Different Stories of Different Times – Heritage on the North Norfolk Coast

 

Given the enjoyment we had got out of travelling through the North Norfolk Coast over the last two days we decided we would do more exploring in that area today.

 

The route, informed by checking where there were locations of historical interest in the area, looked like this:

 

Creake Abbey

 

Having had a slightly later start yesterday with internet connection difficulties we headed out earlier today, leaving Wagtail Barn at 9.30am with our first destination Creake Abbey, this famous hospital and Abbey which was cared for by the Augustine Friars had an unusual history. Its demise, unlike that of so many of the other places in the area, was not due to Henry VIII but to the Great Plague. The friars died out and the owner of the land, Lady Margaret Beaufort, the grandmother of the same Henry, sold the land to endow Christ’s College, Cambridge which she had established.

 

Binham Priory

 

Our second stop was Binham Priory. This Benedictine Priory with links to the great Abbey at St. Alban’s has a story which is more traditional, in that the Priory was closed by King Henry VIII. However, the landowners and villagers in this area were without any other Church, so persuade these disposing of the land to leave the area of the nave, where the locals worshipped intact. So today there is an enormously high church which is half the length of the original building which included the quire and transcripts, used for regular worship by a small congregation.

 

Clearly the Parish had to destroy the stained-glass windows and other signs of what the reformers would have called idolatry to continue the life of their community. So now a huge Church, still with ruined elements, stands with a large historical ruin to either side of it. It is fascinating that the former monastic parts of the priory are almost untouched, other than their stone being removed to build the houses in the village, so the floor plan, like that of Castle Acre Priory which we saw yesterday is almost intact.

 

Binham Market Cross

Binham is also important for the, far less significant, Market Cross which stands on the village green – this is, according to Norfolk History guide – the best example of a Market Cross which would have existed in every town and village in the county which held a market. The market here in Binham was founded in 1100 and continued until the 1950s.

 

A small shop calling itself Howell’s Superstore is the only sign of trade happening the village these days.

 

Blakeney Guildhall

 

Blakeney Seaside

Further along the coast is the small town of Blakeney, it is a popular coastal resort but also include the remains of a Guildhall, with a large undercroft where much of the business of the town was undertaken. As with other coastal towns we struggled to park in Blakeney, due to a 15-car queue for the car park. So, we took some photos and headed on our journey.

Guildhall

 

Wiveton Church

 

Soon after leaving Blakeney, we stopped at Wiveton Church, it is a good example of the huge medieval Churches which exist in the villages in Norfolk. Unlike Binham this Church was built as a village Church, yet the local parish members seemed to complete in scale with neighbouring villages to show they had the largest and most magnificent churches. Sadly, not quite what one might call gospel values about putting others first and putting God before our own desires. 

Still, it does mean there are some striking Churches. Many of them denuded of internal decoration by the reformation. 

Wiveton is unusual in having coloured glass rather than the images more often associated with stained glass, so it seemed worthwhile to take a photo.

 

Baconsthorpe Castle

 

Inside the Castle

Our next historical ruin had yet another story explaining its demise. It was Baconsthorpe Castle. Here the Heydon family, wealthy landlords for a few centuries, had lived to the extent of their income in their heyday, building a moated castle, rather than a house, and extending it with large gardens and an additional grand outer gatehouse.

 

The Outer Gatehouse with inner beyond

While the family’s expenditure continued the receipts from its large herds of sheep declined and by 1650, 200 years after it was built, the family were knocking down the building and selling the stones as the only way to repay the debts which they had accrued. Strangely, the outer gatehouse, the last part of the castle to be added, was the part which survived the sale of stone and other objects from the castle. It remained lived in until the 1920s. The old barn, built at the same time as the castle is still intact, though no longer linked to the castle but owned by the neighbouring farmer.

 

The Barn

Cromer

 

The largest town on the North-East Norfolk Coast is Cromer and after a day full of history we felt it was right to end our travelling through the area with a visit to this seaside resort. 

