Torquay and Around (2): Buckfast Abbey, Newton Abbot and Compton Castle

A Resurrected Abbey, a Fine Local Museum and a Historic Castle

A Brief Introduction

Devon

Torbay

Torquay and Around (1) dates back to April 2016, but we have spent a few days with Brian and Hilary every year (Covid permitting) since their move to Devon. The lack of blogs from the intervening years is no reflection on our generous hosts, it is just a combination of what we did, the weather and other commitments, bloggy or otherwise.

They live in a spacious third floor apartment with a fabulous view of the sea from their living room window, and a sheltered sun-trap of a balcony on the landward side. There was, though, precious little sun to trap this year.

B & H's sea view, Torquay

Never mind, we got about between the showers. The following visits took place on the 23-25 of May in roughly the order below.

Buckfast Abbey is near Buckfastleigh, and Compton Castle is roughly half way between Newton Abbot and Paignton

Buckfast Abbey

The little village of Buckfast and its larger neighbour Buckfastleigh, sit on the edge of Dartmoor a 40-minute drive from Torquay.

A Benedictine Abbey was founded in or near Buckfast in 1018. The site of the Saxon church is unknown, but by Benedictine standards it was ‘poor and unprosperous’ (Buckfast Abbey History). In 1136 King Stephen gave Buckfast to the Savignacs, who merged with the Cistercians in 1146 who could easily afford to build a sizeable Abbey on the current site.

The modern Buckfast Abbey, not the 1146 version (photographed on a sunny day in April 2017)

The abbey thrived, and by the 14th century fishing and the wool trade had made it one of the wealthiest in south-west England.

Buckfast Abbey interior

In 1539 the Dissolution of the Monasteries saw the lead stripped from the roof and the walls demolished, the stone being eagerly re-used by local builders.

The hair shirt of St Thomas More, above the altar of a side-chapel, Buckfast Abbey

In 1882 a group of French Benedictine monks bought the site with the intention of re-founding the monastery. The Abbey was formally reinstated in 1902 and Abbot Anscar Vonier, finding materials and expertise where he could, set about building a new church on the footprint of the former abbey church. The work was completed in 1938 and the Abbey has continued to the present day, now having about a dozen monks.

One of  the delights of previous visits has been the shop, with handicrafts from abbeys all over Europe and, more to my taste, treats like Trappist beers from Belgian monasteries and rillettes – strangely difficult to find in this country – from an abbey in France. This time the shop was almost empty, the treats vanished. There was no clear explanation, but this is another of the ‘advantages’ of Brexit.

Coleton Fishacre and a Picnic

The full story of Coleton Fishacre is told in Torquay (1), but we also visited the garden in 2017 and again this year. The house, just outside Brixham, is owned by the National Trust, but was built for the D’Oyly Carte family in the 1920s. It is a fine example of an early 20th century country house.

Coleton Fishacre

The garden tumbles down a narrow valley to the sea. Aided by a warm microclimate the gardeners have produced something special, though there was more colour in our visits in the April sunshine than on this dank May day.

Gunnera - huge and heavily armed it feels a most threatening plant, Coleton Fishacre

We had taken a picnic, so braving the weather, we drove up nearby Scabbacombe Lane to a suitable spot. For a brief while the clouds obligingly parted and the sun shone, though with negligible warmth. Even this half-hearted reprieve was short lived and we opted out of the planned coastal walk.

Cool Picnic, Scabbacombe Lane

Newton Abbot

For most visitors, Newton Abbot is the gateway to Torquay. Whether arriving from Exeter on the A380 or Okehampton on the A382, you have to deal with all or part of the town. On a couple of occasions, I have spent more time traversing Newton Abbot than I considered reasonable, and I did not think fondly of the town. However, when a visit was suggested, I went with an open mind. I had set wheel in Newton Abbot but never foot, so it deserved another chance.

The Newton Abbot Town and GWR Museum

Recently rehoused in a 19th century church in the town centre, the cunningly designed and well thought out museum packs a great deal into a relatively small space.

Local History

Between 1246 and 1251 the New Town of the Abbot (that’s the Abbot of Torre in Torquay, not Buckfast, there were plenty to choose from in those days) was given the right to hold a weekly market on Wednesdays. Across the little River Lemon, Newtown Bushell (the Bushells were local landowners) gained the same right for Tuesdays. There was enough trade for both to flourish and the arrangement continued until 1633 when the markets and towns combined under the name of Newton Abbott. The Lemon, rising on the flank of Haytor on Dartmoor and 10 miles later flowing into the head of the Teign estuary, now runs beneath the centre of Newton Abbot in a 400m long tunnel. Lemon is derived from a Celtic word for elm, the citrus groves of Devon remain just a potential benefit of global warming.

