Let us fade

This is St Nick's (chapel of ease) again, back in February and still in King's Lynn in case you were wondering. Quite why St N's is on St Anne's Street is probably something to do with there being a St Ann's fort at sometime just down the road though why name a fort after St Ann (with or without an e) is another question. It's my story, not much of a story I agree but it's all mine and I'll digress if I want to ... where was I? Oh yes all that end is now cleared away to become the subject of on-line forums filled with fading black and white photos and equally fading memories... and there's a museum, I think I mentioned, there's a museum. There's a car wash too, do you want to see the car wash? ... it's quite colourful ... at night.

Just some trees

Here we're back in King's Lynn in the Walks. Peeking out the background is that old Red Mount Chapel but the trees in their late winter finery are the stars here.

Nothing but the night

Oh never fear, man, nought's to dread,
  Look not to left nor right:
In all the endless road you tread
  There's nothing but the night.

                                      A.E. Houseman

A war memorial in a town is, unfortunately, no great surprise, every town I've been in has one. Hartlepool, no town of any great size, has a massive one in the heart of town, Hull has one (well several really if you start to add them up 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 ... though this is not exhaustive). This is King's Lynn's sad remembrance for fallen youth in a quite splendid setting next to the Greyfriars' tower. 

Dieu et mon droit

"In a revolution, as in a novel. the most difficult part to invent is the end."

                                                                                        Alexis de Tocqueville.

A monarchy is these days and indeed any days a ridiculous institution, the head of state chosen by who puts his squawky head first into the world from between the legs of the reigning monarch's consort. We live in unusual times in that the next one in line came direct from the monarch's crotch but no mind, it's bonkers, you know it, I know it and even they know it. 

But that is just the beginning, as it were, for once monarchised the individual has no point in life other than to be a dumb rubber stamp for the Government. There are, of course compensations, the pay is good, the lodgings palatial and the fawning lackeys infinite. And all you have to do is roll up once a year in a horse and cart, read a short speech, written for you (on goat skin parchment) declare Parliament open for business and then bugger orf for another year. 

But as someone once said no sane man can be anything but ashamed of the government he lives under so it is mightily demeaning for us to continue this constitutional failure of the English Revolution (1649 and all that ...) year after year. But what to replace it with? Hmm? An elected president, I hear you say. But what powers would such a person have? Queenie has been around now for over 60 years but she can't say boo to a goose without the Government telling her to. An elected person would clearly have some mandated power simply by being elected. This would, like the fabled gun on a West End stage, have to be used at some point and then comes constitutional mess. We would not want to end like our colonial cousins with their elected monarch and spend three out of every four years arraigning (Thank you Freud; I meant to write 'arranging' but we'll let it stand as it is) his successor clearly those founding fathers hadn't thought this through. But that is not our concern.

Well then let us have a president with only "meet and greet" functions, a puppet (or muppet) to call Head of State, someone to wheel out for special ...

So who would want the job and what qualifications are needed? Would a sane person be fit to appoint to such a meaningless and thankless position surely they would tire and want more, be bored, get diverted. The sort of person who might put themselves forward would be instantly suspect. No, much rather pick some slow witted person, someone who has shown no great intelligence, a person who has perhaps been the product of generations of breeding and selection, a special someone for the purpose (horses for courses, as they say). Where would we find such a fellow ... where indeed? I think I know just the man.

The picture is the top of the old county court house which I would say was on London Road but I see is now officially on St James' Road but, never mind, both roads are in King's Lynn. That the English monarch should have a French motto comes as no surprise to us poor bloody English and if Les Français should tire of Monsieur le President I'm sure Lizzie would be only too glad to take over the reigns; I believe they still secretly lay claim to bits (if not the tout ensemble) of La Patrie. Bonkers!

The Long Pond

I'm going through some pictures that somehow failed to get in here when they should have. This is, as the title says, the Long Pond in King's Lynn. It was taken in February this year while the country was falling slowly into a nightmare from which it has failed to awaken.

Here's the other end of the other half, a road runs across it. Someone must have been through and taken out all the shopping trolleys, it looked spick and span as they used to say before they were muzzled.

Even before the new normal became the normal duffers needed telling how not to drown.

Ten Years After

'...the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more.'

This shop...  You do remember shops, don't you? You could wander in off the street (streets were places you could walk without needing a "reasonable excuse") and look at stuff and maybe, if you wanted, you might buy stuff at your leisure... well this shop is or was in King's Lynn way back in February before the Batshit Times descended and common sense died so many deaths from the hands of the lockdown lunatics. 

