Tag: Norwich Cathedral

Jurassic City

It’s been a pretty dismal summer, weather-wise. The shortest of heatwaves in June, a washed-out July and a blanket of low cloud for most of August. Still, we didn’t suffer the death and devastation of flash floods, wilting temperatures and rampant wildfires that afflicted Turkey and much of continental Europe so I guess we should count our lucky stars. And who needs the sun anyway when the streets of Norwich are lit up by brightly coloured dinosaurs?

Over the last few years we’ve had an invasion of psychedelic gorillas, a parade of glittery elephants, the flight of the camp dragons, a husk of vivid hares and a swarm of big bugs. Now it’s the turn of dazzling dinosaurs on the Go Go Discover T Rex Trail inspired by the arrival in Norwich Cathedral of Dippy, the Natural History Museum’s iconic Diplodocus cast. It’s the final gig of his nationwide tour.

Image courtesy of Norwich Cathedral

Twenty-one individually designed T Rex sculptures meander through the centre of the city as a guided route to the Cathedral – just in time for school’s out for Summer. If God can’t tempt the kids into church come Sunday, Dippy surely will.

Here’s a small sample. I guess my favourite ought to be the rainbow T Rex stomping all over Millennium Plain but actually it’s Sherlock on Cathedral Close that gets my vote.

As usual, the trail is all in aid of Break, a charity providing support to young people in care. They’ve also covered Cambridge in a herd of colourful cows. That’s a lot of painted udders.

Summer of Laughs (Part 1)

It’s been a comedy season of fun and laughter, despite the COVID blues and the hit and miss weather. After drag gags from the extraordinary La Voix a couple of weeks ago, we were back at Interlude in the Close for another comic treat – Henning Wehn, the self-styled ‘German Comedy Ambassador for Teutonic jolliness’.

Images courtesy of Norwich Theatre

A regular on many a TV panel show, Henning has been living and working in Britain for twenty years and provides a ballsy view of the life on these islands from a continental perspective, always delivered with wit, insight and affection.

His was a show in preview called Das Neuen Materialen Nachten (The New Materials Night) – a brand new routine, testing the water before a big tour. And there was plenty of water to go round – our bottom halves were soaked through as we rushed along Cathedral Close and squelched across the sodden playing fields of the lower school. Liam was wearing trainers – well you can imagine.

What Henning ambitiously called a masterpiece under construction was more a work in progress but there was plenty of witty banter, and the jokes old and new made sure the angry clouds didn’t dampen our spirits. The wine helped, of course.

High Camp in a Big Tent

We love a live show and they don’t get more lively than ‘La Voix’, drag queen extraordinaire and a glorious blend of song, sparkle and wit. La Voix belts out the tunes in the best tradition of old-fashioned drag cabaret where the voice and the repartee are just as important as the frocks and the wig.

It was high camp in a big tent – ‘Interlude in the Close’, a big top in the grounds of Norwich Cathedral’s Lower School. La Voix’s old razzle dazzle was part of the wider opening up of the arts across the city, after a very dark time. Even during the Blitz, the theatres stayed open; not so with COVID.

The only downside was travelling back to the village on the last bus with a load of young people who’d been out on the razzle themselves. They were no trouble, but there wasn’t a mask between them. Forgive them, for they know not what they do.

Close Encounters

We were to meet up with the fragrant Roving Jay for one of our regular bloggers’ food-and-drink conventions but our plans were scuppered at the last minute. As we’d already bought the bus ticket, we went into town anyway for a wander around. Tombland, Norwich’s historic heart, is looking splendid after a recent wash and brush up. You might think the name comes from something spooky but it’s actually old English for ‘open ground’ (or such like) and is where the old market was held until those dastardly all-conquering Normans moved it to its present location a little after 1066 and all that.

It was a great day for a stroll so we decided to check out Cathedral Close, the substantial grounds of the grand Norman church. The Close is full of statues – of men mostly, as is the norm. However, one woman, Edith Cavell, has pride of place at the entrance. Ms Cavell was a British nurse in German-occupied Belgium during the Great War. She is remembered for tending to soldiers from both sides of the trenches and for helping about 200 Allied soldiers escape. Arrested by the Germans, she was tried for treason and shot by firing squad. It caused quite an international incident at the time as it wasn’t the done thing to shoot women – only horses. As she was a Norfolk lass, Edith Cavell is buried in the cathedral.

