Castle Acre, Holme, Old Hunstanton and King’s Lynn

 

Today we visited Castle Acre, Holme Next the Sea, Old Hunstanton and King’s Lynn. All places new to us and all really pleasant in their own way.

 

This is what the map of the day’s trip looked like

 

Breakfast

Having had the rich and filling meal at Namaste Village last night and getting to bed a little later than usual I slept all through the night. Waking at 5.30am and getting up to make breakfast. As usual this consisted of Orange Juice, Weetabix and Tea.

 

I then spent some time writing yesterday’s blog post and uploading the images on to it. The internet connection was even slower than usual today, so this was interspersed with time for me to do my teeth, shave etc while the photos slowly crept up the connection on to the page. 

Still, I always feel a great sensation of completeness when the blog is done. I know how often I’ve looked back at previous holidays via my own blogs, so I know future me will thank me for making the effort – as do my current readers.

 

Castle Acre

Having taken longer than usual to complete the blog we left Wagtail Barn at just after 10am. 

Today’s first visit had been inspired by my friend Malcolm Ryan who had visited Castle Acre while on holiday in his Motorhome a month or so ago. Having asked him where the impressive place his Facebook photos had come from, I discovered it would be close to where we were travelling. So, I had added the location to the excelled and detailed list of places to see in East Anglia that my other friend Robin had provided me.

 

Castle Acre is truly amazing. The village, entered by going through a medieval bailey, is ordered in the grid system not unlike that of Manhattan (though on a much smaller scale).

The village square has a lovely village sign which was the first thing we saw. We parked in the village and walked to the two other sites here, the castle and the priory.

 

Castle Acre Castle

Castle Acre Castle is essentially the remains of a Castle. The Castle itself having been abandoned for other properties the family owned (like Arundel Castle, Sussex) in the 14^th century. The castle’s shape and scale can be clearly seen on the land and its history is fascinating, reflecting the changing fortunes of the Norman upper-class after the conquest. William de Warenne, a knight who fought with King William during the conquest, set the initial house on this site soon after arriving in England. It is interesting to historians that at the beginning it was a great country mansion, but as time went by and civil war and competitions between barons and the kings came to the fore the house was gradually converted into a fortified building and further extended in the 12^th century into a full castle with a Great Tower at its centre and with village life around it.

 

St. James’ Church, Castle Acre

From the Castle we walked up through the village coming to St. James the Greater Church with its graveyard.

 

The church is in excellent condition and is much larger than one would expect for a church in a comparatively small village, but so many of the Norfolk churches are on a very large scale. The Church has some interesting features including an altar rail with images of the apostles and a pulpit with images of great preacher saints. It looks like the apostles’ rail was once part of a larger rood screen which would have been at this point in the Church, but that isn’t mentioned explicitly in the various materials in the Church.

 

Given the dedication to the Apostle James the Church has a strong link to Santiago de Compostela, the great shrine to St. James in Northern Spain. A series of images show the many pilgrimages routes from across Europe (including England and Wales before the reformation) to Santiago.

 

Castle Acre Priory

Just beyond St. James’ Church is the site of Castle Acre Priory. The de Warenne’s having invested in their home in the area also founded a Cluniac Priory (a stricter form of Benedictine) at the other end of the village. The Priory lasted longer than the castle. Indeed, at the point the castle was in decline and abandoned the priory was at the height of its power.

 

The Priory is remarkable well preserved. The West Wall looks very much as it would have (though it would have had more colour) when the priory was in operation.

 

The priory ruins also give a very clear layout though many of the flint walls are now low (flint being a common local stone) it is easy to see the layout of the great house as it was before it was destroyed, along with so many others, by King Henry VIII and his minister Cromwell.

The Prior’s house and chapel are also remarkably well preserved and standing in the bay window of the Prior’s meeting room you could imagine him looking out at the worshippers walking down to the Abbey and through the great West Door which the window overlooks.

