By the Millfleet, King's Lynn

As I mentioned in yesterday's somewhat rambling post I have been in King's Lynn for a few days and naturally took several gigabytes of photos. More to come over the next few days.

"... the nave is not St Margaret's best feature"

I hadn't intended to revisit this magnificent old thing but Margot had some personal business to attend to here so in I went to get out of the wind if nothing else. Is this place always empty? This was well before the current nonsense struck the world. I hear that all churches are closed now following government dictat, clearly they care more for their mortal bodies than their immortal souls but 'twas ever thus. Here's the nave which I find rather impressive but a guide says "be patient, the nave is not St Margaret's best feature". Well everyone's a critic these days.

The east rose widow is 15th century but restored in the 19th.

The west window over the front door is also 15th century and is a little bit of a stunner.

Take a pew

It was the fashion at one time to carve grotesque figures in churches, you'll find them supporting the roof, hidden on screens but quite often you'll find them on the ends of seats. So here's a couple from St Margaret's. I don't know their age, possibly not as old as they are pretending since the place was renovated back in the 19th century; they might be Victorian projections of medieval fantasy.

And below is the tout ensemble. Weird, eh? These were supposed to ward off evil, they scare the devil as it were, though just what the devil might be doing in a church in King's Lynn I cannot imagine despite the local legend. You could, if you wished, see this a sexual thing, the hare (or is it a rabbit?)  symbolising prostitution and licentiousness, or maybe that devilish figure has too much of a caricature Jewish face for modern comfort? You can read what you like into them like since whoever made them is long gone and past caring. Personally I think they were a bit of fun, permitted silliness that no-one took seriously,  they were a distraction through the tedious enforced sermonising of the medieval church. Nowadays we have grotesque figures beamed into our homes and we call them celebrities or worse.

 The weekend in black and white is here.

All pictures by Margot K Juby.

The old trade

King's Lynn was first and foremost a port, exporting grain, salt and wool to Europe and importing wood and pitch from Scandinavia and wine from our friends in France. While the import side may not be so grand exporting grain is still big business as witnessed the huge grain silos I  posted yesterday. This ship, the Arklow Castle, was bound for Bayonne and arrived there a few days after this picture was taken. The church in the background is St Margaret's.

Margery Kempe: Author, Pilgrim, Mystic

I must confess to having no idea who Margery Kempe was nor why she should merit this bench memorial close by St Margaret's church. An odd looking bench indeed, one might think it has the shape of a book falling open. And therein lies a clue. Mrs Kempe, I find, was a medieval Christian mystic who wrote a book, called rather unimaginatively, The Book of Margery Kempe. I say wrote but most think she dictated as she could neither read nor write. Margery, if we may be less formal, came from well-to-do Lynn folk and married well, had fourteen children (ouch!) and started having visions of Christ after the birth of her first child (as you might)... She went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, met up with the anchoress Julian of Norwich and ... there's obviously more to this woman, her "demonic torment(s) and Christic apparition(s)" and her book than I could possibly do justice to in this little digital scrapbook ... so you can find out more yourself with a quick exercise of your Google powers and if you really want to read the book, described as the first autobiography in English, then it has been transcribed from the only known copy in the British Library and is available on line here. And oh yeah, it's in Middle English, so watch out for synful caytyfs ...

And for your further delight I find the BBC have a podcast all about Margery Kempe but it does feature (Lord) Melvynn Bragg whose voice is not to everyone's taste.

Finally, I didn't try it, but that bench looks mightily uncomfortable.

At Old Year's End

As this little speck of sand on which we sit goes round the fading twinkling little light bulb in the ever expanding Universe it has somehow come round to that time of year again. Out with the old and in the new and all that cobblers. The doom sayers say their doom again, like they have for as long as, well, forever, but I guess I'll still  stick around to see what happens next. Until tomorrow  ... Chin up and keep buggering on.

