The A-Z of Curious Norfolk (eBook)

Strange Stories of Mysteries, Crimes and Eccentrics

Sarah E. Doig (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2023 | 1. Auflage
162 Seiten
The History Press (Verlag)
978-1-80399-414-7 (ISBN)

Infos

Norfolk's spectacular coastline, quaint villages, historic houses, bustling market towns and meandering rivers all provide the perfect backdrop for some of the most curious tales from across the centuries. Which eccentric cleric's final words were 'Did I make the front page?' Which annual race's participants only eat lettuce? Why on earth is there an elephant on one Norfolk village sign? Where is the most accident-prone church in the county? How did a single feather save a monarch? Which of Norfolk's heroes gives his name to an unlucky sporting score? Enthralling to both residents and visitors alike, The A-Z of Curious Norfolk is a perfect book to dip into - unless, of course, you can't wait to turn the page and read more!

Sarah E. Doig is a historical researcher and author, as well as a popular speaker on the local history circuit across East Anglia. Her interest in local history was sparked by genealogical research into her own family tree, which includes some wonderful characters who lived in Norfolk. To date, she has written eight local history books, on various subjects relating to Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk. She also writes regular local history articles for magazines.

Textauszug

BARDS

Remarkably, there are two surviving medieval guildhalls in King’s Lynn; the Guildhall of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, which is now the headquarters of the King’s Lynn & West Norfolk Borough Council, and the Guildhall of St George. St George’s Guildhall, currently owned by the National Trust, but leased and managed by the local borough council, is the oldest and largest complete medieval guildhall in England. It also boasts a long history of theatre production, with the earliest recorded play having been performed there in January 1445.

Recent academic research has backed up long-held claims that William Shakespeare played here with the Earl of Pembroke’s Men in 1593 when the London theatres were closed due to the plague. One of Shakespeare’s leading comic actors and a major influence on the bard’s writing, Robert Armin, was born in King’s Lynn. He was the first Feste in Twelfth Night, the Fool in King Lear and Autolycus in A Winter’s Tale.

Other men from Norfolk are themselves immortalised in Shakespeare’s plays. Sir Thomas Erpingham is a minor character in Henry V, where he lends the king his cloak with which to disguise himself, and he is mentioned (but does not appear) in Richard II. Sir Thomas served three generations of the House of Lancaster and had a military career that spanned four decades. In 1415, at around the age of 60, Erpingham was in command of the archers at the Battle of Agincourt at which the English under Henry V defeated the French.

In later life, the knight was a significant benefactor to the city of Norwich, funding the rebuilding of the Church of the Blackfriars (now known as St Andrew’s Hall and Blackfriars’ Hall or the Halls) following a devastating fire. In 1420, he also had the so-called Erpingham Gate constructed, which stands opposite the west door of Norwich Cathedral giving access into the Cathedral Close. The gate’s style matches the west front of the cathedral and bears the family coat of arms. It also features a small statue of Sir Thomas, which is thought to have been located originally on his tomb in the cathedral and placed on the gate in the seventeenth century.

Sir John Falstaff appears or is mentioned in no fewer than four plays by William Shakespeare. In both of the Bard of Avon’s plays about Henry IV, Falstaff is a companion of Prince Hal, the future Henry V. Here, and in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Falstaff is primarily a comic figure; a fat, vain, cowardly knight who spends his time drinking and living on borrowed or stolen money.

This character’s name almost certainly derives from the real-life Norfolk landowner Sir John Fastolf, and although there are said to be some comparisons in the real and fictional knights’ lives, scholars believe that Falstaff’s character is an amalgamation of several people with whose lives Shakespeare would have been familiar. That said, Sir John Fastolf, who lived at Caister Hall (later Caister Castle), was a soldier who served in the Hundred Years’ War and during which he was accused of cowardice, having previously been recognised as a loyal and distinguished military man. In Henry IV, Part I, Falstaff delivers the now-famous phrase, ‘The better part of valour is discretion’.

***

The life and achievements of one farmer from Little Dunham near Swaffham would have gone completely unnoticed by anyone other than his family, and perhaps his descendants, had it not been for a chance find. Even then, had it not been for the determination of the discoverer of this real gem to publish an account of her find in the East Anglian Magazine, we would still be none the wiser.

The parish register entries, census returns and electoral registers for Little Dunham allow us to flesh out the bare bones of Thomas Thompson’s life. He was born in 1813 into a labouring family and by 1841 he was a shepherd. Thomas became a tenant farmer, farming some 11 acres.

It is a small entry in the Lynn Advertiser of 29 September 1883 that provides just a bit more colour to his story. This is an auction notice for all live and dead farming stock, as well as the household furniture, of Thompson who, the advert says, ‘is leaving the county’.

