The Devil's Hill

 Quosdam daemones quos dusios Galli Nuncipant

                                                                          St Austin

I've shown Pilot Street before, it runs alongside St Nicholas Chapel until it is abruptly terminated by some of that modern housing I mentioned the other day. Clearly it has been abridged at some point and the new John Kennedy Road cut through and taken it over  but it used to run as far as the junction with Loke Road. I found the following on a Facebook group showing almost the same view as above from I'm guessing late 1950s very early 1960s, all the right hand side buildings are gone as is the chapel on the left with the road sign. What now looks picturesque and tree filled was once very domestic and gritty. But we are not here to gawp at pretty things ...

 

The street is ancient, at least 14^th century possibly much, much older and back then had a different name, Dowshill Street. In those days the sea was practically knocking on Lynn's door and just to the north of the borough was a wild and "dreary, unfrequented spot", most likely there were sand dunes, the History of the Borough of  King's Lynn refers to "the sands of Lenn at Dusehill". The same source gives evidence of a belief in malicious spirits, that the region to the north of the borough was "the abode of hobgoblins, sprites, and other indescribable monsters" (quite possibly still is) and that even the Loke was named after the supreme evil one of the Norsemen, Loke or Loki. The name Dowshill, it is thereby claimed, comes from the ancient northern European word duus or dusiens  or  deuce or as we say these days, the Devil.

So what I can tell you about what is known of Dowshill and its street. Old maps and records show a bridge over a fleet at the north end (now called the Fisher Fleet but then known as Dowshill Fleet). It is thought that there was a saltern at this point, where brine was boiled to make salt, no doubt adding to its devilish aura. The Corporation built canals off the fleet so that ships could moor at merchants' houses. It became so popular that local ship owners complained they could not moor their own boats due to the presence of large foreign vessels in the creek. An ordinance was issued saying the creek was for local ships.

The bridge had a gate on it for defense and gate keepers were appointed every year. So, for example, we find in 1403 John Groute was appointed keeper of Douz Hill Yard.

By the mid 18th century, however, the fleet had fallen into disrepair and the Corporation was sued by a merchant named Turner for not cleansing the creek. The judge , one Lord Mansfield, using quite bizarre logic, affirmed that as the Corporation's charter did not include a prescription to carry out the cleansing no such duty existed (even though they had done so for centuries) and further that what had been used as a public right of way (the creek) was in fact private property (it was never stated who it belonged to). This, I'm told,  was a unique judgement in English Law, the absence of a claim it was public was enough to make it private ...

18^th and 19^th century engineering gradually eased the river bank westwards and marshes to the north were drained, the sea retreated a couple of miles to the north, the Enlightenment reached even wildest Norfolk and the Devil's Hill lost its fears, until in 1809, King's Lynn renamed a lot of streets and Dowshill Street became Pilot Street complete with a Pilot's House. 

Let the sunshine in

 On Ferry Street this garage cum car park is best described as a little al fresco.

Something completely different

 I always keep all three of them turning, you can't be too careful.

 

The weekend in black and white is turning heads here.

Teacup: storms in

 

Back in February this year, before the world went mad, someone took offence to the bells of St Nicholas Chapel. Seemed bell ringers had moved there to practice while St Margaret's was being repaired or some such story making too much campanological disturbance ... They only went and sprayed what you see here, and yes, it was still there in October (now slow yew down ...). I don't know if they caught the culprit but I did come across another story about poor old St Nick and his bells. Someone was irate that the bells no longer chimed the correct time, this guy liked the bells, for a change, indeed he had done away with clocks and watches and relied on the chapel to tell the time and was not too impressed with only ten chimes at midnight ... the Council, I read, were looking into it having only just found that they were responsible, I quote "... regarding that law, you learn something new every day!” You do indeed.