 

Holme Next the Sea

Leaving Castle Acre after two and a half hours of fascinating history we headed towards Holme Next the Sea. Holme is famous for the discovery in 1998 of what has come to be known as Seahenge. Initially the name was given because the layout of the tree trunks in the sea off Holme Beach looked so much like the double ring of stones at Stonehenge, but carbon printing of the wood has shown that Seahenge was being built at exactly the same time as Stonehenge so the links in terms of traditions and worship were more than cosmetic.

Seahenge Woods

It is true that for their preservation the wood of Seahenge had had to be moved and kept in a special environment. But I thought to go and see the original site, even though there is nothing there, before going to see the items themselves.

 

We were foiled in this plan due to the excessive number of people heading to beaches in August in Norfolk, something we had encountered in Wells Next the Sea yesterday. Both Car Parks and much of the sides of the roads leading to the beach at Holme were completely full. As there wasn’t anything to see but sand and sea, we decided it was best to carry on the journey. [Co-Pilot's Note: It was of interest to see the wind turbines off the Holme Shore as many off-shore wind turbines are to far offshore to be seen onshore. They are impressive beasties and I can't wait to see what the 15MW units look like]

 

Old Hunstanton

Kath Elley, another friend, had mentioned last weekend that Old Hunstanton was worth a visit, and the route from Holme to King’s Lynn heads through the quaint village.

 

While the seaside was again packed with visitors the village itself with its decorations and scarecrows was worth a visit. Very pretty indeed.

 

King’s Lynn

We continued on our journey to King’s Lynn. Time for me to learn more about the history of this area. While I had studied with some interest the Hanseatic League, often described as a precursor of the European Union, as part of my economic degree, as it was a collaboration of ports and states around trade, rather than around political union, I had, invertedly, assumed that its chief ports were all in The Netherlands, Denmark, Germany and the Baltic States. In its time the Hanseatic League was the most powerful economic grouping on the planet, more powerful than any nation or empire of its time. Its tendrils of trade stretched from China in the East to the Atlantic seaboard of the Americas. Knowing all this I had no idea that an English Port, this English Port of King’s Lynn, had been a member of the League. But entering the city the sign makes its connection very clear. In the City, the influence of the Northern European Cities is seen in architecture and in the nature of the trade than made King’s Lynn one of the most prosperous places on the island of Britain.

 

Lynn Museum – Seahenge revisited

Once we parked in King’s Lynn we headed to the Lynn Museum, which, with lots of other fascinating parts of the town’s history, is the place where the wood from Seahenge is stored and where its story is told.

 

The Original Central Stumb at Seahenge

Artist Reconstruction of Seahenge

When I am able to get my photos up on Flickr (they are large files so I can’t load them at the accommodation) you will be able to see lots and lots of pictures of Seahenge both in reconstruction and in the real items themselves. The above are simply a taster of the sights.

 

King John

King John doesn’t get a great press. He is often seen as the evil king supporting the Sheriff of Nottingham in the Robin Hood stories and as the king who usurped his brother’s throne while he was in the Holy Land doing his Christian duty on the crusade to win back the holy sites in Jerusalem. He is also depicted as a poor ruler who got his barons so outraged that the pressurised him into signing the Magna Carta at Runneymede.

 

However, here in King’s Lynn he is remembered much more positively and it was something of a surprise to find a statue of him in the centre of the town’s High Street. It was King John who gave King’s Lynn (or Bishop’s Lynn as it was known at the time) the right to trade as an independent port and by the charter of 1204 allowed the Lynn to rule itself, enabling it to act as a full member of the Hanseatic League other than other English Ports who didn’t have the independence to negotiate such treaties. So, King John, so maligned elsewhere is seen as something of a hero by the prosperous merchants of Bishop’s Lynn over the centuries ahead. A prosperity that appealed to King Henry VIII who after ousting the Bishop of Norwich as governor of the City and taking control of the Priory at its centre renamed it King’s Lynn.