So, where did Thomas go? Well, this is where the discovery of part of a printed poetry anthology by Thomas Thompson comes in. At the back of this volume is an illuminating biographical snippet that begins, ‘The Author of these verses at the age of 70 left his native village, Dunham in Norfolk, for Tasmania on a visit to his children December 10th 1883, and arrived in a sailing vessel on the 4th April of the following year.’ It continues with details of his return to England, as well as dates of a further voyage to Tasmania, finally returning to this country in May 1891. It is probable that despite his assertion that ‘he contemplates going out again’, he was, sadly, never to make a third visit to his family; his burial is recorded in Little Dunham in 1896.

It is Thomas Thompson’s poems, though, that give us an insight into the farmer’s soul, including his mixed feelings at leaving his home village for Australia, for he writes:

Farewell to old England I am going from home,

I’m going to leave you and going from home;

I’m going across the salt sea for to roam,

Far far from old England, far away from my home.

Farewell peaceful cottage, farewell happy home,

Where I once was so happy, so happy at home;

But friends have forsook me and caused me to roam,

So I never more shall be happy at home.

Farewell, Little Dunham, the place of my birth,

For of all other places tis thee I love best;

I’d a few friends in Dunham, I once loved sincere,

But they most have forsook me, so I could not stay there.

BATS

The Paston family of north Norfolk are best known for the surviving collection of letters dating from the fifteenth century, written to and by family members. They provide historians with an amazingly detailed insight into many aspects of upper-class life in medieval England.

The Pastons rose from humble origins into one of the four largest landowners in the country during the Tudor era. One member of this great family who used his wealth to the benefit of others was Sir William Paston, who established a Free Grammar School in North Walsham. He also founded the almshouses in the village of Paston, where he lived in Paston Hall. Although the hall has long since disappeared from the landscape, the nearby thatched Great Barn, built by Sir William in 1581 as a grain store and threshing barn, still stands and is the only complete building remaining from the Paston Estate. It is a grand building, approximately 70m long and 16m high and has been designated a Grade II listed building by English Heritage due to its architectural and historical importance.

Paston’s sixteenth-century Great Barn offers a haven for wildlife today. (George Plunkett)

Over the centuries, the Great Barn has played host to many farm animals but today it is home to one of the few colonies of barbastelle bats in the country. The barbastelle is distinguishable by its short, upturned nose and has long, silky blackish-brown fur. The scientific name Barbastella comes from the Latin for ‘star beard’ and refers to the white tips on the bat’s fur.

Although there are a handful of other colonies of barbastelle bats in England, the Paston colony are the only ones who roost in a building, the others being in trees. The barbastelles mostly roost in the large crevices in the timber lintels over the barn doors.

Seven other species of bats have been recorded in and around the Great Barn, including the Nathusius’ pipistrelle and Natterer’s, as well as the common and soprano bat. Because of the protected status of the bats, the barn and the surrounding area has been designated a Biological Site of Scientific Interest, as well as a Special Area of Conservation. There is, understandably, no public access to the Great Barn, which is currently leased from the North Norfolk Historic Buildings Trust by English Nature.

***

Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson is, unarguably, Norfolk’s most celebrated son. He was born into a relatively prosperous family in Burnham Thorpe, where he was the sixth of eleven children of the local rector. Nelson attended the grammar school in North Walsham founded by Sir William Paston, and then King Edward VI Grammar School in Norwich.

His highly successful naval career began at the age of 12 in 1771 and the young Horatio discovered that he suffered from seasickness, a complaint he experienced for the rest of his life. By 1793, Captain Nelson was on HMS Agamemnon and it was while in command of this sixty-four-gun ship, which battled the French Navy in Corsica, that he was struck in the right eye by debris. Many people mistakenly believe that he lost his eye completely but although he regained partial sight in his damaged eye, by his own account, Nelson could only ‘distinguish light from dark but no object’.

Four years later, the newly promoted Rear Admiral Nelson fought against a Spanish fleet in the Battle of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, when his right arm was hit by a musket ball. The arm was so badly shattered that it had to be amputated.

A Nelson in cricket is a term applied to a score of 111 or its multiples (known as double Nelson, triple Nelson, etc.) and is thought to be extremely unlucky. One explanation of such a strange term for this cricketing...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 3.8.2023
• Verlagsort: London
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Geschichte / Politik ► Regional- / Landesgeschichte
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Gesundheit / Leben / Psychologie ► Lebenshilfe / Lebensführung
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Archäologie
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Vor- und Frühgeschichte
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
• Schlagworte: East Anglia • Great Yarmouth • King's Lynn • Norfolk • Norfolk Broads • norfolk history • norfolk workhouse • Norwich • norwich guildhall • norwich history • roman norfolk • Strange stories of mysteries crimes and eccentrics • The Broads • thetford
• ISBN-10: 1-80399-414-2 / 1803994142
• ISBN-13: 978-1-80399-414-7 / 9781803994147