Homes ancient and modern

 

The area around St Nicholas chapel was cleared of its quaint little buildings and yards, OK it was a quasi slum as you can see from the old photo below taken from the roof of the chapel many years ago (thank you internet; I don't know the date but clearly back when everything was black and white and smokey). You don't just demolish buildings but a whole community as well, hence the museum to try and keep some memory of it alive. Anyhow modern housing has been built to replace what was removed. It seems to be weathering in nicely, though I doubt they'll build a museum to it.

 

 

Most of the houses, chapels, schools, small businesses and yards in the foreground have gone but those terraced houses way off in the distance are still there around Loke Road. The graveyard trees are also still there as you can see above.

What's in a name? ...

I was going to write how this was St Anne's House on St Anne's Street and how some folk think a secret passage runs from here to the Exorcist's House over on the other side of St Nicholas Chapel. That was until I found that this is not really St Anne's House after all but the house next door to St Anne's and that the echt St Anne's House was demolished way back. Anyhow it still a fine façade but perhaps a bit too twee for my taste. The building is split into apartments some of which are for sale I notice. (I suspect that this building got called St Anne's House by estate agents wanting to make a buck ...) I found a picture of the real St Anne's House and why shouldn't I paste it here ... and if you want to know more try here.

The site of this old house is now a fine Elizabethan car park.

... and finally to top off the post, as it were, there's an owl automaton, complete with swivelling head, atop the Georgian pile; I'm told it's a bird scarer.

An alley off Hextable Road, King's Lynn

 

Hextable, in case you were wondering is "a pleasant place to live, it is an attractive rural village surrounded by beautiful Green Belt. The village is inside the M25 in north west Kent in the Sevenoaks District..." and no, I've never heard of it except here in Lynn, it wins the obscure street name award for October.

The Grain Silo, King's Lynn

You simply cannot have posts about King's Lynn without at least one featuring the rather tall concrete grain silo that towers above north Lynn by the docks. I read that it has recently been refurbished (how?) and that it has 40  bins inside it and that it is just perfect for storing grain which I suppose is what it was built for. I also read that peregrine falcons nest on top so I'll keep an eye out. When I first came to this place they used to put a Xmas tree with lights on top so Santa could see where he was going (ho ho ho) but I'm told that now they don't, something to do with health and safety. Also back then the building on the far right used to be a pub, the Victoria, but we didn't go in it for some reason, can't think why not, we went in all the others.

The other side of the world

 

Plonked in the middle of the King's Lynn shopping centre is this globe. I suppose it to be bronze but you never can tell. Quite why it's there I don't know, perhaps someone discovered that this spot between Sainsbury's and T.K.Maxx was the very omphalus of creation and just had to mark the spot. Who knows? Reason not the need, eh? It's been there long enough for Cornwall to have disappeared.

Old Buoys, King's Lynn

 

 

 

The Weekend in Black and White is here.

Now slow yew down ma ole booty

A warning sign on the Loke near the Long Pond. Someone taking the initiative, good to see.

Photos by  Margot K Juby

1749 and all that

Today's post bring us four hundred years forward from the 14^th century medieval to the 18^th century and the Enlightenment (I wonder what happened to that?). St Nicholas chapel has several gates which are never locked as far as I know. These however are the finest of the bunch with this fancy wrought iron decoration. I struggled at first to see what the number was until I read this gate was installed in 1749 when it all became clear(ish). I'm going to guess that somebody came into a tidy sum and wanted to pave the way to eternal salvation with a gift of fine iron work (from iron gates to the pearly gates), well I hope it was worth it. The design is secular and not sacred, we have clearly moved a long way from Old Nick creeping out of the brickwork to these floral scrolls.

These gates, indeed all the gates and boundary walls of St Nick's are considered listed buildings of historical and architectural interest, they have their own listing quite apart from the building itself.

