Call it what you like, but really it's a windpump. Or a drainage water mill. At ground level the power takes a right-angled turn to a pump to keep the water moving away from wherever it's not wanted. We'd made a telephoned reservation for our first campsite. It was at Thurne, Norfolk (and not worth £20 w electricity). Facilities were adequate, but it still seemed like a "certificated location" (allowing 5 caravans only), of the Caravan Club: http://www.woodside-farm.co.uk/index.htm Having quite recently fallen off her bike and broken a finger while "off-roading" in Scotland it was with considerable caution that Jo cycled the short flat distance to http://www.lion-inn-thurne.co.uk/.
My camera has suffered greatly after our trip to Morocco, but doubtless a large amount of money will put it right again. (£129 very unfortunately). Anyway, I included this because the boat has a lifting roof (much like the one on our van) and the tent / awning makes it into a really useful method of wind-powered transport.
At The Lion Inn, Thurne listening to two-sevenths of http://www.hard-rain-band.co.uk/. The fiddler was particularly good. He had a wireless mic and with a helpful wind we could still hear him when we got back to the campsite.
I'm pleased that we did and saw so much on this 5-night holiday. All I had in mind was to visit Cambridge and Sutton Hoo. At an early stage we picked up a pamphlet about the National Trust's properties in East Anglia and that nudged us along our wiggly route.
The fantail was chuckling away inoffensively. Isn't windpower brilliant:
Next morning: We'd set off through Ashby-with-Oby. At almost every turn in the road and at almost every directional road sign we were reminded of our trip to Scandinavia and of Denmark in particular. No surprise that the Anglo-Saxons' language was known as Englisc.
A very sorry state.
We were at the http://www.northnorfolk.org/museumofthebroads/ There you see probably the very biggest bloody great big shotgun you ever will see. There were some first rate exhibits including photographs of craft adapted for sailing on ice, and a solidly built sailing dinghy to be dropped on four parachutes for airmen "downed" in the North Sea.
A crome, aka manure fork, very useful for dredging ditches.
What make do you think this is? A Guy has been suggested, or a Dennis............
I like the look of the wooden buildings of Norfolk, old and new, (and corrugated iron roofs). This firm is called Moonfleet which is a great name with strong associations of ooh, argh, and ancient smuggler-type noises.
Notice the broken finger.
The little (free-entry) fire station museum in Stalham.
Inside was an exhibition of quite possibly the very worst artwork I'd ever seen.
Baker Street, Stalham. Here, as in Denmark, the side streets are generally unsurfaced. How sensible when tarmac's unnecessary.
An odd but certainly not unpleasant cafe, Reads in Stalham.
North Walsham.
North Walsham. Note the very incomplete church tower. Smart though this looks, within 100m I found some sorry-looking empty, derelict and damaged shops.
St Nicholas church, North Walsham, showing that there is a limit to the suitability of flint cobbles for building large structures.
Cromer.
In the Domesday Book (1086) Cromer was a small town called Shipden-juxta-Felbrigg and 400m north of the end of the pier was Shipden-juxta-Mere. You might call its disappearance an end of the pier no-show?
Real seaside! Wouldn't you say?
The sort of "hell's angels" who iron their jeans.
Bacton Abbey (identified thanx to Tribal Living).
Happisburgh. A truly fascinating article here: http://bit.ly/dCiv1W Strange, but there's a campsite just left of that building. Access to the beach is by a flight of steps like a fire escape. Behind the campsite is Happisburgh Manor looking, at a glance, quite Elizabethan, but it's a seminal Arts & Crafts house built in 1900. "After devastating floods in 1953 where 300 people lost their lives, the first sea defences were built and later extended, using greenheart and jarrah wood, combined with steel, for the groynes and revetments. The rate of erosion decreased but despite numerous repairs, large portions of the revetments have been destroyed during the last 40 years and a large bay has formed, due to cliff erosion, to the south of the village, which is on record as the first place in England where an average of up to two metres of cliff is lost per year. Lacking the funds for costly repairs, local authorities have decided to let nature run her course."
If you don't find http://bit.ly/bPjdSJ interesting......... The exact site of the finds is just up here: http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=23953, but I didn't know that when we visited.
It's official, much in the style of Canute, "they" (TPTB), have given up. http://www.happisburgh.org.uk/53floods
"Sea areas Tyne, Dogger, Fisher, German Bight, Thames....." It's close to amazing to think that the River Thames used to spill out into the North Sea up here in Norfolk.
For a minute or two I watched a large brown-ish seal near that jetty. I was glad it was a seal - at first I'd thought it was a dead man in a suit, with his ankles tied, and his arms behind his back.
Happisburgh (Haze-bruh) Lighthouse, Norfolk, UK.
The Roman camp at Caister on Sea.
Hypercausts. I wonder why I'm so fascinated by, and perhaps much too open-minded about, our invaders. There must've been a lot of times when it was shit to be a Brit, and that's regardless of famine, disease, harsh weather, etc. If the Germans had succeeeded in WWII, how much time might've passed before we discussed their civilising influence, architecture, benefits to society, etc?
http://bit.ly/aKpoZm But for a long time we've known about the global shortage of uranium too: http://bit.ly/aKpoZm (apart from the totally unresolved safety issues of nuclear power).
Great Yarmouth. I'd thought it would be like Blackpool, but it looked very much better.
Nowadays it seems oddly located, the monument to Nelson in what was once the naval dockyards at Great Yarmouth.
