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The Ancient Kingdom of East AngliaBy Caroline M. Jackson
Just ten miles north of Lavenham is the beautiful market town of Bury St Edmunds with its 10thC Benedictine Abbey ruins. We arrived in the early afternoon and being a Wednesday, the market was bustling with shoppers laden with wicker shopping baskets. The cheese stall was doing a brisk business selling bargain priced Cardinal Sin which comes from Monastery cheese makers in Somerset. Since the vendor had sold out of this particular delicacy, I asked her if she had anything else. “Oh yes,” she said, “I’ve got Stinking Bishop. She must have seen the horrified look on my face so she explained that the cheese is poured through the rind of a Bishop pear. I bought some and it tasted delicious. Another popular stall was the sausage counter where locals were buying rings of sausages with unique combination of ingredients: Wild boar with fruits of the forest, Pork & Stilton, Gressingham duck and orange. Our next destination was Norwich which in the Middle Ages was the third largest city in England complete with city wall and castle. Its Norman Cathedral built of pale cream limestone brought over from Normandy, is one of England’s finest. In the Nave, look in the centrally placed mirror and admire the 15thc stone bosses in the vaulted roof. Norwich has the most complete medieval street pattern in England with 1,500 historic buildings, cobbled streets, fine Georgian houses and a daily market. Our itinerary wasn’t elastic enough to check them all out, but after negotiating the maze of narrow streets, we were most impressed with the magnificent Dragon Hall - a medieval merchant’s house and nearby, the cell of 14thc English mystic, Juliana of Norwich. Her book “Revelations of Divine Love” was the first known book in the English language to be written by a woman.
Travel tips: Unlike much of the rest of the UK, this area is not overrun by tourists. Locals are friendly and tourist offices are chock-a-block with good info and free brochures. On arrival at cathedral towns like Norwich, pick up a map listing short term and long term parking spots. It is also wise to ascertain market days ahead of time. Information:Visit Britain http://www.visitbritain.com Images by Hamish M. Jackson |
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The ancient kingdom
of East Anglia – that balloon of land north east of London – may be as flat
as a Dutch pancake but it is far from featureless. Originally made up of
north folk (Norfolk) and south folk (Suffolk), the landscape immortalized by
the painter, John Constable, is punctuated with picture-perfect windmills,
Norman churches and medieval villages. ) The coastline is fringed with swathes of sandy
beaches, salt marshes, and fascinating fishing ports including King’s Lynn,
birthplace of Captain George Vancouver. The absence of mountains also makes
this region Britain’s driest and sunniest spot. Watch the BBC weather
forecast and often a sunshine icon will be hovering over the East of England
even when other areas are experiencing inclement weather. Perhaps this is
why the TV scouts chose the East of England as the setting for programs such
as Kavanagh QC, Lovejoy and P.D. James Mysteries.
The closest major airport is Stansted just south of
Cambridge or you can drive from London and spend the night in my favorite
gateway village, Lavenham. This unspoiled example of a Tudor village is one
of the prosperous Suffolk wool towns. Slow down your pace after the fast
drive north on the M11 and you will truly unravel skeins of colorful
history. If you have a purse of sovereigns, treat yourself to a night
at 15thC Swan Hotel which is a veritable honeycomb of fascinating nooks and
crannies, sloping ceilings and low timbered doorways which one is wise to
commit to memory. Of particular note is the hotel’s
Elizabethan Wool Hall.
In the morning, amble along Lavenham’s
narrow streets and lanes with their timber-framed buildings and
pastel-washed cottages. A notice flapped in the breeze on the door of the Village
Hall. It read: “Tonight Mr. Wheeler will be giving a talk on Graveyards,
Cemeteries and Epitaphs”. A town truly steeped in the past, the High Street
boasts many quaint craft, china, gift and teashops with perfect bow windows.
Look upwards to admire facades with unusual raised plaster motifs. Called pargeting, these decorations especially the fleur-de-lys,
are signs associated with the wool trade. To get a flavor of local
history, visit the magnificent 16thc Guildhall. Over the years it has
served as a place for feasts and pageants, a town hall, a workhouse, an
almshouse and a wool store. Today it is managed by The National Trust and
the museum is well worth a visit. Lavenham was famous for its blue
broadcloth which was ‘dyed in the wool’ rather than after being woven into
lengths of cloth. Wander around the walled garden which explains the common
plants used by dyers of yore. Near the adjacent mortuary and prison, an
aging sign advertises that the church sexton will for a Shilling toll the
bell in memory of the deceased. Those of us in the land of the living,
however, should opt for a refreshing cup of tea and home baking in the
adjacent tearoom complete with minstrel gallery. Before departing from
Lavenham, drop by one of England’s finest parish churches, the 15thC Parish
Church of St. Peter and St. Paul. If you are a church aficionado, this will
be the first of 2,000 churches for you to visit in the East of England.
After a refreshing night’s sleep at Stower
Grange just northwest of Norwich, we drove towards the coast. En
route, we decided to check out Pensthorpe Waterfowl Park which is one
of Europe’s finest collections of endangered and exotic water birds. Our
ten-minute visit expanded to a couple of hours as we wandered round the
gargantuan aviaries housing nesting birds. Outdoors, armed with binoculars
and camera, we sauntered around the 200 acres of lakes and meadows. Our eyes
feasted on colorful harlequin ducks, scarlet ibis and the amazing antics of
a male ruff which goes to great lengths to scare off intruders.
Continuing north, we drove through the villages of
Little Snoring and Great Snoring towards Walsingham which drew pilgrims in
the Middle Ages. Dubbed England’s Nazareth, it has often been compared to
Lourdes in France and Fatima in Portugal. Today around half a million
pilgrims from many parts of the world visit the Shrine of our Lady of
Walsingham and the Roman Catholic Slipper Chapel. It would be easy to spend
a whole day here walking along the Holy Mile, visiting the Holy Wells and
many churches and wandering around the ruins of the Augustinian abbey set in
seven acres of peaceful gardens and woodlands. From Little Walsingham
we climbed aboard the miniature steam railway for a four mile ride through
farmland and poppy fields north to Wells-next-the-Sea which before the
encroachment of sand dunes, used to be Wells-on-the-Sea. 
The North Norfolk
Heritage Coast is wild and windy, its sandy beaches shouldered with dunes
and pine forests. From Wells, we hiked the length of the boardwalk
then along the beach past rows of colorful bathing huts set high on stilts. After trudging barefoot along
the sea fringe, we sat on a wooden groyne and watched the sandpipers playing
tag with the incoming tide. Wistfully I looked westwards towards the
setting sun. I’d like to have walked further along the Norfolk Coast Path
then visited the Stately Home at Holkham Hall and the Queen’s summer home at
Sandringham but all that would have to wait for another visit, another time.