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.

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.

A Twenty Twenty Vision

Remember back in the bad days, the days before the glorious Fat Controller took us all under his gross, adiposal care and smothered us with lock downs, useless, health threatening face muzzles and quarantines and testing (always with the testing) and , now, whisper it softly, a vaccine! Yeah Laissez les bons temps roulez as nobody ever said, ever. You'd have be a "nutter" not to take the vaccine and save lives (it's not about you it's about saving lives, don't be so selfish and wear your mask!) ... Remember when life was so evil that the country was rich with a booming economy, there were shops that sold stuff, bars where you could get a drink, restaurants where you could eat, transport you could use freely, go anywhere without a care, without the glare and the stare ... Do you even recall the simple Referendum to leave the European Union? (or even remember the EU? No, me neither, strange how quickly the memory fades... I had to check yes; it's still there and still falling apart, still wants to fish in UK waters and have the UK pay for its follies, plus ça change...) The madness back then inspired this monstrosity though it seems to be talking more and more of the divisive insanity that strides the land these days, with mass hysteria and ovine compliance with ridiculous politically inspired dictats from ministers who are drowning in their vain, incompetence. The UK is no longer a Parliamentary democracy, no, the land that was the Mother of Parliaments is now run by statutory notices, the rotten, stinking vestige of medieval Royal prerogative, supposedly vetted by MPs but in practice just pushed through without so much as a whisper of a debate, and Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition are just compliant ninnies in this coup d'état. It's dictatorship in all but name. Oh he's a bumbling, avuncular dictator, but that is what he is, have no doubt. I hear he's a classical buff, can recite the Iliad in the original ancient Greek, then no doubt he'll recall the words of Brutus as he shivved old Julius: "Sic semper evello mortem tyrannis". His turn will come, it always does.

The weekend in Black and White is here.

Bottle Feeder

No, it's not some modern sculpture based on the Jonah myth but a mere rubbish bin. This, close by the now closed (temporarily) and somewhat despairing fish tank known as the Deep, is a receptacle for plastic bottles. Someone more eco-friendly and less sceptical than myself might have shown all the do-goody-save-the-panet-from-plastic signs that accompany this but I couldn't be bothered.

When every day seems like yet another Sunday it's difficult to keep track but I believe that the weekend in black and white should be here if not it'll be along shortly.

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.

I'm a hairin’ scarin’ fisherman...

‘I’m a hairin’ scarin’ fisherman and I hail from Kings Lynn town,
And in this old life I’ve seen many an up and down.
And when we’ve spent our stocker bait and had a jolly spree
Away we’ll crack, on board the smack, and plough the angry sea.’

To watch her and trigger and pipe her as she goes,
Give her the sea and let her rip we're the boys to pull her through
You want to see our Ally when the wind is blowin' through
Sailing from the Dogger bank to Great Grimsby.

I find that is a variation of an old song "Dogger Bank" ( which is in turn probably from another Music Hall song ) given to us by the grandly nicknamed Trunky Bunn of King's Lynn. Quite how it ended up engraved on a granite boulder in a playground on Loke Road I really don't know but there it lies, a gift to future generations, what they'll make of it I can't imagine.

On a similar theme I can include this little plaque on a former pub down the road and around the corner mentioning Ralph Vaughan Williams' dalliances with the natives of North End. If you listen to old RVW long enough you find yourself thinking I know that tune it's such and such ... well he's only gone and nicked it hasn't he ... plagiarism, as somebody once said, is basic to all culture.

The New Walk

Early in the 18^th century someone had the bright idea to construct a walk or mall from the town eastwards across uncultivated, vacant and I'm guessing somewhat swampy land to the Guannock Gate then part of the town walls. It was hardly a long slog being just some three hundred or so yards long but then maybe folk had not made a fetish out of walking as essential to a healthy body and mind but as a means of getting from A to B if you didn't have a horse and cart to help you. Here if you had stuff to strut was where it could be strutted outwith the grime of the town, with ruined walls and meandering Gaywood River to view it was akin to a country park in an urban setting. Anyhow it was the start of something as the New Walk was improved, lined with fine trees, and later a second walk crossed it and then more walks were added as the thing spread out beyond the now demolished town walls. I write all this trivia because I wondered why the place wasn't called something like Le Strange Park or Losinga Gardens or after some other notable local bigwig, it's called the Walks because, though now it may look like a park and walk like a park it is, historically, a collection of walks. So now you know.
By way of comparison Hull when it finally spilled out of its walls in the late 18^th century it dug a big hole and filled it with water; it was the biggest dock in the country, the Queen's Dock. Hull did not get a public park until the 1860s courtesy of gun-running property developer Zach Pearson. However the Queen's Dock is now Queen's Gardens ... with walks.

