Archilenses and Tuesday Market Place

We can't stay in Tuesday Market Place forever as there's lots more to see but before leaving there's just time to show this quirky installation. It called an archilens, there's apparently two of them though to be honest I only saw this one. (The other is by the Ouse and is just about visible in the middle of  this picture. I did not notice until I read up about it) It's pretty clear what it is and what it does ("Glass panels with inlaid magnifying lenses ... which distort and change the images of the Tuesday Market Place and the Ouse, producing new and exciting views.") so I won't go on.

And before we bid a final farewell to Tuesday Market Place a word about this space which serves as a car park for most of the time but from Valentine's Day each year this place is given over to the King's Lynn Mart, a two week funfair which "pulsates with the sound of loud music, screaming youngsters and whirling machines". This is the first fair in the showmen's guild calendar (Hull Fair is the last). This year was the 814th fair and they don't look as if they're going to stop any time soon. Being in February, Mart weather has entered into the local vocabulary as shorthand for nithering with showers of sleet and snow, Hull Fair weather used to be similar (cold, wet and autumnal) but recently climate changes have meant Hull Fair is balmy, almost muggy (Ew!!). Finally , finally there may even be a market held here on Tuesday's ... who knows; I was here on a Saturday.

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.

Mere Portals

Today I post a collection portals that would otherwise just hang around on my computer. Starting with the rare Baroque barley-twist columns of Clifton House on Queen Street. Bits of this enormous house date from the 13th century.

This too is on Queen Street. There's a Devil's Alley somewhere in these parts, that I must go to see at some point.

This is the Burkitt Homes on Queen Street as well. They look pretty old but but they're just old-fashioned from 1909; fit in well with the surrounding ancient stuff.

Ancient doorway also on Queen Street.

This is opposite St Margaret's, I wonder if the floor matches the window.

Although engraved in stone this is no longer Lloyds Bank but rather the TSB. This is neither the time nor the place to explain how the change came about... It's on good old Tuesday Market and why I didn't post it  back when I showed everything else about Tuesday Market I don't know.

And last and for no other reason than I like it, here's the Customs House doorway by the Purfleet.

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.

From Tuesday to Saturday

Right, we are on our way from Tuesday Market Place to Saturday Market Place via High Street. High Street is a medieval thoroughfare, a little over a quarter mile in length, packed with shops and adjacent to the Vancouver shopping centre. Although the picture doesn't show it the whole area was very busy with folk doing their shopping and/or having a good old gossip. The place looks pretty much as when I first saw it in the late 70s. OK Woolworth's has gone and Timothy White's is now Boots but Burton's is still there and the large selection of shops is just as I remember it. I noticed only two or three closed shops, one of them was a fire damaged charity shop. The comparison with Whitefriargate in Hull a similar street which was once the vibrant go-to place in town but is now effectively dead could not be more striking, but let us not dwell ...

I think I found the only broken lamp on High Street.

Some pagan winter festival is about to be celebrated ...

Another of Mr Burton's art deco style shops that grace many a high street up and down the land.

Street names change over the years. Briggate (Bridge Street in modern parlance) sounds better to me but it's not my town so I don't get no say.

The Witch's Heart

Here is the tale as told to me by reliable and truthful sources who had themselves heard it from equally fine and upstanding folk who ... well you get the idea. Now many years ago, in the 16th century, to be precise 1590, seems as good a year as any, a young woman by the name of Margaret Read was charged with being a witch and sentenced to be burned in the Tuesday Market Place. She must have been a proper witch as burning was three times dearer than a good hanging by the South Gates. Now Margaret didn't think this burning was such a good idea as she had the strange notion that she wasn't a witch at all. So she prophesied that if she was innocent her heart would leap from her body and strike this building and the first person to leave through the doorway would die instantly. Now the good folk of Lynn weren't too impressed by this and weren't going to waste a good pile of wood, (they'd baked cakes and had ale, for a good witch burning was a merry sight) so they went ahead and gave her the full 180°C for twenty minutes per 500g plus twenty minutes at the end. So anyhow you can see how this is tending. As she slowly roasted her heart leapt out across the market place struck this building and then merrily bounced off towards the river and with a splash was never seen again. Whether young Margaret was heard to say " I told you so" was not recorded but just to be sure that no-one forgot her warning the doorway was blocked up and a witch's heart crudely carved into the wall. So now you have my story you can pass it on to others, every word is true I tell you, as true as my name is William Braquemard.