The South Devon and the GWR

The South Devon Railway arrived in Newton Abbot in 1846. Brunel used the Teignmouth – Newton Abbot stretch to experiment with an ‘atmospheric railway’, a train driven by air pressure. It was a popular idea at the time and the small-scale model in the museum works perfectly but even Brunel could not make it work at large scale.

By 1876 most railways serving the southwest had become part of the Great Western Railway. The GWR developed repair and maintenance sheds at Newton Abbot and by 1930 they employed 1,000 workers. The sheds have all gone now and Newton Abbot’s days as a railway town are over, but the museum has a mock up of an old signal box, and where signals along the line were changed by pulling levers directly connected to them. Anyone can have a go, it is great fun for children of all ages, and for children of my age (70+) it is a comforting moment of 1950s nostalgia.

Two other exhibits to catch my eye were the ‘diving machine’ and the ‘foeffee chest’.

John Lethbridge’s Diving Machine

Wool merchant turned inventor, John Lethbridge perfected his diving machine in his garden pond in Newton Abbot before taking it to London and displaying it to the masses. On that occasion he was lowered into the water from a boat and stayed there for half an hour. He could see, downwards at least, through a glass ‘window’ and could use his arms inside the leather sleeves. To what purpose? One might ask. In his first commercial venture off Cape Verde, he retrieved 27 cases of silver, 868 slabs of lead, 64 cannons and 11 anchors.

Modern replica of John Lethbridge's diving engine

‘Silver fishing’ was big business, but highly dangerous. Fishers were dependent on being hauled up at the right time, and failures of the winch, ropes, pulleys or seals were usually fatal.

John Lethbridge died in his bed in 1759 aged 83, having made his last dive two years earlier

Feoffee Chest

A wonderful word and a wonderful chest: the Parish of Woolborough (long ago absorbed into Newton Abbot) kept its important documents in this chest. It has eight locks and each of the eight feoffees (trustees) had a key to one of them so all had to be present to open it. Eventually it was replaced by a dull but efficient safe and was lost. It was rediscovered in the attic of Newton Abbot workhouse in 1896. Over the centuries the many feoffees included Parliamentarian General Sir William Waller and the diver John Lethbridge.

Feoffee chest, Newton Abbot Musuem

After the museum, we had intended to explore Newton Abbott on foot, but the weather had other ideas, so we drove south to Compton Castle.

Compton Castle

Getting There

Newton Abbot to Compton is 4 mile down the A380 to the delightfully named village of Ipplepen, then left toward Paignton (silent ‘g’) along the less charmingly monikered Gropers Lane.

Ipplepen Info claims the name has Celtic origins and has been variously spelled over the years (where hasn’t?) The more authoritative Nottingham University Key to English Place Names says it is Old English, and it was here Ipela penned his animals. But for the village, Ipela would have been as forgotten as the unfortunately named Snot who donated his name to Nottingham (I jest not).

I have found no information about Gropers Lane, but such names and more vulgar variations (sniff the smelling salts, Fanny, before looking at Wikipedia) were common in medieval cities and denoted a street of brothels. Sensibilities change and so do names, over time many morphed into Grove Lane or Grape Lane. But this was an urban phenomenon, and every one of the 1,945 metres (streetlist.co.uk) of Gropers Lane is relentlessly rural.

The Gilbert’s Castle

Compton Castle, now owned by the National Trust, is more of a fortified manor house than a castle, but it is a magnificent fortified manor.

Compton Castle

Sir Maurice de la Pole had a castellated house here in the reign of King Henry II (1154–1189). Later, the manor passed into the hands of the Compton family who built an undefended manor house in the mid-14th century. The Comptons gave way to the Gilberts who added the fortress-like front in the 1520s.

Through the forbidding gatehouse with double portcullises…

Gatehouse, Compton Castle

…is a quadrangle with a chapel on the right...

Courtyard, Compton Castle

...which appears to still be in use.

Chapel, Compton Castle

Sir Humphrey Gilbert

Best known of the Gilberts was Sir Humphrey Gilbert (1539–1583). He and his half-brother Sir Walter Raleigh are alleged to have shared the first pipe of tobacco smoked in England at Compton.

Sir Humphrey was a complex character. His brutality in Ireland where he was involved in putting down the First Desmond Rebellion (1569-73) was extreme even by the standards of the time, while in the mid-1570s he devoted himself to writing and promoting education and the arts. Thereafter he turned to exploration and adventuring, applying himself with more enthusiasm than skill.

In 1583 he led a small fleet to Newfoundland in HMS Squirrel, a ship that had featured in some of his earlier adventures. The way the story is spun one might assume he discovered Newfoundland though John Cabot had been there 90 years earlier and St John’s was a well-established port occupied, if only seasonally, by fishermen.