The Walks are lined with lime trees and horse chestnuts. Somebody has carved this out of a dead one.

Marriot's Warehouse, King's Lynn

How does a sculpture on the subject of the medieval practice of drying cod grab you? Hmm? Well outside this late 16^th century warehouse they've put up a  grey metallic thing with a little plaque telling us that dried fish was imported into King's Lynn back in the days before Beko fridge-freezers and this is so we don't forget how barrel loads of the stuff were transported inland from here ... *yawn, stretch...*  I liked the squawking gull but found the rest was a bit "so-whatish" but maybe others will find it fascinating.

Here's the front of the building (or is it the back?), it seems from what I read that the place was used for storing salt, wine, beer and building materials. Ships apparently moored inside the place which indicates the river has been pushed back a few dozen yards since those days. It's reckoned the stone base comes from demolished Friary which was just behind here. The building is now a restaurant and exhibition space and is run by a trust to keep it open to the public.

I'd like to see this "rain barrel" in a downpour ...

As he lived he died ...

"A handsome monument has been erected, by the congregation, in St Mary's church Hull, to the memory of the Rev. John Scott. It is in white marble, and built in the wall to the left of the organ. In the centre is a bold basso-relievo likeness of the deceased, encircled by palm branches; the likeness is exceedingly striking, although the only guide the sculptor had was a black profile, a small pencil drawing, and the suggestions of the friends of the deceased. The accessories are a crown of glory, unfolded by the removal of drapery, a book opened, and the communion vessels. Underneath is written the following inscription: "In memory of the Rev. John Scott, M.A. eighteen years minister of this parish, who died October 16,1834, aged 47 years, and is interred within the communion rails. His high endowments were devoted to the great object of making full proof of his ministry. 'Mighty in the Scriptures,' he declared ' the whole council of God' with singular judgment, energy, and simplicity. As he preached he lived— and as he lived he died. To perpetuate the remembrance of the fervent piety of their pastor and friend, an affectionate congregation have erected this monument." The sculptor is Mr. T. Loft, of London, a native of Hull.—The Committee for furthering the Subscriptions on behalf of the family of the Rev. Thomas Scott, the Commentator on the Scriptures, and father of the above, announced in July last, that the amount then received was somewhat less than 2800l. "This sum, though considerable in itself, will yet be admitted to be very inadequate to benefit no less than fifteen young persons, (the grand-children) more or less unprovided for."

                       Extract from The Gentleman's Magazine and Historical Chronicle, 1835, Volume 158

It's nice to have someone write your stuff for you nearly two hundred years before you need it but then you find they've gotten his age wrong, he was 57 not 47, it seems journos can never be trusted. Also Johnny Scott may have been "mighty in the scriptures" but to leave fifteen children "more or less unprovided for" strikes me as being a tad too reliant on the Almighty not suffering the soul of the righteous to famish.

The weekend in black and white is here.

The Old Police Court

"In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups. The police who investigate crime and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories."

You've no doubt heard the spiel at the beginning of Law and Order (if not  then you've had a lucky life). However it wasn't always the case in this country (that is to say England and Wales, Scotland has its own way of doing law and don't even ask about Northern Ireland)  that the police and the prosecutors were separated so neatly. Up until the mid 1980s police officers could and would prosecute offenders in certain cases. Officially they were acting as private citizens in court but in reality the same officer could investigate an offence, arrest a suspect and then prosecute the case, no doubt they would have been judge and jury as well if they could. Clearly this was unsatisfactory and prone to corruption of process. I give this little  history lesson to explain how the Guildhall comes to have an entrance marked Police Court. Nowadays we have an independent Crown Prosecution Service and Magistrates courts and everything is all just tickety-boo, well that is their story. 

The fat putti, the medusa head, the teeny George and Dragon, and the freemasonry handshake (!!) I leave to your imagination. They show signs of having been damaged at some time and stuck back together; the Guildhall was hit by bombs during the last war so maybe that explains this. The entrance is down the street from the equally well adorned Crown Court entrance I showed some while back and now serves the Coroner's Court.

The weekend in black and white is here.

Whispering sweet nothings

I posted about this delightful surreal carving in Pearson Park before showing the thing being carved and to be honest I thought I'd posted about it again to show the completed work but you know what thought did ... so to put things right here's a few more images. While taking these pictures a man rode by on a bike and clearly he hadn't noticed this before and he nearly fell off craning his neck round  and gaping in disbelief ...

I recall the artist telling me that he was trying to make the figures a bit more child friendly and less scary towards the ground which appealed to Margot who took this picture.

The weekend in Black and White is here.