There is a desire amongst folk, folk who would ordinarily not have anything to do with superstition or astrology or ascribing significance to the motion of stars, to celebrate or at least mark in some way going round the sun a certain number times. So they have birthdays and wedding anniversaries and so on. Is there any point in all this nonsense? (It's to mark the passing of the time, you old cynic, well what else does time do other than pass ...) Counting off the years seems pretty damn useless, much like counting your breath or worse. So for those who are into that kind of thing today is apparently ten years since I started this fine blog. For all my good works I get called a "curmudgeon"; this it seems is the judgement of my peers (or at least one of them). You no doubt can find worse words to use, so use them while you still can.  

The Purfleet, King's Lynn

I've shown the Purfleet and Customs House before (here) so I suppose I need a reasonable excuse to show it again but I can't be bothered to make one up. These buildings were mainly the former homes and warehouses of wealthy merchants (poor merchants leave no traces I suppose). I admit I don't know what they are used for now. This spot featured in a recent film adaptation of  David Copperfield when it might have looked like this (everyone in a pre-Raphaelite glow, spotless and keeping a goodly 6 foot separation t'was ever thus back in the day).

The Purfleet behind the Customs House. The little bridge is on Queen Street. The buildings on the right house restaurants, hairdressers, tanning salons (the sun never shines enough for some apparently) and an estate agents all closed now I'm guessing as "non-essential". Seeing these pictures reminds me what a cold wind was blowing that day back in February, cut right through you and out the other side.

Are there pylons still in the heart of town?

Can you see the sparks in any other part of town?
Does the current flow out of every line?
No, it's just on this street in King's Lynn.

This pretty adornment to the street scene gives a towering feeling (well it's several storeys high) to John Kennedy Road and brings the oscillating electrons and possibly an overpowering feeling to a sub station just off to the left.

The weekend in black and white is here.

With apologies to Lerner and Loewe.

St George's Guildhall, King's Lynn

As if the guildhall I posted yesterday wasn't enough there's another one just along the road, St George's Guildhall on King Street. This too is early 15^th century and claims to be "the oldest and largest complete medieval Guildhall in England with an unrivalled history as a venue for theatrical production." A local story has it that during a plague in London Shakespeare came to King's Lynn to stay at a mate's house along with his merry band of cut throats, imps, pimps and banjo players and performed one of his plays (what he wrote) here. It's a good story and King's Lynn has been dining out on it for centuries. Now academics seem to support it and academics have a direct line to God's own truth as we all know.
The place as you might imagine has history, a history which is too long for me to even attempt to condense and you can read all about it here.
It's now a gallery, theatre, arty smarty place with a cafe in the cellar (or undercroft as the locals like to call it) where subversives meet to plot the downfall of western civilisation, smokers can stand outside...

The Guildhall, King's Lynn

I posted the Guildhall on the Saturday Market before, here, but I don't think I came close to showing its full splendour. This stitch-up is, I think, a bit better. It's a little gem, no strike that, it's a big gem, a Koh-i-Noor of building. It dates from the 1420s with later bits and bobs. There's a dry as dust architectural description here but you can skip that and just stand back, let your eyes feast on its beauty.

Streets filled with cars, please advise ...

Cars are odd things when you think about them. They're not cheap to buy at least new ones aren't, they're not cheap to run (petrol and tax and insurance and maintenance and so on). They represent locked up capital of several hundreds if not thousands of pounds per unit. And yet and yet for 95% of their useful lifetime they are just left on the side of the road; little heaps of private savings slowly rusting in the Norfolk rain. Odd but then there's nowt so queer as folk as they never say in these parts.

This is George Street, King's Lynn where it's infinitely easier to walk down the road than on the pavement. These houses are 2 up 2 down terrace dwellings from the end of the 19^th century, workers cottages they might be called by those who never work. Go through the front door and you're into the front room; they have no gardens, just tiny brick walled backyards leading onto a back alley. It is a popular street for young families of mainly immigrant (Eastern European) workers. It's not bad housing by any means, with central heating, double glazing and fitted carpets they can be cosy little kennels, trouble is people aren't dogs (for the most part).

I'm trying not to think what a deep circle of hell it must be being "locked down" on this street (for no good reason) and tomorrow the first really warm day of the year is forecast and with the temptation of the Loke Road playground and the Long Pond so close by.

Escapism

I mentioned at the start of this month how Henry Le Strange built a very successful railway to get folk from King's Lynn to Hunstanton, well thanks to 1960s profligacy that line no longer exists. You'll have to find other means of escape that's if the CovidNazis will ever let you out of your house again. Above we have the neatly decorated KL station still pretending it is run by British Rail (Queenie regularly uses this place and they haven't told her about denationalisation) and below all that's left of Hunstanton station where the trains ran into the sea...