Gilbert arrived, claimed Newfoundland and all surrounding land for Queen Elizabeth, accepted the gift of a dog from the locals and then he set off home. HMS Squirrel foundered in a storm off the Azores and Gilbert drowned. In his memory, squirrel motifs abound at Compton Castle.

A Squirrel on one of the chapel pews

And in memory of all the Tudor adventurers and legitimised pirates there is usually a volunteer somewhere on the premises in Tudor costume.

There is still at least one Tudor at Compton Castle

After the Tudors

The Gilberts sold the estate in 1785. The need for fortified manors had passed, the castle was allowed to deteriorate and eventually the Great Hall roof fell in. Walter Raleigh Gilbert, a young naval officer and a Gilbert descendant bought the ruin in 1931. In 1951, after much rebuilding and restoration, he donated Compton to the National Trust on the condition that members of the family should continue to occupy the castle. They still do, administering it for the Trust.

The Rest of the Castle

The chapel and Great Hall form opposite sides of a quadrangle. The Great Hall with Sub Solar and Solar behind are open to the public. The private residence is in a large wing forming the end of the quadrangle and continuing behind, leaving the rest of the enclosed space as a garden.

Walled Garden, Compton Castle

Sadly, no photographs were allowed inside. The Great Hall, filled with Gilbert memorabilia, has the feel of a medieval hall, despite the new roof. With modern furniture the Sub Solar has a veneer of modern comfort, while the Solar, reached by a vertiginous 15th century spiral staircase, feels more spartan. There is a small ‘snug’ beyond, but the vast fireplace and modern heating equipment are a reminder of how difficult it is to heat a building of this age to modern standards.

The kitchen is at the end of the main wing. A warm if rather smoky place, it was once a separate building so any inadvertent fire could be easily contained. The trade-off was that, in winter at least, the castle’s inhabitants would never get a hot a meal.

Kitchen, Compton Castle

The Last Evening and Beyond

Hilary had cooked two splendid dinners during our stay so on the last evening she deserved a rest. We ventured out on foot to a harbour side bar for a drink. Despite the ecologically indefensible space heaters on the terrace, the nippy breeze made inside the only sensible choice.

Afterwards we walked round to the Junjaow Thai restaurant. Between the four of us we ate prawn and chicken pad thais, a green curry and two red curries. It is few years since we have been to Thailand and the flavours were authentic enough to bring back pleasant memories.

The next morning, we took our leave. Despite the uncooperative weather, we had spent a very pleasant and convivial few days with Brian and Hilary, eaten and drunk well and visited some interesting places. Thanks to both for their hospitality, and particularly to Hilary for all the hard work in the kitchen and the excellent dinners that work produced.

Wisbech and Peckover House

A Town that has Seen Better Days and a House from its Heyday

Kings Lynn and Wisbech

Cambridgeshire

Fenland

Kings Lynn was the subject of the two previous posts, The Wash & Castle Rising and The Town. Mentally I have always had Wisbech and Kings Lynn pegged together, they are two small towns, over there somewhere in north Norfolk (not an area I am familiar with) and both had football teams in the Southern League at a time (late 60s) when I occasionally watched Hillingdon Borough perform in the same league. As far as I was concerned, they were interchangeable.

But I was wrong. They may only be 13 miles apart, but for a start Wisbech isn’t even in Norfolk, it’s in the Fenland District of Cambridgeshire, and they are not on the same river, Kings Lynn sits beside the Great Ouse while Wisbech straddles the River Nene. Both discharge into the Wash, their mouths only 5 miles apart, but the Nene is narrower and straighter.

Wisbech and Kings Lynn
The many pins are the work of Tour Norfolk from whom I have borrowed the map

Wisbech also feels much smaller. The population of 32,000 is not significantly less than Kings Lynn’s 43,000 (both figures are over 10 years old) but Lynn feels like an urban centre, Wisbech doesn’t. Wisbech also looks considerably less prosperous.

The Birthplace of Influential People

The River Nene flows into Wisbech from the east then turns north. Town Bridge was built across the turn, with the town centre on the downstream side. Upstream the streets either side of the river, known somewhat over-dramatically, as North and South Brink, were lined by the homes of the town’s wealthier citizens.

Octavia Hill

Octavia Hill was born at No 1 South Brink in 1838. In 1851 the family moved into London and under the influence of her grandfather, Dr Thomas Southwood Smith, she became concerned with the living conditions of the poor. She campaigned for improved housing and then for women’s economic independence. Although campaigning throughout her life and being a founder member of the Charity Organisation Society (now the charity Family Action), she is perhaps best remembered as one of the co-founders of the National Trust. The house is now the Octavia Hill Birthplace Museum.