The resort was so famous, even in Victorian times, that it gets a mention in Jane Austen’s Emma:

You should have gone to Cromer, my dear, if you went anywhere. Perry was a week at Cromer once, and he holds it to be the best of all the sea-bathing places. A fine open sea, he says, and very pure air. And, by what I understand, you might have had lodgings there quite away from the sea – a quarter of a mile off – very comfortable…

But the town is perhaps not as genteel as it was in those days.

The town is open and airy and the numbers, significantly up on previous years, was still not too many to overstretch the town resources. There were ‘socially distanced’ queues for various things, but family groups were able to stay apart from other groups on the promenade, the beach and the pier. We visited all three as a way to immerse ourselves in the experience.

 

The themes seems to be Ice cream, Crab (I have always got to watch my propensity to invert my p’s, b’s and d’s when I type that word) and fish and chips.

 

From the pier we walked back up to the town of Cromer and visited the Cromer Church dedicated to St. Peter and St. Paul. Of all the churches we visited today this one had the most stained glass, with windows honouring the four evangelists, the 12 apostles, and one with four angels in the upper sections and four female saints in the lower section. The details of each of these will appear in the photos on Flickr when I can upload them. Some of them are delightful. Perhaps the most striking image in the Church is the West Window, a modern piece of stained glass depicting the Ascension.

 

Dinner

 

We decided as we were in Cromer and wanted to get home early to set off for one of our longer journeys tomorrow, to eat in mid-afternoon, as a kind of late lunch/early dinner – I don’t think we have a word for this – the American Brunch works well for a late breakfast/early lunch, but the naming convention there would mean this was Lunner!!

The Michelin starred Galton Blackiston of Morston Hall fame has a fish and chip shop and restaurant on the downstairs of a building overlooking the prom and pier and upstairs has a slightly more refined restaurant called Upstairs at No 1. The downstairs operation had long queues, but we were able to get a table upstairs immediately.

 

I began with Cockle Popcorn with chilli vinegar and spiced salt. The cockles cooked in a very light batter were delicious. The chilli vinegar gave a nice warmth to their flavour, especially as vinegar is the common condiment for cockles in such well-known places as Swansea Market where for most of the first 18 years of my life, I would have a bag at least weekly. The spiced salt had a cumin/paprika taste. It was tasty eaten on its own as well as enhancing the flavour of the cockles.

 

Drew opted for the Thai Salad of beef with a Vietnamese dressing which he loved, the sharp taste of lightly cooked beef with the salty flavours of fish sauce and other Thai/Vietnamese influences including sesame worked very well together. It tasted as good as it looked.

 

For mains I felt almost obliged to order the Cromer Crab salad with new potatoes, Marie rose sauce and wholemeal bread. I was in Cromer, so Cromer crab seemed to be a must. I was so glad I did, the crab had been cooked and picked and replaced into the shell. The light white meat on the top and the more robust, and to me more tasty, brown meat underneath. Crab has always amazed me as the two meats taste so different from each other, that if you didn’t know you might think they came from different animals. The new potatoes were delicious and the mixed salad was fully of the traditional English salad vegetables but served with a peppery vinaigrette that could easily be on the market.

I treated myself to a side of mushy peas, not because they go with crab, but because I like the taste and they were available. [Co-pilot's note: you will, dear readers, be glad to know that he now did the, infamous, Peter Mandelson Guacamole/Mushy Peas joke. How entertaining!!]

 

Drew chose from the specials board – Hake and Chips the huge piece of hake [Co-pilot's note: It was bigger than my thigh!!!] was flaky and the batter was crisp and dry, with none of the sogginess than can be encountered under fish in batter in less well treated kitchens. This was served with mushy peas and Drew selected a coleslaw side. Neither of us had anything left on our plates at the end, other than the crab shell my crab was served in. Excellent.

 

Back to Wagtail

 

We left Cromer about 5pm and headed towards Norwich, avoiding the city in rush hour and topped the car up with petrol in Sainsbury’s in New Costessey ready for tomorrow’s journey before arriving back in the Barn at 6.30pm and editing today’s photos ready for this blog post. We were in bed by 10am ready to be up and out by 8am tomorrow morning.