In the Heart of Suffolk

 

Today’s journey took us to the Cathedral City of Suffolk, Bury St. Edmunds, to the exquisite village and ancient wool town of Lavenham and to the former capital of East Anglia, Thetford. All this meant we were away from our holiday cottage/barn for over 12 hours, the longest day of the holiday (beating last Monday by 15 minutes). It was also the most photogenic day, when I finally get to upload the photos to Flickr today alone will be 517 photos.

 

The route, which included a little returning on ourselves between Bury St. Edmunds and Lavenham looked like this:

Start of the Day

I woke at 5.30am having slept really well after last night’s delicious meal. I got up and updated the blog for yesterday and showered, shaved and did my teeth in time for an 8am departure to start our day nice and early.

 

Bury St. Edmunds

 

We headed first to Bury St. Edmunds arriving at 9:10am in this pretty Suffolk town. We parked the car and walked up to the town centre to the Post Office, enabling me to post the Postcards I had bought last Monday and which had stayed in my pocket since I wrote them on Wednesday as we never got to a post office to send them.

 

That done we had a coffee until Moyse’s Hall Museum opened. The Museum has an event going on at present called ‘Moments’ showing representation of street art over a floor and a half of its display. Older elements of the display take up the other parts of the Hall, which is one of the older building in Bury St. Edmunds and has served as the local jail as well as a family dwelling house since the Norman times when it was begun.

 

Some of the photos, including Banksy, who the BBC report is somewhere in East Anglia at present, are very poignant, with a focus on NHS support during the pandemic and on older themes of oppression and societal response.

 

The artist known as Pure Evil, a Welshman now living in the USA, attended the opening of the exhibition here and used the black windows covers as a place for his art

 

 

The older part of the museum, as seems fitting, focussed on time. With clocks

and watches

from a collection of a resident of Bury St. Edmunds on display. 

Drew was distressed when the clocks began to strike 11am as each had been set about a minute apart, so the effect was about 20 minutes of 11am chiming. He found this somewhat ‘timey whimy’ and uncomfortable. [Co-pilot's note: I don't hold with all this temporal shinanganising.]

 

The old house includes many of its original features including a well-made Tudor Door which later had had a hole cut into it when it was a jail.

On the ground floor were exhibits about the town itself. With one looking at Monastic life, as the monastery built on the site where St.Edmund was (not unlike St. Sebastian) martyred by the arrows of the Vikings and about how the Abbey dominated and provided a source of revenue for the town, with the pilgrims coming to St. Edmund’s reliquary bringing great wealth to the town.

The museum ended as it had begun with a representation of nurses in the NHS at this time.

 

Abbey and Cathedral

 

We walked down from the Cornmarket and upper town to the Abbey and Cathedral. As the now Cathedral was one of the lesser Churches in the Abbey (there were three churches on the abbey grounds) they are, naturally close together.

Given that today the Cathedral was celebrating the anniversary of the founding of the Anglican Mothers’ Union with a Eucharist and Presentation we began our visit in the Abbey Grounds.

 

The Abbey Gate is an impressive site, even these centuries later and must have awed visitors who arrived at the abbey in medieval times.  

The grounds are, apart from the remaining walls, grassed and form a lovely park for people of all ages to enjoy. Drew, channelling his inner Dr. Dolittle, was very flattered to have a squirrel and a pigeon come and greet him in the grounds.

The Abbey Church of St. Edmund, now mounds of stone, was in its time a critical location in English History. The Barons who were to challenge King John to wrest power from the crown for the Barons in the Great Charter which is often seen as the ground spring of British democracy. Agreed their plan of approach and demands here in Bury St. Edmunds before presenting them to the King.

Those who remember their history will recall that King John signed the charter at Runnymede in 1215.

 

Drew was very taken by the memorial Rose Garden at the side of the Cathedral in the Abbey Park. He took quite a few photos with depth of field to highlight the beauty of the roses.

The buildings around the Cathedral, converted at different times from the former abbey are well worth seeing. Some of them are almost Gaudi like in their look and feel. While Bury St. Edmunds is no Barcelona, the way modern building use the old framework of the buildings is well worth seeing.

 

Next to the Cathedral is the grand Norman Tower, having learnt yesterday about the building of a Bell Tower beside the Church in Dereham, here in Bury St. Edmunds the same occurred. This large tower was built to house the bells for the church beside it.

 

With the service for the Mothers’ Union at an end we went into the Cathedral. Around the Cathedral there are four different representations of King Edmund and his giving of his life rather than renouncing his faith as the Vikings demanded.