Octavia Hill's birthplace and museum, South Brink

Thomas Clarkson

A few doors along in Bridge Street is the birthplace of another social reformer - it must be something in the water. Thomas Clarkson was born here in 1760.

Thomas Clarkson's birth place, Wisbech

The eldest son of an Anglican priest he attended Cambridge University, graduating 1783. In 1785 he entered a university competition for a Latin Essay entitled., "Is it lawful to make slaves of others against their will?" (Anne licet nolentes in servitutem dare). Always studious, he researched his subject thoroughly and won the prize. While riding back to London after the public reading of the prize-winning essay, he had a moment of epiphany and spent the rest of his life campaigning first for the abolition of British participation in the slave trade and when that was achieved (1808) for the abolition of all slavery everywhere.

A statue of him stands opposite his birthplace.

Thomas Clarkson, Wisbech

Rev Wilbert Awdry

Though not Wisbech born, the Rev Wilbert Awdry was vicar of the adjacent parish of Emneth from 1953 to 1965. During this time he wrote 10 of his 26 Thomas the Tank Engine books.

North Brink: The White Hart Hotel

North Brink offers an impressive array of Georgian frontages.

North Brink from the Town Bridge

Nearest the camara is the Old White Hart, later the Pheonix Hotel and a Chinese restaurant. It burnt down in 2010 and only the façade survived the fire. The owner disappeared leaving behind a gently deteriorating eyesore and when the windows started falling into the street, the Wisbech Society, took it upon itself to tidy up the ruin until a permanent solution could be found. It looks alright now, but aerial photographs show there is nothing behind the whitewashed wall.

The façade of the Old White Hart

The Old White Hart Inn was one of Wisbech’s two coaching inns, with daily services to London. In 1835 a coach carrying the 16-year-old Princess Victoria and her mother paused here to change horses. Two years later she was Queen Victoria and the landlord felt fully justified in painting ‘PATRONIZED BY ROYALTY’ over the inn’s coach entrance. The Wisbech Society have restored the sign. Their website also reproduces an advertising flier for ‘Ye Olde Whyte Harte’ in 1907. It is worth clicking here to see it.

North Brink: Peckover House

When Octavia Hill, along with Sir Robert Hunter and Hardwicke Rawnsley, founded the National Trust in 1895, she probably never imagined their organisation would one day own Peckover House, just across the River Nene from her birthplace, the two front doors barely 100m apart,…

Peckover House, North Brink, Wisbech

… but when the redoubtable Alexandrina Peckover, adventurer, mountaineer and the last of the Peckovers died at a ripe old age in 1948, she left the house to the National Trust.

The house was built in 1722 and owned by Alfred Southwell, who called it Bank House. It was bought by Jonathan Peckover in the 1790s and remained in Peckover hands until 1948. Although Bank House turned out to be a doubly appropriate name it later became known as Peckover House.

The Garden

We arrived early for our pre-booked guided tour of the house so we had a look at the garden first. Carefully tended by the Peckovers (or their gardeners) for well over a century, the Victorian walled garden is maintained in the appropriate style by the National Trust.

There are orchids in a greenhouse,…

Orchids, Peckover House

…vegetables…

Vedgetables, Peckover House

…an orangery…

Orangery, Peckover House

…a rose garden, a croquet lawn and more.

Peckover House gardens

The Peckovers were Quakers and the ‘Friends Meeting House’ is beside the main house. The Quakers Burial Ground, mainly occupied by Peckovers, is beside – or perhaps part of – the garden.

Quaker's Burial Ground, Peckover House

Inside the House

Peckover House is a typical house of a well-to-do merchant in the 19th century. The contents would have changed over the decades, but what was left in 1948 was sold off before the building was bequeathed to the National Trust. Some of the original artefacts have been repurchased, but most of the furniture, while of the appropriate date and quality, comes from elsewhere.

The guided tour started in the main downstairs sitting room. The fireplace is not original, but I believe the elaborate stucco surround for the mirror is. No doubt it was once fashionable, now it borders on the ludicrous.

Elaborate mirror surround, Peckover House

The women of the house would have spent much of their time here, working on embroidery or similar handicrafts. One exquisitely worked footstool survives from all their hours of gentile labour.

Footstool, Peckover House

The Peckovers as Bankers

Jonathan Peckover originally set up business in Wisbech as a grocer. The town was prosperous and he made money, as did other tradespeople. But success brought problems,  money, existing only as silver or gold coin, was bulky, difficult to transport for a major deal, and always vulnerable to theft. It was better for traders to hand their money to one trusted individual with appropriate facilities for keeping it safe.

