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.

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.

Up before the Beak

This fine weather vane is, I've since found, on the magistrates court's rear, riverside end. Clearly, despite looking like a common cormorant or shag, it's an attempt at the that old, medieval pelican in its piety motif that runs through King's Lynn.

Doing the minimal amount of due diligence that I always do for this work I find that the ancient slang term "Beak" meaning a magistrate has an uncertain etymology (maybe Dutch, maybe Saxon beag a gold collar, maybe this, maybe that ...) and is, in fact somewhat dated and out of fashion, being used only by old folk (like me) and limited to the London area. It seems "Stipe" as in stipendiary magistrate is very much the mot juste among the classes that need a word for a magistrate. Well, all I can say is that I've never heard anyone say "Stipe" in my 63 years but then I've led such a sheltered life.

Self-isolation

No doubt in a few days time we'll all be keeping our distance from each other, eyeing those with minor colds and sniffles with the deepest suspicion, blaming innocents for all our woes as the civilised world (or at least the shops) grind to a virus addled halt all for our own good don't you know ... These measures (whatever they turn out to be) make the Government look like it is, at least, doing something and the last thing a Government wants to be doing is looking on helpless (as it is) and unable to prevent a catastrophe (which it is) ...

But catastrophe? Nah! Not going to happen, we'll muddle on, as we always do. I'm a great believer in the benefits of muddling on; complaining and moaning, but buggering on regardless. It'll all pass, these things do, the next story will come along to worry the worrymongers, and what doesn't kill you only makes you bronchitic (and possibly cyanotic) but life goes on or not as the case may be; and if not then it doesn't matter and you can tell them I've had a wonderful life ...

Now you'll maybe want to wash your hands after reading this ... and keep your distance, go on, back off!