 

King’s Lynn Minster

The Priory of St. Margaret was one of the richest landowners in this area before the dissolution during the reign of King Henry VIII. It was a Benedictine Priory founded from the monastery in Norwich by the First Bishop of Norwich. Unlike many priory churches which were broken up at the dissolution (like Castle Acre Priory we visited this morning). King’s Lynn’s priory was so central to the town that the mayor and aldermen took control of the property and while removing the living quarters of the monks retained the Priory Church almost intact to become the Parish Church of King’s Lynn and laterally a Minster. Given the size and scale of the Minster it is easy to see that Castle Acre Priory Church would have had a similar grandeur and scale, if slightly larger, than this building. Comparing the fate of both over time is interesting. One is now a ruin the other is still a thriving worship centre where major civic events are still marked.

We have lots of photos of the iside of the minster, but the Stained Glass window fans will have to wait for Flickr to be updated. Though the one below is notable as Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell are depicted in the bottom right pane, so the fact the Church survived the dissolution, unlike so many others, may be through some active kowtowing to the powers that mattered at the time. 

 

Greyfriars Tower

Another symbol of King’s Lynn, and another which would have been dismantled in many parts of the country, is the Tower of the Greyfriars (Franciscan)Friary. This immense tower which would have stood at the centre of the Friary Church in pre-reformation days dominates its surroundings. From around 1300 to 1538 the friers would have lit the town with fires in the tower and cared for the sick in the friary infirmary.  The Town War Memorial stands in the grounds of the Friary and the huge Norfolk Constabulary Building is across the road. I don’t remember seeing such august Police buildings before!

 

The Great Ouse

From the Friary we walked down to the Great Ouse, the river that was the lifeblood of King’s Lynn in its trading days. The wide-open river leads out to the sea (The Wash) to the North of King’s Lynn, over the centuries the docks moved further and further down river as the river silted up and made it impossible for larger boats to navigate. A fascinating site is the tide clock on one of the towers of the minister, which can be seen from the river, and would indicate high tide to the captains wanting to come into the harbours here.

 

Dinner

Given the timing for today we decided that we would eat tonight in King’s Lynn and I had spotted that Trip Advisor gave good ratings to a Soul Food restaurant called Soul Café and Restaurant. While the restaurant has a small menu, the food is clearly cooked with Soul and the chef, Oliver, from Guadeloupe in the Caribbean, certainly knows how to bring the food of his culture to others.

 

We were sat at a table in the window of the restaurant within two yards of the open kitchen. A perfect spot for food watching.

 

I began with chargrilled jerk chicken wings with pineapple salsa and Oliver’s special sauce (which had garlic, cucumber and other tasty flavours, but when asked for details Oliver said it was a secret as he made his money out of it!). The three chicken wings were juicy and succulent. Grilled to a crisp on the outside the flesh inside remained juicy, a great art if you can manage it – I’ve eaten enough chicken with all the juicy cooked out in my time to know. The pineapple salsa had a wonderful zing.

 

Drew opted for Tempura Prawns with a sweet chilli sauce, the batter was light and crisp, the sauce had a nice zing to it.  

 

My main was Goat Curry with rice n’peas and salad. I love a well-cooked goat and this was a really well-cooked goat. 

Cooked on the bone, so the flavour is enriched it had cooked long enough in the lovely stock to be soft and to fall off the bone making it easy to eat. The rice n’beans were fragrant and reminded me of a similar dish I’d had in Havana on a holiday in Cuba some years ago. There wasn't much left except the well sucked bones. 

 

Drew had Caribbean Chicken Burger, i.e. Chicken in a ciabatta bun with creole sauce, red cabbage coleslaw, sweet potato chips and salad.  Drew found this intriguing, the creole sauce added a nice little heat to the dish, the bread was delicious, but the coleslaw was a bit unusual as it had tomato and cucumber in the bun. I have expected the coleslaw to be on the side, but it being in the bun made it a but challenging to eat, though it was worth the effort as the combination was remarkable tasty.  

Drew finished with a chocolate and raspberry cake with a vanilla ice cream. This was rich and chocolatey and worked well with the sharp raspberries and soft sweet ice-cream

 

We left Soul Café and Restaurant at 7:45pm and were back at Wagtail Barn at 8.40pm another full and fascinating day on this holiday which is going so well so far.