Thursday 4th October 2018, Cambridge
Yesterday we spent the day in King's Lynn. It is a very pleasant little market town on the edge of the River Ouse. The town was one of the members of the Hanseatic league - a sort of 14th/16th century free trade association of mainly major coastal cities around the Baltic in Germany, and in Scandinavia, as far north as Bergen. King's Lynn was once one of Britain's most important and influential trading cities and was a wealthy and attractive town. It is still charming today with its 18th century brick buildings, its wharves, waterfront houses and regular town markets. It has a customs house on the quayside and streets of affluent merchant houses, many with attractive porticoes. It has an original Carnegie library built in the local stone - a sort of reddish coloured sandstone that darkens over time to the colour of gingerbread. Used in small, brick sized pieces it make an attractive and distinctive building style.
College Lane. Guildhall at end. King's Lynn. Norfolk.
Minster. 1101 and later. King's Lynn. Norfolk.
Trinity Guildhall. 1420s. King's Lynn. Norfolk.
Corn Exchange. 1854. Tuesday Market Place. King's Lynn. Norfolk.
Saint Nicholas Chapel. West window. King's Lynn. Norfolk.
Saint Nicholas Chapel. Thomas Greene, King's Lynn, Norfolk
Saint Nicholas Chapel. Monument. King's Lynn. Norfolk.
Saint Nicholas Chapel. Porch. King's Lynn. Norfolk.
Saint Nicholas Chapel. Tower. King's Lynn. Norfolk
Red Mount Chapel. 1483-1509. King's Lynn. Norfolk.
Guannock Gate. Leading to Vancouver Garden. King's Lynn. Norfolk.
Public Library. Carnegie building. 1905? King's Lynn. Norfolk.
Greyfriars Tower. With war memorial. King's Lynn. Norfolk.
Minster. Braunche brass. 1364. King's Lynn. Norfolk
Minster. Braunche brass. Rubbing. King's Lynn. Norfolk.
Trinity Guildhall. With Minster, Saturday Market Place. King's Lynn. Norfolk.
Marriott's warehouse. 1580s. King's Lynn. Norfolk.
Hanse House. 1475. King's Lynn. Norfolk.
Custom House. King's Lynn. Norfolk.
Anonymous handbills. W, B.Bullen, 1837. King's Lynn. Norfolk.
We found a campsite a few miles outside of the town for the night and this morning made our way towards Cambridge. Along the way we stopped at Downham Market. This proved to be a pleasant little town, big enough to have everything one needed in the way of supermarkets, even a small department store, schools, offices, law courts and plenty of free parking! It even had a Wetherspoons, as usual in one of the towns most interesting buildings with historic photos and articles pertaining to the property displayed on the walls.
Clock tower. Downham Market. Norfolk.
So-called Priory. Downham Market. Norfolk.
We continued to Ely across the flat landscape of Cambridgeshire, it cathedral visible long before we reached the city.
Ely - the Isle of eels?- lies a few miles from Cambridge amidst the canals of the Fens. It stands on a boss surrounded by the flat wheat fields and straight hedgerows of Cambridgeshire. In the harshness of extreme winter weather the canals may still freeze over and it may still be possible to skate along the canals from Ely to Cambridge as used to happen. It is an exciting and imaginative image in my mind recalled from “Tom’s Midnight Garden” by Phillipa Pearce, an exciting fantasy novel written for teenagers in the gentler age of my youth. The shopping area is compact, with a daily market and a couple of streets of shops as well as a modern shopping precinct. There are the usual assortment of charity shops and second-hand bookshops as well as several very nice looking tea shops. Certainly there was plenty to interest us in the cathedral and around the town as well as beautiful gardens surrounding the cathedral.
Coaching sign. Ely. Cambridgeshire.
Cathedral. East end. Ely. Cambridgeshire.
House in precincts. Georgian with Sun insurance plaque. Ely. Cambridgeshire.
We parked within walking distance of the centre and spent much of the afternoon exploring the cathedral, free today although a charge is usually levied. As there were 600+ schoolchildren to share the cathedral with today charges were waived for everyone else. The children were all models of good behaviour and spent their time in various groups in different parts of the cathedral. We gather the theme was the end of the First World War. At one point all 600 came together and stood in awed silence as the last post was sounded and they were given a talk about soldiers from Ely who "for their (the young people's) tomorrow had given their today." As the familiar, haunting sound of the bugle filled the cathedral, lights simulating thousands of scarlet poppies rained down from the cathedral's vaulted roof onto the respectfully bowed young heads of local school children gathered below.
Cathedral. Ely. Cambridgeshire.
Almshouses. Ely. Cambridgeshire.
Cromwell's house. Ely. Cambridgeshire.
Old palace. Ely. Cambridgeshire.
Cathedral. Nave. With children before remembrance service. Ely. Cambridgeshire.
Cathedral. Lantern. Ely. Cambridgeshire.
Cathedral. Spiral staircase. Ely. Cambridgeshire.
The good and the great from Ely's clergy are entombed or represented throughout the cathedral, some dating back to the 13th century. We found a plaque commemorating Bishop Thomas Goodrich (1494-1554) whose Anglican zeal during the Reformation was primarily responsible for the destruction of the statues, carvings and stained glass in the Lady Chapel and elsewhere in the Cathedral. He opposed the Catholics and ordered that all the human faces represented in carvings throughout the cathedral should be destroyed. In the Lady Chapel the exquisite carvings covering the walls and niches have had the heads hacked off from every saint, angel or monk as a backlash against Catholicism. Additionally the stained glass in the breath-taking Lady Chapel was smashed and wantonly destroyed. Thomas Goodrich was also responsible for the destruction of any image or statue of St Etheldreda, to whom the Cathedral was dedicated. Today there is only a modern statue of her. Later, when Queen Mary came to the throne, the bishop reputedly turned his coat and accepted the Catholic faith, thus retaining his Bishopric. It was ever thus back in those political times when the Church wielded so much force and the Bishops were all-powerful.
Cathedral. Steward, Robert. Monument. 1571. Ely. Cambridgeshire.
Cathedral. Tiptoft family monument. 1450? Ely. Cambridgeshire.
Cathedral. William de Kilkenny. Bishop. 1256. Ely. Cambridgeshire.
Cathedral. Lady Chapel. Ely. Cambridgeshire.
Cathedral. Lady Chapel. Ely. Cambridgeshire.
Cathedral. Lady Chapel. Ely. Cambridgeshire.
Cathedral. Lady Chapel. Ely. Cambridgeshire.
Cathedral. Saint Etheldreda. Statue. Ely. Cambridgeshire.
Cathedral. West front. Ely. Cambridgeshire.
In the entrance to the building is a black and white marble maze. Here, in mediaeval times, would-be pilgrims unable to afford the time or money to travel to Jerusalem could follow the marble maze to reach the centre. This apparently would give them the same benefits and indulgences they would have received had they been able to make the real pilgrimage to the Holy Land.
Cathedral. Ceiling. Ely. Cambridgeshire.
Cathedral. Labyrinth. Ely. Cambridgeshire.
Cathedral. Nave. Ely. Cambridgeshire.
Unrelated to the ecclesiastical purposes of the Cathedral, we were delighted to see that the building is heated by several huge Gurney stoves that give out very effective warmth from the many fins in its construction through which hot water is pumped. Sir Goldsworthy Gurney was a Cornishman from Bude in the 19th century, primarily working with steam power. His stoves are still found regularly in both civic and religious buildings. We also noted one fairly recently in Hereford Cathedral.
Cathedral. Gurney heater. Ely. Cambridgeshire.
