An extract from my forthcoming book

King's Lynn

King's Lynn and the Great Ouse

King’s Lynn, or Bishop’s Lynn as it was, or just Lynn as she is to locals, was once the third largest port in the country, and a member of the lucrative Hanseatic League. The name derives from a word for a lake, and the King was Henry VIII. 

The Trinity Guildhall

Trinity Guildhall, with its flushwork (the patterning that contrasts freestone with knapped flint) facade has stood on the Saturday Market Place since the early 15th century. Today it forms part of the Town Hall, and houses the Stories of Lynn Museum and the Old Gaol House.

Windows of the Trinity Guildhall

Just across the Saturday Market Place is another great building - King’s Lynn Minster, 

St Margaret's Church, now King's Lynn Minster

which was founded in 1101 by Herbert de Losinga, the first Bishop of Norwich. It has been considerably altered since then, with the west front showing four centuries of the development of English church architecture.

The High Altar - The Minster

The King's Lynn Heritage Action Zone area, with the Conservation Area at its heart, contains 462 listed buildings (17 Grade I, 55 Grade II* and 390 Grade II), including the Grade I St Nicholas Chapel, England’s largest surviving parochial chapel;

 

St Nicholas' Chapel

the Grade I St George’s Guildhall, the largest surviving medieval guildhall in the country 

Outside the Guildhall of St George

and the Grade I Hanse House (1485), the only surviving Hanseatic Warehouse in England.

The Hanse House

A 42 acre restored 18th century park, known as The Walks, contains the 15th century Red Mount Chapel, one of only two octagonal chapels in Europe.

Red Mount Chapel

This was once a wayside chapel for pilgrims to Walsingham, many of whom arrived by ship in King’s Lynn. Near by is Greyfriars Tower, all that remains of a Franciscan Friary founded in the early 13th century.

Greyfriars Tower

The Lynn Museum, just by the bus station, tells the story of West Norfolk, and includes the Seahenge which was found on the coast near Holme. True’s Yard Fisherfolk Museum covers the town’s maritime heritage and also has a traditional tea room and shop, all housed in a reclaimed Victorian cottages.

True's Yard

Today Lynn is much changed since its heyday but it’s a busy place, with warehouses, quays and bars alongside the Great Ouse.

Old Warehouses by the Great Ouse

In the Tuesday Market Place

Dancing in the Tuesday Market Place

there has been a traditional fair, called the Mart, every February for over 800 years, and for over seventy years the King’s Lynn Arts Festival has brought classical music and the arts to Lynn in July. 

The Mayor - Councillor Paul Bland

For 39 years Festival Too has taken place in King's Lynn and in 2024 28 acts performed across three weekends in the summer, ranging from emerging local talent to internationally renowned musicians. The Guildhall of St George, on King Street, was probably built in the 1430s and is still a working theatre, with a recently discovered arch possibly leading to the dressing room Shakespeare used in 1593.

The Deputy Mayor - Councillor Andy Bullen

The port is still active, and in 2022 it handled 420,939 tonnes of cargo carried by 191 vessels. The commodities handled included aggregates, barley, fertilisers, steel, stone, sugar beet, salt, timber, and wheat. Fishing and pleasure boats tie up alongside Marriot’s Warehouse, and a ferry will take you across the river to West Lynn….

The Old Custom House, on the Purfleet

On the Purfleet there is the old Custom House, designed by Henry Bell and built in 1683, and there is a statue of explorer George Vancouver, who gave his name to, among other places, Vancouver, Vancouver Island and two Mount Vancouvers, one in the Yukon and the other in New Zealand.

Captain George Vancouver

If you would like to explore the town the best way to start is with a guided walking tour of Historic Lynn with the King’s Lynn Town Guides. The walking season is from Easter Bank Holiday Monday until 31st October and all walks start at the Saturday Market Place, outside the Tourist Information Centre (unless otherwise specified). For more information about these and other walks or to book an individual tour, visit

 www.kingslynntownguides.co.uk

Hampton Court, part of Historic Lynn

*     *     *     *     * 

Although the layout and some of the pictures will not appear like this, the text is an extract from my new book, Starting from Snettisham, which is designed as an introduction to/appreciation of some of the joys of North-West Norfolk, from King's Lynn to Wells-next-the-sea, both for those who visit or who may be new to the area, and also as a reminder to those who know Norfolk well just how fortunate we are to live here. It could make a perfect gift for visitors and relatives as well…..

The reason I have called it Starting from Snettisham is that the village of Snettisham became our home when I moved here with my wife, Amanda, a few years ago. Although Amanda was already suffering quite badly from fronto-temporal dementia, we managed to explore the area around us for a couple of years before her condition deteriorated so much that she had to move into residential care, though even then I would take her out in her wheel chair to visit places around us, such as Burnham Market, Sandringham and Hunstanton. 