Doubtless, someone will discover something about Ms Cavell’s words, views or deeds that wouldn’t quite be cricket by today’s standards and demand she’s knocked off her plinth. That would be a shame.

Naturally, a chilled bottle was waiting for us at the end of the trail. We settled down at the Red Lion Pub on the river next to the Bishop Bridge, built in 1340 and the city’s oldest, to watch people messing about in canoes. Bottoms up!

There’s No Place Like Home

There’s No Place Like Home

While we’re away lotus-eating on Crete, supping and splashing about, here are a few random snaps of Norwich, ‘a fine city’ according to the civic slogan – to remind us that, as Dorothy said in Oz, there’s no place like home. As dedicated friends of Dorothy, we are in full agreement.

Norwich, a Story

Norwich, a Story

Ladies and gents, give it up for the fine city of Norwich as seen through the creative lens of BAFTA-winning film maker Rob Whitworth and starring the Norman cathedral, for centuries the largest building in East Anglia. These days I’m guessing that honour goes to the terminal building at Stansted Airport.

Jack and Liam Move to Norwich

Jack and Liam Move to Norwich

Hardly breaking news is it? But it’s the title of a little something I wrote back in the summer of 2014 for the Visit Norwich City of Stories website. I was chuffed at the time when it was chosen as the opening piece in a series showcasing different aspects of Norwich life. I even pitched up at the red carpet launch and helped myself to one too many cocktails. The website has recently gone from literary showcase to shop window and content has been updated to feature the best the city has to offer. My article still stacks up I think, so I’m posting it here for posterity, with a few images to give it life.

City of Stories

Jack and Liam move to Norwich

Jack and Liam took up pole position outside a coffee shop to sup their lattes and people watch. The passing footfall was a bumper crop. A warm summer’s afternoon had delivered coaches of North Folk and charabancs of tourists to Norwich’s cobbled streets. Dutch lowlanders in sensible shoes mingled with happy snapping Koreans; local gentry in waxed jackets weaved through the hipsters in vintage garb; busy bees in smart suits hurried past, glued to their smart phone and a jester-hatted Big Issue seller competed with a line of smiley charity workers collecting direct debits for the cause. In the middle of the rainbow crowd, two men with well-fed midriffs and trendy whiskers paused to take in a busker crooning for his supper. They grinned as the Frank Sinatra tribute segued from New York, New York to a local interpretation of My Kind of Town (‘Naaridge is’) and when the final chords faded to nothing, they tossed some coins into a trilby perched on a Fender amp and vanished into the throng holding hands. Like everyone else in the surprising city, they were doing it their way.

Norwich Buskers

Jack ran his fingers along the cartoon tourist map. The tapestry of streets was weaved with familiar names of old London Town like Charing Cross, Blackfriars Bridge, Bishopsgate, Spitalfields, Haymarket, and Pudding Lane, threaded with roads of goats, cattle, dogs and a rampant horse, and stitched with more holy places than a mitred man could shake his crook at. But clearly this was not London. What the boys from the Old Smoke heard was an altogether different soundscape, just distant enough to escape the orbit of the great metropolis and the relentless surge of Estuary English. Somehow, Norwich had preserved a unique linguistic heritage, a melodic sweep of bouncing vowels and dropped consonants pickled down the centuries.

The inquisitive strangers downed their coffees to roam the streets. Their meandering took them to the Assembly House, a gorgeous pile of Georgian elegance and the perfect stage for Regency debutantes in ribboned bonnets to chase Mr Darcy and his magnificent britches around the courtyard fountain. Next door, the architectural show continued with the Theatre Royal, its modern overcoat disguising 250 years of board treading. A quick circuit of the front-of-house posters revealed an eclectic tradition of new and old, high-brow and kitchen sink, top hats and tutus, laughter and tears.