Awkward Reverence

"From where I stand, the roof looks almost new - 
Cleaned, or restored? Someone would know: I don't..."
                                                                          Philip Larkin

For those who like church architecture and figuring out all the many phases of a building, St Margaret's offers plenty to get their teeth into. Even I, with my own modest knowledge, can spot the rounded romanesque arches of the nave leading to what I suspect are later gothic arches up in the chancel. Or so I thought but a little learning is a dangerous thing. It turns out the nave was rebuilt in the 1740s (after a spire fell onto it from the north tower!) at the same time as the chancel was also rebuilt; the arches, it turns out, are smoothed off gothic arches! (Who knew such things existed? My ignorance seems to expand with everything I learn...) This place has been altered and extended many times over the years from its origins in 1095 and you can still see bits of the original Norman building at the base of the southern tower (see yesterday's post). All this is all very well but our good friend Sir Gilbert Scott has been here at some point, restored the nave and lowered the floor level which had been raised in the 1740s rebuild. As I say the place has history in spades and I can't do it justice here. If you want more I recommend visiting the church or reading this most informative and richly illustrated guide to the church here.

The Flemish style reredos is by Bodley and dates from 1899.

Some brass and stuff up at the holy end ...

The font dates from the time of Gilbert Scott.

Here's part of the Lynn motif again this time it's the pelican in her piety atop the font cover.

I'm told this is a Henseatic trunk and has not been renovated by Gilbert Scott.

The arms of Charles II hang high above the nave. During the civil war Lynn had been held by Parliamentary forces and thwarted a siege by royalists to take it; had they done so the king may well have kept his head. Funnily enough the forces went off to try to capture Hull and failed. Maybe these arms are a reminder not to be disloyal again.

The organ in the transept dates from 1754

A fairly modern statue, colourful but a bit anodyne.

Moon Clocks and High Tides

High up on the southern tower of St Margaret's is this oddity; a moon phase and tide clock. The writing on the edge says Lynn High Tide, each letter representing an hour. The hour hand is a little green dragon with a cross in his mouth (a Lynn motif). The moon phase appears through a circular hole but as it was new moon on the day I arrived you can't actually see the moon . (But don't you take my word for it here's another view) The clock dates from 1681 and was the gift of one Thomas Tue, clockmaker, churchwarden and one time mayor of King's Lynn. Thank you Thomas.

St Margaret's has undergone much needed repairs and renovations this last year, so I've read. The porch needed fixing as bits might have fallen on someone's head. The new stone is a bit off putting but it'll weather and does show how bright the whole church would have looked when new just six or so hundred years ago. Must have been stunning. (Ignore the little red sign saying "Minster open"; St Margaret's was apparently turned into King's Lynn Minster some years back by the Bishop of Norwich, but, like Holy Trinity in Hull, also recently minsterised, no-one seriously uses the term. Seems you can't overturn centuries of use by episcopal degree)

King's Lynn, like Hull, is prone to flooding. The Wash is just up the river and beyond that the big old North Sea prone to tidal surging every now and then. At the entrance to the church these markers are reminders of high water levels over the years. The renovation has somewhat blurred them but the highest, at nearly four feet, was just back in 1978 but the worst by far for the whole east coast of England was in 1953 when hundreds died. There are lots more flood protection measures in place now and regular exercises to test them, so I've read, let's just hope they work when the next surge comes.

Saturday Market Place

If you feel a little cheated, let down perhaps, by all the build up of yesterday's post then the feeling is mutual. Saturday Market Place is, as they say, nowt much to look at. These were taken on a Saturday and, well, it's just a car park; the market having suffered as have many others from the progress of the online shopping. Still and all the surroundings are pretty spectacular I think you'll agree. On the one side St Margaret's church and on t'other the splendid town hall, Trinity Guildhall and old prison or gaol house ...ça vaut le détour, n'est ce pas?

Entrance to the old prison

A sign advertising the delights inside the Guildhall. We didn't have time to see these. Another time perhaps.