Below is one of the more modern representations:

The Cathedral is one of the newer Cathedrals, only being created as a Cathedral at the beginning of the 20^th century. As Drew said: “If Disney designed a Cathedral for their theme parks, this would be the way they would have designed it.” Though the original Church which became the town church of Bury St. Edmunds after the Abbey was destroyed at the reformation was quite large, when it became the Cathedral of the Diocese which covers the main parts of Suffolk it spent time and resources expanding itself in modern style and artefacts. Even for all that it is still and photogenic impressive building.

We left the Cathedral as a thunderstorm headed for Bury St. Edmunds and got back to the car somewhat drippy before heading off to the village of Lavenham which was sunny and bright.

 

Lavenham

 

It is hard to express what to say about Lavenham other than WOW. The old houses and the layout of the village has retained much of its medieval charm. The rich colours of many of the buildings and the tudoresque use of wood as the main décor makes the houses and other buildings spectacular. I can’t think I have been anywhere with so many of these quaint, higgeldy piggildy buildings. If you haven’t been to Lavenham, add it to your planning list now.

We wandered the streets an hour and a half enjoying the sites before stopping at the Guildhall in the Market Square for a cup of tea and a snack in a National Trust Café.

 

Drew had a sausage roll and lemon and ginger tea while I had ham and pickle sandwiches with green tea.

From the centre of the village, we walked up to Lavenham Church, as we approached Drew remarked “They weren’t short of a few bob around here were they”. And the Church, from its Saxon origins to its rebuilding in Norman times, and its 14^th Century extension all shows evidence of the local wealth built on the wool industry.

We left Lavenham at 3.30pm and headed to Thetford.

 

Thetford

Thetford was, in Saxon and Viking times, the Capital of East Anglia, only in Norman times did Norwich begin to dominate and the Cathedral City was moved from Thetford to Norwich. This didn’t mean, however, that the Norman’s didn’t build a defensive Castle here, nor that in the years that followed, did they stop the development of the large Cluniac Priory or the 22 churches that were around the town in medieval times, of which only three survive.

 

One of the sons of Thetford was to play a part in another great change in society, the American Revolution. Thomas Paine, whose ideas in the Rites of Man were themselves revolutionary, played a big part in providing the political underpinnings for the developments which took place once the 13 colonies had broken from British rule. So, it was good to see him being marked out in his own town.

We visited Thetford Priory which has very much the shape and size of the other Cluniac Priory we visited last week in Castle Acre; however, it is far less well preserved, with the majority of the stones having been taken and used during the development of the town.

Thetford Castle, or at least the bank and ditches of the Iron Age Fort, and the large tump on which the Norman Castle was built can still be seen at the other end of the town. Though no buildings remain you can see how the rampart would have been highly defensive. A few years ago, when I was heavier and less fit, I would never have made it to the top of these stairs

But we managed today and took a shot of the town from the top of the castle.

Paolo’s Restaurant, Norwich

 

Leaving Thetford at 5:15pm we travelled up the 30 miles to Norwich for dinner. We had not booked anywhere today given that all the places we had tried to book outside Norwich didn’t serve dinner on a Monday evening or were already booked up. So, we took the chance of travelling to Norwich and seeing what was available. We found Paolo’s Restaurant, which had been closed the last time we visited the city, not far from the Guildhall, and went in.

 

The restaurant is small and the staff compliment; one waitress, one chef and a pot boy, is smaller still. But the food was simple yet very tasty. We had San Pellegrino, my favourite sparkling water as our drink, a great start. 

We began with Bread, Olive Oil and Balsamic Vinegar with Olives – natural tastes presented pleasantly.

 

For starters Drew had Mozzarella with Parma Ham and was very pleased with the quality and presentation, as well as the taste, of the dish.

I opted for Involtini’ di Melanzane – a layered aubergine, mozzarella and ham dish with parmesan on top cooked in the oven. The layers of flavour worked very well.

 

For mains we both went for Pasta. Drew for a Penne alla sarda with salami, sun-dried tomatoes, peppers and olives. He really enjoyed it.

 

I went for a linguine con bolognese. A simple but well flavoured pasta dish, with less garlic than we use in the ragu, but with a red wine cooked through adding an additional taste.

 

We had an Insalata di pomodoro e cipolla as a side. Again simple ingredients, but providing a fresh and crisp alternative to the other parts of the main course.

 

For dessert Drew treated himself to a Chocolate Fudge cake which was gooey, delicious and chocolatey.

 

I opted for the cheese board and was very pleased with it. While it wasn’t exceptional, it was two pieces of nice mature cheddar, two pieces of Danish blue and two pieces of brie all at room temperature with there full flavour along with mixed crackers. No nonsense, no fuss, just some pleasant cheese. I was perfectly content.

 

We finished with an espresso each.

 

After stopping for petrol on the way back from Norwich we arrived back at the barn at 8:45pm. A long but fulfilling day.