The Assembly House
Theatre Royal

Back down the hill and along Gentlemen’s Walk, they passed neat rows of multi-coloured market stalls lined up like beach huts marooned at low tide. The vast City Hall, looking down on the medieval guildhall it replaced, provided an over-imposing backdrop.

Jack and Liam scampered down a maze of lanes and alleyways, a treasure trove of independents – shops, pubs and cafés. Norwich had bucked the national trend of sameness. Maybe the city’s relative seclusion had bubble-wrapped it from the commercial onslaught of identikit chains or perhaps wise burghers had protected the endangered. Whether by accident or design, it was a window shopper’s dream.

Norwich Market
Norwich City Hall
Norwich Guildhall
Norwich Lanes

The most complete medieval city in Britain boasted the guide book, and as they pounded the streets up Saint This, down Saint That and along the lazy winding river that caressed the city like a feather-leafed boa, Norwich oozed the ages from every brick, paving stone and stained glass window. The city, it seemed, was triple dipped in history.

Norwich Castle
Elm Hill
Britons Arms
Elm Hill
River Wensum
Stained Glass in Norwich Cathedral Cloisters

Finally, Jack and Liam came to rest on the far side of a handsome stone bridge and sat under the shade of a sprawling tree outside the Playhouse, the Theatre Royal’s little sister. A tree-top teapot in vivid yellow wafted in the breeze. The walk-weary old Londoners rested with a bottle of Merlot in the Playhouse beer garden. Close to the newly elevated University of the Arts, the bustling bar was the trough of choice for young fashionistas and their arty mentors. Jack and Liam took their seats in the refectory and imbibe an ambience that overflowed with naive optimism.

Tree Top Tea Pot
Norwich Playhouse
University of the Arts

And that’s how it happened. One heady afternoon in the garden of the Playhouse Theatre Bar, Jack and Liam found somewhere new to lay their hats. An offbeat, theatrical, cosmopolitan, romantic, open-minded and open-hearted place set beneath the true-blue skies of Norfolk. Norwich, a surprising city. A place to live and a place to start living.

A random sample of Norwich’s medieval churches…

St George’s Colegate
The Wharf
St Mary’s Coslany
Church of St John Maddermarket
St Julian’s Shrine
St Peter Mancroft
Norwich Puppet Theatre
St Michael Coslany
St Peter Mancroft at Night
St Giles
St Andrews
Norwich Cathedral

If Music be the Food of Love

If Music be the Food of Love

Norwich Cathedral Cloister

In an attempt to develop this old Philistine’s cultural palate, Liam dragged me along to Norwich Cathedral for a bit of drag from the Bard. The Lord Chamberlain’s Men, an open-air theatre company, brought their production of ‘Twelfth Night’ to the divine (forgive the pun) Gothic cloisters of the Norman edifice. Billy Shakespeare’s cross-dressing comedy of mistaken identities was a big hit with the picnicking crowd. It went down well with us too, along with a bottle of Merlot. Sadly, the show wasn’t quite so popular with the famous pair of peregrine falcons roosting in the cathedral spire. Clearly pissed off about being upstaged, they squawked through the entire performance.

The Lord Chamberlain’s Men are noted for bringing a touch of Tudor authenticity to their gigs and this was no exception. I knew the Bard could be bawdy but I never knew he could be so camp. This was a delicious cross between ‘Life of Brian’ and John Inman in ‘Are You Being Served?’

Every one of Shakespeare’s works has its famous lines and Twelfth Night is no different…

If music be the food of love, play on.

Be not afraid of greatness; some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.

Not bad for the ‘Carry On Camping’ of its day, eh?

The Norwich Book of Records

The Norwich Book of Records

Norwich is stuffed with the biggest, finest, oldest and firsts in all the realm. There’s a gem on virtually every corner. These are a few of my favourites. Hover over the image for a brief hint and click for more scintillating facts that you never knew you wanted to know.

