the 'other' railway station and there we found this:
I want one!
We bought tickets for the next steam train to the next station, Weybourne, and soon arrived at a rather cute little country station.
By this time the sun was shining again and our plan was to walk to the village of Weybourne, about a mile away, and eventually catch the bus back to Sheringham. We found ourselves walking along a virtually deserted country road with some nice views all around and it was lovely and quiet.
 
Weybourne is a pleasant sleepy little village with typical Norfolk architecture which invariably includes flint.
It has a rather interesting church built in the 15th century on the site of a 12th century Augustinian Priory and is actually attached to the old ruins which you can see on the right of the next picture.
 
Weybourne also has another interesting building:
It is, of course, a Tower Mill which is no longer in working order but is used as bed and breakfast accomodation. Walking round the bedroom may make you dizzy!
This was our last port of call and we caught the bus back to Sheringham.
That was the end of our third day apart from the train jouney back to Norwich and the walk back to our hotel which was diagonally opposite the station on the other side of the city centre - bummer!
Thursday 15th June, 2006
Hooray - another sunny day. Time for another city wander.
Today was 'Castle Day' so we headed for the castle via the market place where we came upon the rather attractive Guilhall.
How's that for fancy stonework? Anyone for vertical chess? It was built in 1410, the chequered pattern is medieval flintwork and the building was used for civic and judicial functions for five hundred years although the clock tower is Victorian.
On to the castle. Built by the Normans about 1160 this castle is perhaps the most splendid of all surviving examples of Norman military architecture apart from the Tower of London. It was refaced using Bath stone in the 1830s and despite the accuracy of the work it looks sadly false although still quite imposing. The first view is across the original Norman bridge which still gives access to the keep and the second picture is from below that same bridge.
 
The original structure of the keep is, however, well preserved inside. It also houses perhaps one of the best museums outside of London with a variety of exhibits relating to archaeology, history, art and natural history. We can vouch for the quality of the museum displays - they really are very good.
One of the highlights of that visit was the experience of going up onto the roof of the keep and seeing the amazing views over the city. You can see the cathedral in the picture on the left and the church of St. Peter Mancroft on the right.
 
We spent quite a few hours looking around the castle because as well as the fabric of the actual building there are all the museum galleries and exhibits and we had a cup of coffee in their little self-service cafe. Back outside there is a relatively small area of gardens including grass where people were sitting in the sun. We wanted, now, to go and see Pull's Ferry (it's no longer a ferry) on the River Wensum and so we went back to the cathedral once again walking through the Close with it's quaint little lanes bordered with houses.
Through the Close to Bishopgate, along Bishopgate to Bishop Bridge, across the river, then along by the river to look at Pull's Ferry in the cathedral close on the other side.
This picturesque spot was a 15th century watergate giving access to a small canal which ran up to the cathedral. The canal has long since been filled in and now forms a pathway through the cathedral close.
The original canal, which was built by the monks, was used to transport the stone used for building the cathedral the spire of which is visible in the background.
It is possible to get to Pull's Ferry from inside the cathedral close but the effect is not as picturesque from that side.
From here we walked up onto Mousehold Heath (now there's an interesting name) and I took this photograph of the view over the city with the cathedral spire showing above the trees and roof tops. We were only on the edge of the heath at this point but we just didn't have enough time to look at more - pity really.
Here endeth ye first part - more to follow. Don't miss the next boring part of this dreary saga! 
Before I go let me make a point. I don't like writing about these trips - it makes me want to be on one NOW, not in 2 months time - NOW!!! 
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Ye Olde Buffer
http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk
The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain
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Printable Version
City of Churches - Part 1. - 
You are an excellent photographer and writer and, like Marie, I will be awaiting the next installment eagerly. I am really missing the Mother Country of late and until I am able to plan another trip, your travels 
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