Here's a little something extra, a relatively young John Betjeman (younger than me, let us say) taking us on a day trip from Lynn to Hunstanton. Look, listen and learn not least how to pronounce Hunstanton and Snettisham. A different country in so many ways.

Triple tattoosies

On the first Sunday of Operation Domestic Internment I thought that, for want of anything better, some tattoo parlours might fill the gap until tomorrow. Above from Hunstanton has a fine pun and skull. Below from King's Lynn is just showing off but somehow does not overcome the sleaze, I mean a red door off a side street off London Road... definitely as it should be done.

And finally who has the bad luck to open up just days before the current outbreak of stupidity? Good job he hadn't got too settled in. But "Angry Badger"?  What's that all about? This one is just down the road in Hull and was the site of the short lived "Killer Kitchens" enterprise ("Kitchens to die for at slashed prices"!) ... some might say places have a doom on them.

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.

St Peter's Church, West Lynn

This little church made a brief appearance in a post sometime back (here) without any comment. So today here's St Peter's over in West Lynn from the King's Lynn side and below a little bit closer. The building dates from Norman times and has had bits added over the years including the tower in the 14th century with the last renovation in the 20th century.

The Government has decreed this evening that we shall not leave our homes save for essential shopping, medical needs and exercise once a day. Meh! I usually only ever leave my house for essential shopping, medical needs and exercise once a day in any case so this don't impress me much. Non-essential shops are being closed (*gallic shrug*) and bus services are being cut back but then they never ran on time  so I doubt we'll notice. All should be well unless tell-tales, nosy neighbours and the police decide to play silly buggers in which case all will be far from well. It's hardly the end of the world, yet. It's weird how many folk want their liberties taken away from them ("Please lock us up for our good"!). Oddly (or perhaps not) the most vociferous are those on the left who, well you might have thought they'd know better... I might write to my MP or then again I might not... I am bored by all this tedious nonsense as I'm sure most folk are and will try not to mention it again. You will not find me writing a diary of the "lockdown" (God forbid!) I shall just muddle on here as I always do. Oh before I go, never forget in all this no matter what you do or how you play it ... mors vincit omnia!

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.

Framingham's Hospital, King's Lynn

First sight I thought this looks a veritable old building but doing this blog has taught me nothing is ever quite what it seems. A wee plaque, so often my source of information, explains how the expansion of the cattle market drove the building of these replacement Tudor style almshouses in 1848.  Despite, or perhaps because of, being at the cutting edge of the Industrial Revolution our Victorians were seemingly so backward looking stylistically. 

Anyhow here it is close by the entrance to the Walks, opposite the Library and near where the town mill would have stood that I mentioned yesterday. A cattle market in the centre of town may have had a certain financial appeal to overcome the obvious odorous downside but it closed down long ago; that space is now the bus station in the modern-Elizabethan style.

Those twiddly bits and fancy windows could have paid for a building twice the size ... but reason not the need, eh!

Millfleet, King's Lynn

This completes the trio of fleets that run through and around the old town of King's Lynn, the Fisher Fleet, Purfleet and now this delightful burbling brook on what was then the southern edge of town, known as the Millfleet. It will come as no surprise to learn that it was used to drive a corn mill, though apparently the flow of water, being tidal, was, at times, so low it wasn't much use. In an early case of protectionist measures all the good folk of 15^th century Lynn had to have their corn milled at the town mill or they would "forfeit the grain or the flour produced outside town, which may be confiscated by the common sergeant or someone else and put to the use of the community. " The image of the jolly miller of old is, of course,  a myth. The mill seems not to have been a tremendous success and was cleared away to make room for London Road in the early 1800s.

This wild vegetation is hiding the site of long demolished grain silos and warehouses near to Devil's Alley.

And that I'm afraid is all there is to see of the once much longer Millfleet since Victorian noses and sensibilities had had enough of what, at low tide, was a stinking sewer and at a cost of £12,846 they covered it up in the 1890s to everyone's delight. It now runs under a road called Millfleet unsurprisingly.
This has been by necessity a briefest of brief passing glances at this site which has a history going back to Saxon times, at least, the stream then was known as Sewoldsfled. Boal Street, on the left of this picture was extremely important to the medieval port of Lynn. There's loads more; you could write books about it but that's not my job ... Here's a link to some more about Millfleet and its history.

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 ...

South Quay, King's Lynn

The weekend in black and white is here.