The Millennium Library is a fitting successor to the first provincial municipal library – the most visited outside London. And guess what? They stock my book
The largest lips in the East and a great kisser
The only English example of a beguinage (a community of lay women living a life of poverty and chastity). The pretty thatched-roofed building is now the Briton’s Arms Restaurant
England’s most highly ornamented castle keep sitting atop England’s largest castle mound. Norwich Castle was founded a few years after the nasty Norman Conquest of 1066 when poor Harry got it in the eye. That happened to me once
The largest cathedral close in England and a great place for a picnic on a hot summer’s day
The only English city to have been excommunicated by the Pope when revolting peasants sacked the priory in 1274
Church of St John Maddermarket
The largest walled medieval city in England and bigger than the City of London. You need a vivid imagination – there’s little left of it now, more’s the pity
The first mass production of shoes in Britain – because life’s a catwalk
The first driving school in Britain opened in 1919. I could never be bothered to learn and relied on the kindness of strangers during my street walking days
The largest and most elaborate guildhall outside London. It’s rather dwarfed by the over-imposing and slightly Stalinistic Art Deco City Hall
England’s first provincial newspaper founded in 1701. It didn’t last long. The newspaper closed in 1713 after the Great Carrier Pigeon Hacking Scandal of 1712 (I’m kidding)
This is the rather over-imposing, slightly Stalinistic City Hall. The impressive building retains many of its original Art Deco features and has the longest balcony in Britain (at 365 feet). That’s the Catholic cathedral in the distance
The first and still only UNESCO World City of Literature in England
The first book written by a woman in the English Language came from the pen of Julian of Norwich in 1395. Strange name for a woman but, by all accounts, she was off with the fairies
The first blank verse to be published was written by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (eldest son to the Duke of Norfolk). Also, Harry and his mate Sir Tommy Wyatt were the first English poets to write in the sonnet form that Shakespeare later used. Harry didn’t make it to duke as the other Harry (that randy despot Henry VIII) had him beheaded for treason.
Rosary Cemetery was the first non-denominational cemetery in England where people of faith and people of none could together rest in peace
The only medieval friary to survive the Reformation intact – St Stephens and Blackfriars Halls are now used for all sorts of jollities including the annual beer fest piss-up
The largest cathedral cloister in England and very peaceful it is too
Lollards Pit is the only gay pub in the world to be found on the very site where heretics (the Lollards) were once burned to death. A delicious irony, don’t you think?
The first all-metal aeroplane in the world (1919)
Elm Hill is reputed to be the most complete medieval street in England, with buildings dating back to Tudor times. There’s not an elm tree to be seen, though.
The first municipal computer was delivered to Norwich City Hall in 1957 – with the brain power of a Casio pocket calculator (probably)
The Norman Cathedral is one of the most complete Romanesque buildings in Europe. That’s something to get down on your knees for

With thanks to Visit Norwich for much of this treasure trove.

We’re Having a Gay Old Time

We threw caution to the wind and have a gay old night in old Norwich Town. We are blessed with three bone fide out-and-proud gay bars and one club. Who’d have thought? The Castle Public House was our inn of choice, a popular haunt perched unglamorously on the corner of a ring-road roundabout just outside the city centre. We knew we’d arrived when we spotted their open top Big Gay Bus parked up outside. It’s used to frighten the farmers as it cruises the length and breadth of the county spreading the word. Not quite Priscilla, Queen of the Desert but you get the picture. The bar was a pleasant surprise. We were expecting tired, tatty and torn. We got camp, colourful and clean. The clientele was a manic mix of trendy young things, most of them squeezed into skinny jeans and Primark plimsolls. Metrosexual girls and boys mingled amiably, gossiping and giggling over the latest must-sup alcopop being flogged by the multi-nationals.

We popped across the pretty garden and crept into the glass-fronted club out the back. It was like stepping into a village hall on acid. We didn’t last long. The two old codgers quickly decided they were way too old for the thump, thump, thump and returned to the snug to finish their halves of mild. After a while observing the Norwich queens in their natural habitat, Liam suggested we leave the children to their play and stumble back home for a welcome cup of cocoa. As we strolled past the cathedral, Liam noticed that my ancient legs (the ones that had been given me so much gyp of late) were firing on all pistons. He was right. No pain whatsoever. Remarkable. Sightly sozzled and suspecting divine intervention, Liam looked up at the dreaming spire and spoke to his maker. “Praise the Lord!” he slurred. “It’s a miracle.” Indeed. He’ll be feeding the five thousand next.

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