The Red Mount Chapel

Taken by Margot K Juby

On our way to Morrisons for some late night shopping we passed this little beauty in the Walks. I won't bore you with the history of this place just say it's an amazing survivor through some turbulent times and has been recently restored and is open to the public though obviously not at nine o'clock on a September evening. Hopefully we'll be back for a better look round sometime.

Out to the Wash

Here we are again down the Fisher Fleet; this time with a bit of day light. If you carry on past the fishing boats you eventually fetch up at the river, the Great Ouse, which flows out into the Wash. The river no longer flows in its own free way but in a man made channel, dead straight. King's Lynn used to be much nearer the sea but land reclamation, drainage and such things means it's now a few miles inland.

The weekend in black and white is here.

The Fisher Fleet

The Fisher Fleet just after sunset with a bit of a tide to reflect the lights and ghostly almost invisible ducks quacking to themselves is an experience not to be missed. Sure it involves a wee bit of trespass on port authority land but no one will mind too much and even if  they do they can only politely advise you to leave.

Folk have been setting off from here to scour the Wash and North Sea for fish and such like for centuries, these days it's mainly shrimps that provide a living for dozens in King's Lynn.

The Fleet now lies strictly controlled with embankments between two docks and surrounded only by light industry. A painting from the 19th century shows a more rustic, even bucolic, place with folk having a nice family day out by the banks of the stream. I can't see that happening these days. I found a couple of other old paintings here.

Margot Juby took this

Just ignore this sign ...

MargotJuby  took this

And if you are a tad confused over the word fleet, here it means a creek not a collection of boats. In fact the Fisher Fleet is the mouth of the Gaywood river which flows with no great urgency for a few miles and empties into the Great Ouse here. So there you go, it's clear as mud ... There are other 'fleets' in and around Lynn, Millfleet and the Purfleet spring to mind.

Fleeting

Let's not have a sniffle, let's have a bloody-good cry
And always remember: The longer you live
The sooner you'll bloody-well die...

To King's Lynn for a funeral, at very nearly 90 years of age Fred Juby, Margot's old dad, just died while reading an Ian Rankin novel so he didn't miss much ... The service was a strange thing, though quite common these days, I'm told: a non religious event that nevertheless kept to the forms and structures of a religious service. So instead of hymns we had Glenn Miller's foot-tapping In the Mood, John Lennon's Imagine, instead of a prayer a poem (of excruciating banality) instead of a priest a 'humanist' person reading an obituary. I suppose we should mark these passages from life in some way but give me a good old burial in the deep clay complete, if need be, with "Man, that is born of a woman, hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery...He cometh up and is cut down like a flower ..." or better still just feed me to the crows rather than being shuffled off behind a purple curtain while Bud Flanagan sings the Dad's Army theme tune.

So any way it was a good day especially as it wasn't my funeral and we got this grand old double rainbow stretching right across the town.

The Railway

This pub  in Cottingham has been closed since January and was only open for a few weeks over Xmas before that, the seasonal decorations are still up... Basically it's on its uppers and whoever owns it has decided enough is enough and has put in plans to erect "10 dwellings with associated access, parking, landscaping and infrastructure following demolition of hotel". You last saw this place way back in 2012 when it was positively blooming.

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 Jube

Jube, Domine, benedicere

The church of St Mary on Lowgate has featured a few times in this electronic mishmash. I thought I'd posted stuff from inside but maybe it's hiding somewhere I can't find it. Here's the rood screen or jube which separates the paying customers and general riff-raff in the mosh pit or nave from the holy end with the brass and stuff. It supposedly adds to the mystery of what is little more than a two thousand year old confidence trick. This looks pretty old but in fact is from 1912 by one Temple Lushington Moore (you just don't get  names like that any more) as the craze for renovating old English churches was drawing to a close, the Great War would finish off that madness completely. The above is just a detail; it's really quite thing ...