Traditionally Quakers are known for the probity and integrity. Jonathan Peckover embodied that tradition and by 1782 he held 7 accounts.

It soon followed that major transactions could be made without the physical transferring of cash, all you needed was a signed note to the banker – a cheque in other words. If both parties had the same banker the transfer was carried out in a leger, and the gold coins sat still and untroubled throughout the whole procedure.

Jonathan’s enterprise became the Wisbech and Lincolnshire Bank and was run by his son Algernon and then his grandson Alexander who would become the First (and only) Baron Peckover. A banking hall was built beside the house, but the business outgrew the hall and it was demolished in 1870. In 1896 the bank amalgamated with 19 others to become Barclays Bank; Barclays had originally been another Quaker enterprise.

More of the House

Leaving the first room by a doorway which clearly suggested they saw themselves as carrying on the torch of civilization from ancient Rome….

Internal doorway, Peckover House

…we reached the library. Completed in 1878 for Alexander Peckover’s book collection, the shelving was designed Edward Boardman. The books were sold and the shelves ripped out in the 1948 sale but the woodwork has been replaced to Boardman’s design. The current collection of books is overseen by a portrait of Alexander Peckover.

Library, Peckover House

All the Peckovers were travellers and Alexander was an avid collector. His ‘Cabinet of Curiosities’ is a collection of the extraordinary objects he found in his travels in Europe and North Africa.

Cabinet of Curiosities, Peckover House

We continued through the dining room. Electricity was installed in 1920 but Alexandrina and Jane Peckover preferred to dine by candlelight. The reproduction Chippendale chairs and late Victorian bracket clock were theirs.

Dining room, Peckover House

We finished with a descent to the kitchen, where the family rarely came.

Kitchen, Peckover House

More about the Peckovers

The Peckovers were philanthropists, internationally supporting the abolition of slavery and locally doing much to enrich the cultural life of the area.

Despite the restrictions society placed on women, Priscilla Peckover, Algernon’s daughter. was a noted linguist and pacifist and her niece, Alexandrina, was an explorer and Alpinist. Alexander had no male heirs so Alexandrina and her sister Jane, neither of whom ever married, were the last Peckovers to live in the house.

Wisbech Docks

The river upstream from the town bridge might be wide enough for a couple of boats to pass each other, but it looks no place for a ship. Despite that Wisbech was an important port in medieval times and retains its docks.

The River Nene upstream from the Town Bridge

The photo above looking north from an upper window of Peckover House shows how the tidal Nene widens towards the docks a few hundred metres downstream. It is small scale stuff, to quote the Port of Wisbech website our efficient port facilities enable us to load & discharge vessels of up to around two and a half thousand tonnes, so no super-tankers, then, but I find myself strangely impressed that the port runs its own fortnightly service from Riga in Latvia to Wisbech.

Coffee in Wisbech

No rain fell while we were in Wisbech, but it was a dull, dank morning, the sort of day that shows nothing to its best advantage. We had spent our time in what was once the town’s wealthiest quarter, but even allowing for the weather (and the National Trust’s faultless stewardship of Peckover House) many of the dignified old houses gave the impression of needing care and restoration.

We strolled into the town centre in search of coffee. Wisbech did not look well, too many empty shops, too little purposeful activity. Maybe I am doing the town a disservice, I saw a couple of boarded up premises and started looking for the pawn brokers, pay day loans, slot arcades, betting shops and Poundland. I suppose most towns have them but in a small town they cluster together.

We found a Costa Coffee, drank a morning cappuccino and decided it was time to head home.

Before writing this, I took a Google walk round the same streets. Visiting on a sunny day in 2018 their camera cars made Wisbech look a pleasant little place. Had the pandemic changed the town, or was it just a combination of the missing sunshine and a poor first impression? Who knows?

Other Norfolk/Cambridgeshire Posts

King's Lynn and Around: The Wash & Castle Rising (April 2022)
King's Lynn: The Town (April 2022)
Wisbech and Peckover House (April 2022)

Hemingford Grey and Green Knowe (July 2016)

King's Lynn : The Town

Minster, Museum, Docks and Fishermen

The Dukes Head and the Tuesday Market Square

Norfolk

Kings Lynn & W Norfolk

On our only full day in the town, we set off after a leisurely breakfast on a walking tour, starting from our hotel, the Dukes Head, in the vast Tuesday Market Square.

The Dukes Head is a handsome building designed by local architect Henry Bell and built in 1683. I have been unable to ascertain who the Duke with the head was, but it is now a Grade II listed building. It was covered in scaffolding during our visit and the best view was just after dusk when the lighting shone through the scaffolding.

