King's Lynn

 If there's a town that I am unfamiliar with that promises 'a strange walk' then I'm in. By my standards [which to be frank are probably weirder than most people's] it wasn't that strange, but I did rather fall in love with King's Lynn.

In earlier times the town was situated on the coast and was a trading post in the medieval trade alliance,  the Hanseatic League, which was formed to protect the interests of Northern Europe and the Baltic States. From a position of great dominance the league gradually fractured or lost ground to its rivals and by the mid 17th century it had ceased to be the great powerhouse it had once been. KL is the only town over here that still has an original Hanseatic warehouse. With the ever shifting Eastern coastline KL now finds itself inland, but interestingly it joined the modern equivalent of the Hanseatic league in 2005.

So what does one find as one wanders around the town aside from its strong trading and maritime history? Many beautiful buildings in a myriad of architectural styles for starters.

As for the strange you've got this rather marvellous moon dial upon which the dragon hand points at the moon phases and the tides. It dates from 1683.

If you want to see it for yourself it's on the southwest tower of the Minster church. You don't have to ask whether I took my chances and shot inside for a look whilst we were there. I have to say that my little heart sank as I progressed up towards to the high altar and there was the handiwork of the Victorian improvements stretching out before me. That usually spells the kiss of death for a weirdling like me, but there was a lightness of step as I began to realise that some of the old wooden carvings had survived towards the back. I've just highlighted my favourite greenman misericord and a couple of these tiny 2" carvings that were at head height on one of the screen. I have no answers for what they are supposed to be conveying!

Sadly I didn't get to meet the loony dog.....

This little heart set within a diamond is to be found above the upper set of windows on one of the properties in the Tuesday Market Place. Supposedly this where the heart of a burnt witch burst out and hit the wall. Never let the fact that we didn't burn witches, but hung them in England get in the way of a good story

Below is the so called 'Exorcist's House' which sits in the grounds of St Nicholas' chapel [currently closed] and was built in 1635. Nobody know why it's been given this name save it's built on the site of an earlier property where the clergy lived. Somehow it managed to look slightly menacing even against a bright blue sky.

I thoroughly enjoyed my day of wandering around. There's a wide range of things to enjoy here and we ran out of time to visit the museums. Sometimes it's the unplanned elements which are the best. For a treat we decided to buy ourselves lunch at Spoons and as we walked past I noticed the Guild Hall which has been featured on a couple of documentaries and is currently undergoing a major refurbishment. At one point in time it was a priory, a button factory, a French school and it is still used as a theatre today. Indeed the earliest record of a play was the nativity in January 1445 When they went down through the layers the archaelogists found the original early 15th century oak plank floors still in situ and there's a team still there excavating and trying to bring this fascinating building's story into the light. I know that many places lay spurious claims to Shakespeare, but recent research has backed this place's claim to fame up. It seems likely that The Bard was here in 1592/3 when the London theatres were closed due to the plague. I had kind of assumed that there would be no access for the public as it's a current dig site, but quite the opposite is true and people are welcome to join a free volunteer led guided tour. It was fascinating and I truly welomed having the opportunity to chat to the team about their latest findings. As you might imagine the story changes day by day.

 That I think will do for Norfolk tales. Time to move on to what I've been getting up to since I got back.

Arilx