King's Lynn Mart

I mentioned in a post a while back that every year on Valentines Day the Tuesday Market in King's Lynn becomes fun fair for a fortnight or so. When I first heard about this I wondered how they could squeeze a fun fair into a small town square but fit it in they did and have done for centuries so I'm not one to speak...

This year's Mart was shorter than usual due to Council works needing to be done or some such excuse. We caught it on Thursday evening when it seemed a bit deserted and again on Friday afternoon when it was full of screaming kids as fun fairs ought to be. 

The Mart marks the start of the year for those involved in fairground entertainment, the year ends with Hull Fair. It would otiose to compare this neat compact attraction with the sprawling noisy brash thing that sprouts out on Walker Street each October.

Oh yes, I should mention in case you haven't noticed that I've been to King's Lynn for a few days so expect posts from Norfolk for the time being.

The rotating arm thing was visible for miles as you approach the town.

By Sunday evening it had all gone; no sign it was ever here but it'll be back next year.

The Duke's Head Hotel in Blue

Here's the Duke's Head also on Tuesday Market Place. Now memory is a funny old thing but I distinctly remember this place being pink so a rummage through the dusty depths of Google brought forth a confirmation that back in the late 1970s this was indeed a hideous pink confection, you can see for yourself here. I'm not so sure that the blue is much of an improvement; but as I don't live here I don't have to look at it. The building was the house of a local merchant and MP and built in 1683 supposedly to a design by Henry Bell, he of the Customs House (but the Grade 2 listing doubts this attribution). It has been much altered and added to since then having been a bank at one stage. Being built on the site of a much older hotel and being in King's Lynn it is of course reputedly haunted by spectres from its long past.

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?

The South Gate, King's Lynn

I suppose in a rational ordered world this vestige of medieval urban protection would have been cleared away and become nothing but an entry in obscure historical chronicles. A wee sign informs us that this was put up in the early 15th century clearly to bottleneck the flow of carts and horses causing tailbacks over the river Nar and along Friars Street as toll charges were levied and collected on traffic. The sign mentions that the gatekeeper was also "keeper of the muckhills" but thankfully does not elaborate on what that might mean ... The small doors on either side show where pedestrians had had enough and were allowed through. Later on London Road was developed and was as you see it is twice as wide as the gate. So there it stands covering half a road serving no useful purpose other than being a delight to the eye, an oddity in the blandness of modern life.

The gate is open to visitors during the warmer months but not on a chilly  Sunday afternoon in February.

The stone clad frontage is to impress visitors, it's really a brick building similar to the North Bar in Beverley.

The South Gate was the site of the town's gallows where poor unfortunates were hanged if they weren't being roasted in Tuesday Market... Margot suggested these orbs might be the restless souls of the condemned hovering about the place, I think it's just a stinky picture ...

Here's the wee sign I mentioned earlier.

The building is, of course, Grade 1 listed. Here's more by folk who know what they are talking about.

The Corn Exchange

The corn exchange, on Tuesday Market Place, was built in in 1854 with a fine baroque style façade featuring the town's  crest (below) and topped off with a statue of Ceres or Demeter with a sickle and a bundle of corn (below, below). As I was on an very short stay I had no time to go inside and see the transformation into theatre/cinema community arty place along with compulsory coffee shop.

The crest of King's Lynn features three dragons regurgitating a cross. This is an allusion to the story of the town's patron saint, St Margaret of Antioch, who, as was the custom in those days, was swallowed by a dragon but as she was so holy she was indigestible (holy types often are I find) and so was chucked up to use the vernacular. Atop all this nonsense stands a pelican in her piety. This crest appears all over the town in various guises.

The Victorians, in their pursuit of profit in the exchange, seem to have had no qualms about mixing Christian symbolism with pagan idolatry so why should we?

Some bits and bobs

Today is an assortment of photos taken because I was in full tourist mode photographing anything without much discretion. First off is Pilot Street close by St Nicholas chapel and the exorcist's house.

King's Lynn was rich enough to have no fewer than four monasteries leaching off it before good King Henry put an end to such parasitic simony and other restrictive practices. I've shown the Franciscan Greyfriars tower, there were also Dominicans, Carmelites and the above wall is the remnants of the Augustinian monastery. Because Augustinian was a bit of a mouthful for medieval folk it was shortened to Austin; this little road is still known as Austin Street.

The Tudor Rose Hotel with its fine original doorway is just off Tuesday Market Place. It's a 16th century building that comes with resident ghost , a woman in a long white dress who wanders around the place ...

This odd shaped building on Nelson Street, was a medieval pub known as the Valiant Sailor until 1925.

Last for today is St Margaret's Lane which has hanseatic warehousing dating from 1475 and leads down to the river.