The Dukes Head Hotel after dark, Kings Lynn Tuesday Market Square

We walked south, the streets of King’s Lynn looking tidy and relatively prosperous. There are many fine older buildings, and most newer ones manage to blend in well enough.

South from the Tuesday Market Square

King’s Lynn Minster

We soon reached the much smaller Saturday Market Square where we found King’s Lynn Minster.

King's Lynn Minster, the western towers.
The dial on the southwest tower shows the tides

Herbert de Losinga, the first Bishop of Norwich started building a church here in 1101. A small priory was attached and the town formerly called Lynn was renamed Bishop’s Lynn.

Little remains of that church, but the base of the south west tower is original…

Lynne at the base of southwest tower. The heights of recent major floods are marked on the wall

….as are the internal arches of the western tower. My photo shows Norman-style arches at the base of the south western tower, though they would appear to have undergone some restoration over the centuries.

Norman style arches at the base of the southwest tower, Kings Lynn Minster

The stained-glass windows beyond the arches dates from 1928 and tell the history of the town.

The church was largely rebuilt in the 13th century, the chancel arcades being the only survivors of this rebuild. The carvings on the chancel stalls were completed in the 1370s. The many heads include Edward the Black Prince, Henry Despenser (Bishop of Norwich) and members of notable Norfolk families.

Carvings on the chancel stalls

By the 15th century the town had become wealthy and the members of the Trinity Guild enlarged the church, building a grander clerestory and the unusual round east window.

The interior as it is now, King's Lynn Minster

The wealth came from the town’s association with the Hanseatic League, and the church retains a sizeable moneybox as a reminder of these times,

Hanseatic Chest, King's Lynn Minster

The northwest tower was rebuilt in 1453 after subsidence left it far from vertical. The brass lectern dates from about this time. The gaping beak was for the insertion of Peters Pence, which were gifts to the church. The reformation brought this practice to an end.

The Lectern, King's Lynn Minster

Henry VIII’s Reformation in the 16th century brought an end to the priory and changed Bishop’s Lynn into King’s Lynn. Locals have always called the town Lynn regardless of who imagines he is in charge.

A gale in 1741 blew down the spire on the southwest tower. This necessitated more rebuilding. The carved pulpit dates from this makeover.

Pulpit, King's Lynn Minster

The inevitable Victorian restoration started in 1874, equally inevitably under the direction Sir George Gilbert Scott. His extensive reworking explains why the interior feels largely 19th century. The huge reredos, designed by G F Bodley and erected in 1899 is the most striking Victorian addition.

G F Bodley's reredos, King's Lynn Minster

After being the Parish Church of St Margaret for many centuries, the church was given the title of Minster by the Bishop of Norwich in 2011 in recognition of its importance in the work of the church throughout West Norfolk.

The Town Hall and Museum of Lynn

The ornate buildings of the Guild who rebuilt the Minster in the 15th century are just across the Saturday Market Square. The now house the Town Hall and Museum of Lynn.

Town Hall and Museum of Lynn across the Saturday Market Square

The museum contains all you would expect in a local museum, from 19th century fairground equipment upwards. It also contains the old town gaol, though the pillory would have been out on the market square in the days when it was in use.

The Pillory in the Old Gaol, Museum of Lynne

Eugene Aram

One cell is occupied by a waxwork of Eugene Aram, who has popped up on our travels several times. He was born in 1704, the son of a gardener in the Yorkshire village of Ramsgill (we visited in 2013). He was a bright lad and his father and his father’s employer ensured he had an education.

He moved to London as a book-keeper but returned to Yorkshire after surviving smallpox. He married ‘unfortunately’ (i.e. he got a local girl pregnant) and became a schoolmaster first in the village of Netherfield, then in Knaresborough (we visited in 2018). In 1744 he became involved in a swindle with a local man called Daniel Clark. The money and Clark (who may or may not have been having an affair with Aram’s wife) disappeared.

Aram went to London, found a job in a school, then wandered a little until settling in King’s Lynn where we worked at the grammar school. In 1758 Clark’s body was discovered, Aram was arrested and taken to York where he was tried, convicted and hanged for murder.

Having been taught Latin and Greek as a child Aram continued studying languages, ancient and modern, throughout his life and was considered a serious philologist. He was the first to suggest that the Celtic languages had Indo-European origins like most other European tongues, and challenged the then orthodox view that Latin was descended from Greek.

A man of many parts, had he been born several hundred years later he would have featured in a campus novel by Malcolm Bradbury or David Lodge. As it is, his story is told in a poem, The Dream of Eugene Aram by Thomas Hood and was fictionalised in an 1832 novel by Edward Bulwer-Lytton which remains in print.