Though I'm sure 1749 was filled with exciting and important events the only one of any importance is that the first recorded game of baseball was played at Kingston-upon-Thames. I don't who won but you can be sure the game was fixed (Say it ain't so, Joe!) as the Prince of Wales was playing. Britain, with George II as king, a man who could barely speak English, was up to its colonial expansion as usual in North America and India. This was then considered a good thing but has recently been declared to be a bad thing by those who decide these matters, mainly liberal, white, middle class, wet behind the ears, woke, EU-remainer, eco-fearing, bedwetting pro-maskers and assorted lock down loonies employed (if that is the word) in Universities and other publicly funded sinecures mainly, but by no means exclusively, the BBC. 

Oh and all you vaxxers (who wait so patiently, peace be upon you), can celebrate the birth of your hero and saviour Edward Jenner on May 17 of this fine year. Jenner it was who started us on the path to eradicating smallpox. If you want and have the security clearance you can go see vials of smallpox held in secure vaults, you could weigh some out if they let you. Your friendly Sars-Cov-2 lacks all such tangible properties, never having been isolated, purified or indeed been anything other than an RNA profile in a Chinese publication and yet each day hundreds of thousands of 'tests' are performed to find the presence of something completely unsubstantiated (The Fat Controller even admits 93% are false positives! 93%! He has no shame but then this year's attacks on liberty have had nothing to do with the 'virus'). Millions of you have overturned, thrown out without a thought, three centuries of Enlightenment and science and become fearful of miasmas and fanciful tales of horror spread by old wives in the press, the TV and, yes, Government. You, like penitents of medieval times, welcome, indeed crave, the punishment of lock downs and the hair shirts of face nappies, you have sinned and you deserve it. Well, shame on you, you ought to know better.

Stepped buttresses

Buttresses are very common, almost ubiquitous, on church buildings of this age, we are talking a complete rebuild between 1371 and 1419 so, of course St Nick's has its share. They strengthen the wall and hold up the roof trusses preventing them from pushing out the walls. Between each buttress there's a window to let in the light and also a glass window weighs less than solid  stone or brick so keeping building's weight and costs down (every little helps). Obviously a tall spire needs supporting and good buttresses do the job.

In this picture you can see the second doorway on the north side. Behind this wall a pitched roof leads to the clerestory which to my regret I haven't got a good picture except for a slight peek in the one below. (This picture shows the clerestory from the other side). The clerestory is supported by internal pillars as I showed way back in this post.

Now no doubt you'll be delighted to hear that to all intents and purposes the church is  symmetrical so the south side looks much like the north save for a porch that I mentioned yesterday and the base of the spire.

...and I've just realised that this was rebuilt some twenty years after the Black Death killed a third to half the population of England, no taking silly test tests to see if you had the lurgy back then, no godforesaken masks either just: Attishu, attishu, we all fall down. No doubt twenty years from now they'll still be waiting for their precious vaccine while face masks will have become implanted hermetically at birth along with health passports courtesy of the Gates Foundation...

The west door, St Nicholas, King's Lynn

From Historic England "The elaborately carved door surround comprises a pointed-arch terminating in figurative head corbels, and containing two cusped door openings separated by a Y-tracery trumeau (mirroring the arrangement of the window tracery above), and two early-C15 doors (restored in 2012)". Now having read that you'll no doubt want to see the window tracery  ...

 

Such a fancy ornamented doorway with heraldic shields and beasts was clearly the main entrance at one time but not now, now you go in via porch way on the southern side... and I suppose you'll want to see the figurative head corbels or at least one of them; t'other is just a mess of eroded stone.

... to round off the day how about a pair of angels?

this one could do with a little restoration.

I can't let you go without posting this handsome chap; Old Nick himself creeping out of the stonework.

Figurative Heads, King's Lynn

On our way home from town we wandered around St Nicholas chapel which I've shown many times. This time we walked around the north side which for some reason we'd not visited. There'll be a few posts about this for the next couple of days so if 14^th century English church architecture is not your cup of tea you have been warned.