The Wicked Witch of the Wych

Here's another set I should have posted last year before the grand ennui set in. You might recall an old dead tree being reshaped in Pearson Park and you might also recall me saying there was another dead tree close by that might be available. Well most of last summer someone was busy with a grinder transforming that tree into a mix of faces and animals.

We happened to be passing this tree and saw the guy at work; he stopped and made some kind of hand gesture indicating "would I like to come up and have a closer look?" So after much struggling ( I have the acrobat skills of a hippopotamus ) I eventually got onto the scaffolding and took a few pictures.

"What did I think this was?" asks the guy, "A clown?" says I  having in mind Punch and Judy. He was not impressed, "No, it's a witch! And why would I put a witch here?" he asked (it was beginning to feel a bit like the Spanish Inquisition) I shrug, "The tree was a Wych Elm!" he says with a gleam in eye ...

Here's the nice guy with grinder and  the skill to make things appear out of the wood, his name is Julian Barnard and his work was for the Trustees of Pearson Park. He was given a brief of “poetic” (Philip Larkin's old lodgings are directly opposite and the toad figure is again another Larkin thing) The piece, which is now finished, has the title Whispering Sweet Nothings.

Just the other day I was saying ...

... what Trinity Square needed to make it complete after the installation of its very expensive reflective puddles was a dozen or so steel cylinders, make them about twelve foot tall, perforated and accessible so you can look up at the sky; oh and lit up at night. You see someone was listening ...

This well ventilated installation (described as "thought provoking" but what the provoked thoughts might be I leave to your imagination) is the latest in the seemingly never ending Year of Cultural Largesse. It does have one good thing going for it: It'll be gone by next year.

The Weekend in Black and White is here.

Cormorant Boat

It shows how much notice I take of my surroundings when I discover that this sculpture, Cormorant Boat by Kate Siddle, recently unveiled on Nelson Street had actually stood for nigh on thirty years  by the Marina. Couldn't have made much of an impression because I don't remember it at all ... anyhow at some point in 2008 it was removed and disappeared for a few years. Where was it? Well you can find out where Hull keeps its works of art in this link.

Ceci n'est pas une râpe au fromage

So as promised the thing that Hull Council bought but couldn't find a place to put has been plonked in Queen's Gardens where is sticks out like a proverbial sore thumb. I was wrong, I now admit, to say this looks like a cheese grater, it's not as useful as that. No it puts me in mind of childish origami using a crumpled doily. I look forward to seeing selfies from atop the structure and how quickly it turns a sooty black and green with mould. I believe that when finished it is supposed to do tricks with sunlight and other whimsical things, can't wait. No really ...

The Lumpy Bumps

You know how it is; finishing off a make over and deciding that a little extra decorative piece would just round off the tout ensemble. So it came to pass that Hull acquired this artfully crafted installation down by the Marina. What is it, do I hear you ask? Hmm, you and the rest of the world ...

Tree Doodle

Over in Pearson Park a chestnut tree about to be felled due to being rotten has been transformed into this interesting oddity; a three headed being each head having a crown and an outstretched arm holding an ice-cream. There's not a lot to say about it really. I like it.

There's another dead tree close by if anyone fancies having a go.

Pleased as Punch

Here's a detail from the ornate exterior of the Punch Hotel on Queen Victoria Square. As the lord of misrule this figure has no doubt been observing the ongoing utter chaos of  the renovation of the town centre with some glee. That's the way to do it!

A whisper of moths

These decorative blobs that have alighted all over town and elsewhere are supposed to be moths. Yeah, I know, you'd never have guessed. Anyhow it's from the same deep pool of idiocy that brought us fibre glass toads to celebrate the death of Philip Larkin; this time the death being celebrated is Amy Johnson's untimely demise in WW2 seventy-five years ago. Nearly sixty of these damn things have been dotted around the place. I've spotted about half a dozen so far and I can assure you I'm not going hunting for the rest. Why moths do I hear you ask? (are you still there?) Well she flew a Gypsy Moth plane, geddit? I know; stooopid. If you're remotely interested in fibre glass lepidoptery there's a gallery of mothy stuff here.

Sailing By

This odd little installation in Bridlington features a transparency of an oil painting, the Great Gale of 1871 by local artist J T Allerston. If you are not from these parts you may not recognise the names surrounding and underneath the picture. These are the shipping forecast areas and to anyone who has listened to BBC Radio 4 as it closes down for the night they will be only too familiar. The forecast was (probably still is, I haven't listened for a while) usually preceded by a piece of light music entitled 'Sailing By'. That tune and the almost poetic recitation of the forecast following was enough to send most people off to sleep; a kind of national lullaby. Some, however, found the shipping forecast altogether more invigorating ...