King John’s Cup

By far the best exhibit is King John’s Cup.

In 1216, a few days before his death, King John famously lost the Crown Jewels while attempting to cross the Wash. This cup survived and was brought back to Lynn.

'King John's Cup', Museum of Lynn

That flight of fancy originated in 1640 as an attempt to explain the mysterious cup. Probably made around 1350, the cup first enters written record in 1548 when Henry VIII confiscated a large amount of land, gold and silver from the Merchant Guilds and gave it to the Borough. How the Guilds acquired it is a mystery. It is very unusual in that most ornate cups of the period were religious chalices used for Holy Communion, while this was a wine goblet made for a wealthy and important person, now unknown (sic transit gloria mundi).

The Docks

Medieval Times and the Hanseatic Leaguee

A short walk from the Saturday Market Square took us to the River Great Ouse.

Starting in the 11th century a group of mainly German and Baltic cities banded together to form the Hanseatic League with the intention of creating safe and stable trading conditions for its members. At its peak from the 13th to 15th centuries the league consisted of some 40 cities from Tallinn in the north to Cologne on the Rhine and controlled much of the commerce in north western Europe.

A further dozen ports were ranked as Kontore, foreign trading posts of the league. In the 14th century Lynn’s status as a Kontore helped make it England’s foremost port. The picture below is not just a pleasing arrangement of medieval streets, the white building on the right fronts the last surviving group of Hanseatic warehouses in the United Kingdom.

Hanseatic buildings (and others) near the Minster

The Port of King's Lynn Today

The view along the river suggests that King’s Lynn is no longer a major port, indeed the car parking to the right is much busier than the boat parking to the left. Further downstream a lock gives access to the Alexandra Dock, which is connected to the Bentinck dock. Google’s aerial photograph (2022) shows both empty.

A lonely fishing boat docked on the Great Ouse

A look at a map explains all.

Norfolk - and (inset) the county's position within England
The many pins are the work of Tour Norfolk from whom I have borrowed the map

Kings Lynn’s deep-water channels through The Wash allowed shipping access to a safe and well protected harbour near the mouth of the Great Ouse

Those channels were fine for medieval ships and a harbour well-protected from pirates and other marauders was valued. Today pilots can bring in ships of up to 4,000 tonnes with a maximum draft of 5.5m – small beer by modern standards.

Nonetheless Associated British Ports says King’s Lynn is the preferred Norfolk port for forest products, agribulk, manufacturing and recyclables sectors and handles 400,000 tonnes a year, which sounds a lot, but isn’t

The Custom's House and the George Vancouver Statue

A little further along the river, is the now redundant Purfleet Quay and beside it the elegant customs house. Opened in 1685 it was, like the Dukes Head Hotel, designed by Henry Bell. The customs house is his most highly regarded work and Nikolaus Pevsner called it one of the most perfect buildings ever built.

Since 2000 a statute of George Vancouver, the work of Penelope Reeve, has stood in front of the customs house.

Born in King’s Lynn in 1757, Vancouver joined the Royal Navy aged 13 as a "young gentleman" - a future midshipman.

Captain Vancouver and the Customs House, King's Lynn

Two years later he was aboard HMS Resolution on James Cook’s second great voyage of discovery (1772-75) and then sailed on HMS Discovery in Cook's third voyage (1776–1780).

On his return he was commissioned as a lieutenant, and in 1782 saw action against the French in the Caribbean.

After further promotion, he was sent in 1791 with two ships to survey the Pacific coast of America from what is now Oregon northwards. It took him 4 years to produce comprehensive charts of the American coast and along the way he collaborated with the American Captain Robert Gray off the coast of Oregon and with the Spanish commander Juan Francisco Quadra further north.

Vancouver’s junior officers, friends and associates had mountains, sounds, islands and harbours named after them and he agreed with Captain Quadra that the large land mass they had proved to be an island should be called Quadra and Vancouver Island. In time, usage would rob Quadra of his prize.

He returned to England in 1795 and died in 1798, aged only 40. The quality of his charts, his ability to make allies out of potential enemies and the respect he showed to indigenous peoples make him something of a hero.

Two cities were subsequently named after him, the Canadian city of Vancouver – confusingly not on Vancouver Island, but across the strait on the mainland, and an American Vancouver, actually in Washington State but now considered a suburb of Portland, Oregon.

Lunch in the Tuesday Market Square

Back in the enormous Tuesday Market Square we picked the wrong pub for lunch. Management seemed uninterested in their (very few) customers - we had a long wait for an indifferent sandwich - or their cask ale, which tasted tired.