The cover of the new book

In 2023 I produced A Snapshot of Snettisham, a 72 page all colour book about the village, which I sold to raise money for The Friends of St Mary’s Snettisham (which was set up for those with or without faith who are interested in supporting and protecting the church building itself and the significant role it plays within the village and the wider community) and The National Brain Appeal (the charity dedicated to raising funds for the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery and the University College of London Queen Square Institute of Neurology, which cared for Amanda). 

The cover of last year's book

Amanda died on February 1st, 2024, and I decided to produce another book in memory of the places Amanda and I explored before her dementia got the better of her. It is in the same format as its predecessor, and again I am hoping to raise money for the same two charities.

The price is £12 a copy, and once the printing costs are covered every penny will go to the two charities. If you would like to purchase one please get in touch via email (richardpgibbs@aol.com) and as soon as I can I will mail them out - though of course I will also have to charge some postage.

{Incidentally I reprinted a few more copies of A Snapshot of Snettisham, at the same price, if you think you might like one of them too!}

In the ruins of God's Own Country

The still sad music of humanity.....

God's Own Country - the North York Moors

Cast your minds back, if you can, to the summer of 1533.  In Yorkshire (as we know it now) there were a number of fine Abbeys, Priories, Canonries and Friaries and sundry smaller religious convents.  These were, of course, all Catholic.  You can see monks at work in their libraries, illustrating manuscripts while lay brothers toil in the fields and in the workshops associated with the monasteries.  You can see the aged and infirm in the shady places by streams that run by the great stone buildings. You can hear a bell calling the community to one of the regulated services.  You can hear a reading from the bible over the general scraping and slurping of mealtimes.  

Whitby Abbey

 

Meanwhile in the Tower of London, awaiting the coronation of the already pregnant new Queen Consort, Anne Boleyn, on Sunday 1 June 1533, there was a bulky and peevish monarch who had not yet sired a son and who was troubled by debt and the expenses of warfare. 

Whitby - a Benedictine abbey

And at around the same time Martin Luther, himself once an Augustinian Friar, was, on the back of the thoughts of Erasmus of Rotterdam, promoting scepticism of the values of monasticism, and the Protestant Reformation brought about significant changes in the religious landscape of Europe, especially in Scandinavia, and this all had a profound impact on monastic life.

Rievaulx - in the valley of the Rye

 

In 1533, in England, which had a population of around three million (so around 500,000 adult males), roughly one man in fifty was in one or other of the religious orders, living and working in one of the 900 or so religious houses (260 for monks, 300 for canons, 183 for friars, as well as 142 for nuns).

Rievaulx - a Cistercian Abbey

 

These religious orders were (to attempt a simplification) in order of power and wealth, Benedictines and Cistercians [who worked and prayed and had communities of lay brothers], Carthusians [who lived in almost solitary confinement within grand surroundings], Franciscans [who tended to care for the poor and lived very simply], Premonstratensians [of the Order of Canons Regular of Prémontré - who were white canons, often priests attached to a church], or Augustinians [black friars, semi-monastic priests devoted to pastoral care]. 

 

Guisborough Priory - an Augustinian priory

There were many variants, such as the Trappists [Cistercians of the Strict Order] and Dominicans [the Order of Preachers, or Friars Preachers, as opposed to the Franciscans who were Friars Minor] but let’s move on......

Egglestone Abbey - a Praemonstratensian abbey

 

So, such confusion apart, the unhappy truth in that cool summer of 1533 was that H8 was short of cash, so instead of jousting and hunting, plucking the lute or tripping the light fantastic, he put his mind to fund-raising (not unlike a modern-day chancellor of the exchequer) and in 1534 he pushed the Act of Supremacy through parliament.  This defined the right of his magnificence to be supreme head on earth of the Church of England, thereby severing ecclesiastical links with Rome. 

Egglestone Abbey

Henry then followed this with the Suppression of Religious Houses Act 1535.  This Act applied only to lesser houses which have not in lands, tenements, rents, tithes, portions, and other hereditaments, above the clear yearly value of two hundred pounds.  And then, in short, he followed this with the Second Suppression Act of 1539, which allowed the dissolution of the larger monasteries and religious houses. Monastic land and buildings were confiscated and sold off to families who sympathised with Henry's break from Rome. By 1540 monasteries were being dismantled at a rate of fifty a month.....

Byland Abbey

 

This whole project was orchestrated by Thomas Audley, the Lord Chancellor, with the assistance of Richard Rich, head of the Court of Augmentations, though it fell to Thomas Cromwell, Vicar-General and Viceregent of England to oversee the action.  