The people who detail listed buildings, Historic England, say the following about this doorway, "The north aisle has two late-C14 doorways: that in the second bay having a pointed arch, and carved figurative heads to the corbels of the hood moulding...", concise, dull but accurate and there's not really a lot more to say so I'll quit while I'm ahead.

The Lamp Shop, King's Lynn

Railway Road in King's Lynn does not as you might think head to the railway, no, it runs teasingly close but keeps away from the station and the tracks. Someone will know why it's called Railway Road but that should not detain us. On a corner of said road, with Portland Street (which FYI does run to the station), sits a little shop that sells lighting stuff and, at night , is all lit up like someone else is paying the bill. Naturally your fearless correspondent took a few pictures for the record.

 

Ceci n'est pas un ...

England it seems has been split into three tiers by the increasingly Caesar-like Fat Controller and I agree. Tier one is all those who thought this is Sars-Cov-2, you have been soaking in the tepid bath of mass media brainwash for far too long, you almost certainly believe in Santa Claus, wear a mask when you brush your teeth, for you there is nothing but an interminable wait for the FC to smile on you and say "You may now take the vaccine and be free". Tier two is those who say no, this is a sea urchin, you mistake the image for reality, you too will fall for the three-card-trick, you think you know the science behind it and can follow the model, you want lockdowns and face masks because you think they work but you complain when your local store closes, for good, and your hairdresser can't fix your curls; for you there is no hope. Tier three has you clever clogs, who have more sense to fall for this nonsense, you say this a mere image, a manipulated collection of dots designed to mislead and be used as propaganda by an old fool, you should go far, but then you're far too clever to be reading this...

This is a detail of something I posted earlier just as the world fell into a madness from which it has not recovered.

King Street, King's Lynn

 

Here's King Street connecting Tuesday Market Place to the Purfleet and the Customs House. Many of the buildings here are listed and medieval in origin with what were considered, back in the day, fashionable Georgian façades, some have clearly had an extra story or two plonked on top. It's a marvellous street to wander down.  Somehow I can't see that bluey-white building getting planning permission these days ("You want to build a big white, square topped thing? On our precious King Street!") yes it stands out and yet it doesn't jar overly. This is just one side, the other is as good, trust me. Good job then that town planners and their dull schemes are Johnnies-come-lately, how did we ever manage without them?

If it's Tuesday

As part of the new national sport of shivying people around there is clearly a need for signs. We haven't quite got to the "Fat Controller is watching you" stage but it can only be a matter of time. There are plenty of keep your distance stickers now fading on the pavements, and shops still have their little arrows for one-way shopping (it never caught on, people forget stuff go back and around, it's only natural; I made a point of going the wrong way round every shop; no-one said anything...) Anyhow here's a really useful sign that informs the unwary that the market on Tuesdays will be held on the Tuesday Market place (gosh! really?); what it doesn't say is that the market has been held there since at least since the days of good King Henry (he of the six wives) and a silly little fakedemic ain't gonna change nothing... It all makes work for the working man to do.

Actually in Tuesday Market Place there are some new-to-me seats celebrating local entrepreneur and thrice Lord Mayor of Lynn, Frederick Savage. I think they may have umbrella shades in them when the sun shines. I tried it for comfort and I'd say about a 7 out of 10.

Here again is the Duke's Head and St Nick's chapel poking up in the back.

And finally because I'll probably never get another chance to post it is a picture of some street signs.

