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.

The Old Junk Shop

When I was young we'd have called this a junk shop but now it's 'antiques' and 'collectables'; so spins the world.

Horace

Horace had the misfortune to encounter the Prince of Wales (not the present droopy muppet, nor yet the even more useless one before him who ran off with his American floozy but the one before that, the habitué of Parisian brothels, him, Albert, I think was his name, do try to keep up)  in Jeypore back in 1876 when the sun never set on the British Empire (as one wit said God didn't trust the British in the dark). Horace sat for a few years in Sandringham before the Royals got bored and fobbed him off to the King's Lynn Museum. So since 1928 Horace has been both scaring and fascinating generations of small, young Lynn folk. And as Margot was one of those youngsters we had to go see him again. He sits in the entrance foyer so it was no trouble. I even bought a postcard.

I've been saying Horace and using masculine pronouns but it turns out Horace is more of a Horatia really. But in these days and in the current climate of political correctness if she wants to identify her herself a he I'm not going to argue. Especially not with a tiger.

Greyfriars Tower

Greyfriars tower was a bell tower for the Franciscan monastery and was built in the 15th century. It is 93 feet  tall in its stockinged feet. I've read that it survived the depredations of Henry VIII as it was a useful navigation aid for shipping on the Great Ouse (St Margaret's and St Nicholas chapel being invisible I suppose). Be that as it may the tower is a rare beast indeed and is the finest example of only three remaining Franciscan towers. Naturally it is a Scheduled Ancient Monument, Grade 1 listed; it is also listing, slightly, towards us in this picture and because of this it is on on English Heritage's Buildings at Risk Register.

This, of course, is the tower that Tower Street refers to; unless there's some other, secret, tower hiding out there.

One or two odd things on Tower Street

A fox toting a set of bagpipes is not exactly a rarity but one smoking a pipe  ... you don't see that everyday. I believe there was also an elephant in this antique shop's front room.

Across the street on Tower Street

And this is Tower Street but that is not the tower to which it refers. That is the Majestic cinema, built mid 1920s and still going strong.

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.