Just a part of King's Lynn's enormous Tuesday Market Square

True’s Yard Fisherfolk Museum

The fisherman’s quarter just beyond the square was known as Lynn’s ‘North End’. Tiny houses, often dirty and dilapidated, clustered round small cobbled yards with a pub on every corner. In contrast to the South End, where wealthy merchants lived in grand houses, this was an area of deprivation and poverty. In the 1870-80s there were some 400 fishermen in Lynn but by the 1920 there were only 80, and few young men among them. Fishing was a hard and dangerous life, the pay was meagre and when the younger generation had a choice, few chose to fish.

By the middle of last century most of the yards had been pulled down, or fallen down. True’s Yard, built in the 1790s and bought by William True in 1818 had six or more cottages, a smokehouse and a shop, probably a community baker - cottagers paid the baker a coin or two to cook their food in his oven. Four cottages were pulled down in 1937 but the rest were saved from destruction in the 1980s by a local trust. It is now the only remaining yard and is a museum and heritage resource centre.

The two remaining cottages look pleasant enough. They are freshly painted, the yard is clean and the air fresh. They are small, one-up, one-down, but today could be ‘studio holiday lets’ for a couple. The stairs are vertiginous so a youngish couple, though they are certainly not safe for small children. But….

Two cottages in True's yard, King's Lynn

...the cottage on the left is as it was in 1850. At that time, it housed a family of 11, the six younger children sharing a single bed. Downstairs has a brick floor on which the family would dump the day’s catch. The fish were sorted and gutted and the guts washed into the yard. The museum replicates the building, but not the fifth or the smell.

The house on the right has been updated to the 1920s. They have heating and cooking facilities and the rug on the floor indicates that the catch was no longer being brought into the house. There was still no electricity or running water…

Downstairs in the 1920s in True's Yard, King's Lynn

…nor even a toilet. When your chamber pot was full, you dumped the contents in the river. Even without the smell of rotting fish guts, this was not a fragrant place.

The baker would hopefully have added some pleasanter odours, while the smokehouse, with the smell of smoking herrings was perhaps a mixed blessing.

Smokehouse and bakery, True's Yard, King's Lynn

The attached museum, in what was once the local smithy, gives names to some of the people who lived here and tells their stories. Fishing communities are often famous for their knitwear, Aran and Fair Isle sweaters being particular well known. King’s Lynn had its own, known as a gansey. Each family had a distinctive design so when a boat was lost, any corpses washed up could be more easily identified. That says much about life and death in Lynn’s North End.

St Nicholas’ Chapel

St Nicholas’ Chapel is a decommissioned, though not deconsecrated, church, between True’s Yard and the Tuesday Market Square. Illogically it is in St Anne’s Street.

St Nicholas' Chapel, King's Lynn

Despite its size, St Nicholas’ was never a parish church but was constructed in the 12th century as a chapel to St Margaret’s Parish Church, now King’s Lynn Minster. It is in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust, assisted by the Friends of St Nicholas who provide enthusiastic and well-informed volunteers to assist visitors.

St Nicholas' Chapel, King's Lynn

The lectern has similarities with the Minster’s, including an open beak to collect ‘Peter’s Pence.’ Such lecterns are unusual, but King’s Lynn has two.

Lectern, St Nicholas' Chapel, King's Lynn

The carved 17th century memorials on the wall are delightful. I particularly liked Thomas Snelling’s; he lived a busy life as a merchant, alderman and mayor before dying in 1623 aged only 39.

Thomas Snelling's memorial, St Nicholas' Chapel, King's Lynn

The roof is also famous for its carved angels. Mirrors are provided so visitors can take a look – and photos, though some apparently fail to do that. Sorry.

Dinner at Prezzo

After Dining at the Dukes Head yesterday, our researches threw up few other attractive dining options. We settled for a short walk across the square to Prezzo, not perhaps the most conscientiously Italian of the several chains of Italian restaurants currently available, but always reliable.

I should not, though, be too condescending, Lynne enjoyed her goat’s cheese penne and my spicy crab and lobster ravioli were excellent.

29-Apr-2022

The South Gate

We left King’s Lynn on Friday morning. The day before, in the Fisherfolk museum, we had seen a model of Lynn as it was in Tudor times. The town was then defended on three sides by a wall and on the other by the River Great Ouse. The wall has long gone, but the South Gate remains and we drove past it as we left in the direction of Wisbech and the next post.

South Gate, King's Lynn

So, farewell to King’s Lynn. It is an interesting town, perhaps one day we should return.

Other Norfolk/Cambridgeshire Posts

King's Lynn and Around: The Wash & Castle Rising (April 2022)
King's Lynn: The Town (April 2022)
Wisbech and Peckover House (April 2022)

Hemingford Grey and Green Knowe (July 2016)