King's Lynn Conservancy Board

Surely if history had a sound track it would be flooded with the sound of stable doors being slammed after the horse has bolted and is clip-clopping merrily down the cobbled street. So with a weary sigh let me tell you how the King's Lynn Conservancy Board came about. In eighteen hundred and eighty nine a cargo ship, the Wick Bay, ran aground and broke her back outside King's Lynn port. Not an unheard off event in UK waters but for the Corporation of the town of King's Lynn a financial disaster since it had ownership of the port and was held legally responsible for maintaining the waterways and had to pay the expense of removing the wreck. So a few years later the KL Conservancy Board was set up to manage the port, the marker buoys and eventually the pilotage. The Board is entirely funded from fees and receives no public funds. I don't often get to say that Hull was ahead of the curve but it has had pilots in charge of shipping since the days of Henry VIII (see this for example). Here on Common Staith Quay they built themselves a fancy office in a throwback Georgian style (it was late 1890s after all not late 1790s) and look-out tower that does the job. 

The pilots do a magnificent job of getting ships that are way too big through a dock entrance that is way too narrow without scraping the paintwork. Here's an interesting blog post I came across while performing due diligence for this post.

The Corn Exchange, Tuesday Market Place, King's Lynn

I've shown the Corn Exchange on the Tuesday Market Place before. I think it's worth another show. Whether you agree or not here's three more glimpses of the place and its surroundings. These were taken early morning so there's no traffic about, there's usually some drivers going round this place, so keep your wits about you...

 

This one gives the game away, it's now a fancy façade to a plain, modern rear. Still it keeps in business so long as the Fat Controller doesn't get any more crazy ideas. (We await the next Presidential announcement tomorrow, or rather those that care await it. I've given up and moved on).

The Weekend in Black and White is here.

Palm Paper Factory, King's Lynn

Earlier this year I posted that this place was a sugar beet factory. Well I was just showing my age and my ignorance. There was a sugar factory here many years ago when I first came to this land (early 1980s) seems it closed mid-1990s. Now it's this magnificent, steamy place. This I read has the "world's widest, largest and most powerful newsprint machine in the world" and to show you just how whoopy big that is I read that it can produce 2000 metres of 10.3 metre wide newsprint every minute, that's ample space for a lot of lies I think you'll agree.

There are in fact two bridges across the Great Ouse in this picture, the front is for local traffic to and from West Lynn, the rear one carries the A47 road which goes from Birmingham to Great Yarmouth (and back again) should you wish.

The Bentinck, Loke Road, King's Lynn

Lord William George Frederick Cavendish-Scott-Bentinck, or George to his pals, was the member of Parliament for King's Lynn for twenty years or so until his death (from apoplexy) at the age of 46 in 1848. He was a mate of Disraeli, lending him money and opposing the repeal of the Corn Laws and later getting rid of Peel thus making his man, Dizzy, PM. I still don't see how a Lord could sit in the Commons but those were different times ... There's a Bentinck Dock around the corner and this pub to continue the name. I'm happy to see the place still open and, as the sign says, under new management. The last time I was in there was near forty years ago to buy a bottle of sherry, or rather get an empty sherry bottle refilled from a porcelain barrel of sweet sticky alcohol that had probably never been near to Jerez or even Spain. This view is along Lansdowne Street towards Loke Road.

Vancouver Quarter, King's Lynn

It would be wrong to give the impression that King's Lynn is all ancient buildings and scenic riverside views. At its heart is this modern offering; straight from the Mary Baker City Mix, instant-town-centre out-of-a-packet and microwave in minutes. The Vancouver Quarter could be anywhere today, goes without saying it's bland, out of scale, the stores are those found in all towns with exactly the same layout, same offers, same, same, same...I won't say I dislike it, there's nothing tangible to dislike, it's just a big inoffensive nothing wrapped in bricks and plate glass, a bit like a urinal, you go, you do the business and leave and think no more of it ... It has messed with centuries of streetscape; so much that folk born just decades ago can longer find their way around their own old town. Still what's lost, is lost and gone forever, no use pining for the past and they were just old streets with crumbling buildings  and well past their sell-by date (and who needs trees? and character? They don't begin to pay the rent on the space) and all this is absolutely essential for modern retailing or was until the internet and Covid-19 nonsense made it somewhat less vital and the cancer of vacant lots is starting to show.