 

Byland Abbey - a Cistercian abbey

In many cases the suppression went ahead with little opposition, the erstwhile incumbents receiving pensions and the local people profiting from building materials and sundry perks.  In some cases, such as Westminster, Canterbury, Rochester, Norwich and Ely, the churches were retained as Cathedrals (Henry realised the value of maintaining control of the people through religion) and some abbots became bishops, but where there was resistance, as in Yorkshire with the Pilgrimage of Grace, retribution was violent and merciless.

Easby Abbey

 

But was this a Taliban or Islamic State kind of purification, or narcissistic vandalism, such as some of the world’s contemporary leaders could be responsible for?  Henry’s motivations were no doubt complex, and probably confused.  He had advisors and like Putin he felt he had to finance both war and defence, whether either made a lot of sense in the long run.  The monasteries were rich and their lands until the dissolution covered almost a third of England (it was said that had the Abbot of Glastonbury married the Abbess of Shaftesbury their heir would have owned more land than the King) and their income was more than three times that of the King’s crown properties (how things change!)

Easby Abbey - a Premonstratensian abbey

 

It was, as they say, a no-brainer.  With the desire to prove he was Head of the Church (of England) and with financial constraints, the monasteries had to go.

Jervaulx Abbey - in the valley of the Ure (now Wensleydale)

 

So now what do we have?  Although there are, now, working monasteries in Britain, the majority of the great medieval houses are in ruins.  Some were adapted into private houses, such as Byron’s home at Newstead Abbey, others were incorporated into farms, such as Wingfield Manor in Derbyshire.  Some now are in private hands, like Jervaulx; others are managed by English Heritage and others by the National Trust.  Some attract the crowds, with extensive grounds and many facilities, like Fountains Abbey; others, such as Byland or Roche stand as ghostly remains of former greatness, with just the shades of their history to interest the occasional visitor.

Jervaulx Abbey - a Cistercian abbey

 

Over the years I have visited many of this country’s finest ruins, from Lindisfarne to Tintern, Kirkstall to Llanthony Priory, from Mount Grace to Glastonbury.  Just recently I returned to Yorkshire, “God’s Own Country,” as they call it, where amidst the space and grandeur of the valleys and moors, there is no shortage of roofless monuments to the wealth and power that Henry VIII harnessed to his own ends.

 

Roche Abbey

There is something metaphorical about the ruination of God’s Own Country – the Church of England, founded by Henry, is no longer the cornerstone of English life, though the rituals remain, and many, like me, love the solace of church interiors and many indeed still raise their voices in hymns of praise, or Christmas Carols at the least.....

Roche Abbey - Sancta Maria de Rupe (rocks or cliffs)

 

But there is more to it, I think.  These ruins are the story of man’s abilities to create and to destroy.  First, look at the soaring walls that supported the great roofs, the towers and crypts and arches that were built without cranes or JCBs.  Look at the remains of rose windows in the west fronts, or the reticulated and panel tracery in the clerestories; admire the quoins and the carved capitals, and in some cases see how river water was redirected through the buildings for culinary and sanitary needs.

Fountains Abbey

 

Then, think of the minds, the plans, the organisation and the orders involved in smashing these wonderful places to bits.  Yes, there were arrangements for the surrendering monks and friars, and properties and artefacts were sold off, but the effect of the dissolution, which was practically concluded in 1540, just barely four years since the idea was proposed, was for many people to be out of work, for poverty and illness to reap their rewards, for education to fall by the wayside and for farming and land management to be put back several centuries.

Fountains Abbey - a Cistercian abbey

 

Did Henry foresee the masses who troop to Fountains Abbey for family days out?  Did he anticipate the swooning romanticisms of Wordsworth and Turner?  Of course not.  His intentions were of his time.  What we now experience is partly ‘anemoia,’ a nostalgia for a time you have never known, but it is also, I suggest, an appreciation of the way human endeavour is capable of creating beauty that has practical value in harmony with nature.

Fountains Abbey - the Cellarium (a food store)

 

‘God’s own country is in ruins,’ is perhaps a harsh judgement, but maybe we can take two lessons from all this: firstly, the world needs to learn to avoid allowing any individual’s power to go unchallenged (that’s a clumsy phrase!) And secondly, we need to preserve a healthy working relationship with the natural world, for the good not just of us, the human being, but for the future of the planet.....

Fountains Abbey

And I have felt

A presence that disturbs me with the joy

Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime

Of something far more deeply interfused,

Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,

And the round ocean and the living air,

And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:

A motion and a spirit, that impels

All thinking things, all objects of all thought,

And rolls through all things.

Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798

William Wordsworth

God's Own Country

Nothing Beside Remains

 Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.....

The ruins of St James's Church, Bawsey

I'm not here to talk about current affairs, and I don't (usually) do politics..... It's almost precisely twelve months since we moved to Norfolk.  Tempus fxxxit, n'est-ce pas? And in that time how has the world crumbled? 

