Two Norfolks

Five days in North Norfolk was enough to discover there is more than one Norfolk – more than one North Norfolk, to be precise. Of course there are beaches (Wells, Holkham), and seaside towns selling fish and chips and providing slot machines (Wells), but there is also a deeply rural Norfolk, more cut off than the coast from the present day.

Wells and Holkham were a surprise: they were full of families. Not just families with buckets and spades, inflatable dinghies, dogs (lots of dogs), but wealthy families on holiday. Children with long hair and fancy names like Giacomo. Hotels in Holkham and Wells charging £150 per room per night, with their restaurants crowded with children drawing and playing games while their parents ate their dinner. This was a surprise; I thought the family holiday like this in the UK had disappeared years ago. Not only is it surviving, but flourishing. The path to Holkham beach was, as you might expect, heavily populated from morning to nightfall.

But, to be honest, despite the wonders of Holkham and Houghton, this part of North Norfolk was, after a few days, slightly oppressive. You felt after a while that it didn’t really matter what food was being served, because the demand was so great. I'm not sure what the visitors came for, but it was accompanied by a lot of noise. 

Just a few miles away, in the area between Felbrigg Hall and Blickling, the atmosphere was fascinatingly different. We cycled just eight miles and encountered four churches. And what churches! Each of them illustrated a modest (Saxon or Norman) foundation, followed by, in some cases, a few years of fabulous wealth (14th or 15th centuries), then a long period of stasis, until the Victorians arrived to rebuild and redesign.  Fortunately, those Victorian rebuilders did not manage to obliterate all traces of genuine medieval atmosphere, and some of the churches retain a feel of true other-worldliness. The world they represent is totally different to the present day.

Take Ingworth church, for example. It is allocated just a few lines in Pevsner’s Buildings of England. It had a round tower, which collapsed in 1822. It has hardly any monuments. From the original narrow nave design, it was only enlarged to add one aisle, rather than aisles on each side, leaving it rather asymmetrical. But even the original nave was asymmetrical – the arch to the tower is not in the middle of the west wall (I’ve no idea why).

Yet it is a church of genuine creative genius. When the tower fell down, someone had the brilliant idea of turning the remains into a circular vestry, with a conical thatched roof, matching the thatch of the nave and chancel. Outside, some rather unique buttresses were added to hold the tower stump and the nave together. In a similar way of making a virtue of necessity, the flint and stone porch required repairing in the 16th century, and a cheap fix was used – brick. The result is a magical ensemble that displays the church magnificently from the road beside it.

Figure 1 Ingworth Church - exterior

When you encounter a church like this, you are struck by the presence of a civilization, disappeared, but still in some way present. There are a few houses in the village of Ingworth, but they don’t detract from the raw power of that church.

Then, as you begin to unwind and look at the churches in more detail, you start to see other glimpses of a medieval world. For all I know there may be references in private houses as well, but of course these are all but impossible to see on a brief visit.

Look, for example, at bench ends in the humblest churches. Thurgarton church is now redundant, although open to visit. It had a thatched roof, no electricity (just oil lamps), and no tower at all. The pews had all been cordoned off because the floor is in a dangerous condition. Yet the bench ends turn out to be full of fascinating (and hardly religious) individual carvings.

Figure 2 Thurgarton: bench ends

These churches were all tucked away in tiny villages (or sometimes, as at Wickmere, not near a village at all), surrounded by a stillness broken only by the occasional birdsong. Almost no cars or traffic to disturb this magical tranquillity. You almost felt a medieval heart beating.

Then, finally, to discover the ruined castle (more a fortified manor house) at Baconsthorpe. When we arrived, some families were having what looked like a birthday party there. The ruins were swarming with children climbing where they shouldn’t, playing games, eating ice creams, and generally making havoc. After a few minutes, they all disappeared in their cars, leaving the ruins as silent as they must have been for hundreds of years.

Figure 3 Baconsthorpe: the castle as picturesque ruin

Turns out that one factor behind Baconsthorpe's wealth, the fact that the owners were able to continue to build in the 16th century, was due to a wool processing factory that existed within the castle walls. But that is another story.