Castle Acre Priory

I mean, only the other day, I met a traveller from an antique land,

Who said to me - 

Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. . . . 

Really? I said,

Near them, on the sand, he said, 

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Yes.....?  It does remind me of someone.....

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

You know, I really don't wish to get involved in politics, if you don't mind.....

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

My name is Bozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. 

Are you somehow being ambiguous? I asked.  I certainly do despair, but perhaps for the wrong reasons?  Is this the sort of place you had in mind?

Castle Rising

Well....  He said: Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Bozymandias 

Percy (Pfeffel) Shelley

St Margaret's Church, West Raynham

Which somehow made me think of that old joke; What's the difference between Henry VIII and Boris Johnson?

And? I hear you squeal.  They were both born catholics, had six wives (some mistake? Ed.), and destroyed the health service (perhaps not quite what the dissolution of the monasteries was meant to do, but I take your point, Ed.)....  What is the difference?

St Margaret's Church, West Raynham

Henry VIII didn't think he was Winston Churchill.....

That's not a joke!

Too right it isn't.....  Boom, bloody Boom!

Anyway, as I was saying, Norfolk is full of ruins, and I have come to feel at home in them (and around them.....)

Steam Trawler Sheraton, St Edmund's Point, Old Hunstanton

It isn't just churches, and castles. There are traces of past industry, like this decaying jetty at Snettisham, from which shingle was loaded onto transports to be taken across the Wash to Lincolnshire for the WW2 airfields....

And then there is this flag that hangs in All Saints, Burnham Thorpe, a memento of the violent death of Admiral Lord Nelson, who was born there, son of the Rector....

But decaying ruins abound. This is Baconsthorpe Castle, for two hundred years until 1650 the home of the Heydon family, (well known for their contributions to the Tory Party).....

And this is an image of the remains of Castle Acre Castle, a Norman fortress on a significant mound....

Not to be confused with Castle Rising castle, which, although Norman, was probably not designed as a building with a military, defensive nature, but which became the residence of  Queen Isabella, widow (and alleged murderess) of Edward II......

When all is said, and done, however, the majority of ruins around here had some religious significance.  One of the grandest was Castle Acre Priory.....

Though Walsingham, whose remains are slender, would have been a fine second best....

Perhaps especially as there was also a Priory in the neighbourhood (not to mention the Slipper Chapel and the pilgrimage centres).....

And, not surprisingly, there are lesser establishments, like St Mary's Friary at Burnham Norton.....

And the burnt out site of Creake Abbey.....

But perhaps my favourite is Binham Priory.....

Not only perhaps because of its fine, gently folding, rural setting, nor because the church is still maintained and active, the nave lit by high lancet windows, but perhaps because there is an automated cheese shop next door where one can acquire Mrs Catherine Temple's Binham Blue cheese (Norfolk's only cow's milk blue cheese) or  Norfolk Dapple (from Ferndale Farm), or Baron Bigod cheese (made by Fen Farm Dairy).....

Very very hard to better, whatever the season.....

So....  Henry VIII might have aspired to go down in history as one of the most charismatic rulers to sit on the English throne, but, and I hope you won't mind a brief quote from Wikipedia?  Domestically, Henry is known for his radical changes to the English Constitution, ushering in the theory of the divine right of kings. He also greatly expanded royal power during his reign. He frequently used charges of treason and heresy to quell dissent, and those accused were often executed without a formal trial..... He achieved many of his political aims through the work of his chief ministers, some of whom were banished or executed when they fell out of his favour.....

Henry was an extravagant spender, using the proceeds from the dissolution of the monasteries and acts of the Reformation Parliament. He also converted the money that was formerly paid Rome into royal revenue. Despite the money from these sources, he was continually on the verge of financial ruin due to his personal extravagance, especially in relation to refurbishment of his flat in Downing Street.....

Now I think there may have been a typo in that last sentence, but it is easy for the naive (aka me) to get confused between H8 and ABPJ (aka Bozymandias?)

Both seem to have had (and I deliberately use the past for the two of them) egos which suffocated reason. Both wished to consolidate power and to stifle opposition, eliminating rivals when necessary.  And both drew financial leverage from crafty schemes and dubious connections but still profligately overspent.....    

Both had Two vast and trunkless legs of stone, Both, at least in my imagination, had shattered visages, frowns, wrinkled lips, and sneers of cold command...... 

And, as if that wasn't enough, they presided over the destruction of institutions which (even if they might have needed reformation) contributed much good to society.....

(So here's one for that colossal wreck, Party Alex...)

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,

If the women don't get you, the liquor must......

Jelly Roll Morton

Oh, Didn't He Ramble?

Nothing beside remains