From the campsite I cycled out to the thatched church of St Edmund at Thurne. It's located on the only lane into the village, but two fields' distance away from its outskirts. A public footpath crosses the lane and very probably was once more important than today's road and I say that because this, the only porch is on what one would nowadays call the back of the church and quite invisible when driving past. On a noticeboard outside the modern entrance is displayed the Diocese of Norwich's policy on Child Protection. What a (goddam) mess the church is in. Mind you, that's probably what you get for talking non-sense for 2000 years.
In the vestry is this hole through the wall. Reason for it?
Next morning: It's the 'Call of the Sea' and it's in Asda's car park, Lowestoft, Suffolk. (The little big-booted man is leaning on an anchor).
Dunwich Heath where in 1588 a beacon was lit to warn of the approach of the Spanish Armada. Shame no-one thought to warn us of the approach of Sizewell's nuclear power station, eh.
Dunwich Heath is right alongside the RSPB's reserve at Minsmere (almost always visited on the BBC's Springwatch-type programmes).
Dunwich Heath ahead, Minsmere to the left, Southwold and the North Sea to the right.
I used to build Lego houses with windows all the way round.
The Coastguard Cottages: Inside the National Trust's simple but stylish tearooms is displayed a copy of a letter from Edward Thomas who had stayed here. (Does the name ring a bell? Or even blow a whistle? He wrote the very wonderful poem, Adelstrop: http://bit.ly/1SRXiZ ). I wasn't going to let it ruin my day, but I'd read in a pamphlet that we could park here for one hour for £1, so was miffed (at least), to find "we don't do that any more" and I had to pay £4.40. Or drive away. But then I wouldn't have seen Thomas' letter, would I. I've never been totally impressed by the National Trust who tend to preserve rather than conserve, to pay their staff generally rather less than a pittance, were way to slow in banning stag hunting on their land on Exmoor, etc.
Southwoldwards.
It's not right, is it.
Thorpeness Meare and the astonishing http://www.houseintheclouds.co.uk/history.html
I can't like the half-timbered mock-up, but the black-stained weatherboard walls look just fine to me. What a shame that in the UK we aren't growing our own timber on land that is doing nothing useful, or upon which unnecessary crops are grown.
We lay and watched the very few clouds dispersing into invisibility...... Not moving away..... Just....... Gone.
Coming in to Aldeburgh, "I hear those voices that will not be drowned" (from Benjamin Britten's opera, Peter Grimes).
We parked at the south end of Aldeburgh and walked back through this very pleasant town.
I think I could enjoy the Aldeburgh Festival. The little I know about opera bores me to tears, but the people-watching opportunities must be almost infinite. http://www.aldeburgh.co.uk/
I call them Dutch gables, but don't know what they're properly called.
At the top of the steps on the far side of the tower a 30-something drunken couple were drinking from a huge plastic bottle of cider.
The marker flags look like golf clubs?
Seen a smarter lifeboat station?
Trouble is with scale models of yachts, they seem to benefit from a scaled down breeze.
The 16th century Moot Hall now serves as the town hall and as a museum. (Herring bone brickwork and half timbering, you don't get much more Tudor than that, do you. Do you?)
Holly Hox herself.
Benjamin Britten's house. You might be thinking the colour's appropriate - his lifelong partner was the tenor, Peter Pears - but there is a shade known as Suffolk Pink. (Jo's ex-decorator dad, who often worked down here, says peoples' interpretation of Suffolk Pink varies wildly and much of it is just plain wrong).
Pun-tastic.
You may never see a better disguised windmill.
The Yacht Club on the river Alde at Slaughden, Aldeburgh. "What was then a flourishing port sent four ships to fight the Spanish Armada, and merchantmen, fishermen and boat builders swarmed where now the yacht clubs offer more leisurely adventures on the water."
Martello towers are small defensive forts built in several countries of the British Empire during the 19th century, from the time of the Napoleonic Wars (1803 - 1815), onwards. They stand up to 40 feet (12m) high (with two floors) and typically had a garrison of one officer and 15-25 men. Their round structure and thick walls of solid masonry made them resistant to cannon fire, while their height made them an ideal platform for a single heavy artillery piece, mounted on the flat roof and able to traverse a 360° arc. A few towers [such as this one] had moats for extra defence.
http://www.run-cottage.co.uk/ very good really, open all year round too, extraworthy of your patronage for that reason.
On my bicycle I'd just crossed the Suffolk Coastal Path (http://bit.ly/d0No5R) and was fast approaching Shingle Street much of which is an SSSI. Much, but not all, of the rest of the area is a thicket of Private and Keep Out signs.
Nearby a farmer was baling hay in real bales (not those Euro-monsters).
South to Bawdsey from Shingle Street.
I don't know where or how it was that so many years ago I'd had a long distance introduction to these spacious shingle beaches, but I'm very glad I'd finally got around to visiting them.
As well as these seaside "poppies" tiny little plants were growing in the shingle, rooted in who knows what?
In a garden an inconveniently long way from the sea.
An extra sharp flint had stabbed my back tyre and I rode "home" to the campsite two miles uphill-ish standing up and pushing a high gear to keep my weight off the back wheel. I arrived looking as if I'd just taken a dip in the European sweat lake.
Next morning.
Well, here we are at Sutton Hoo, a place I'd first read about in one of my Look and Learn magazines and always wanted to visit - one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of all time...........
Earlier in our short holiday I'd got into conversation with a man who bore the recent scars of hanging. I chatted for longer than I normally would, and when I left shook his hand hoping to convey that I was glad he was alive.
A ship burial, a style found all around the North Sea - on "our" side right up to Shetland. This is a reconstruction of what was found in 1939 at Sutton Hoo, a mound collapsed in over a boat in which a rich dude (probably one Raedwald) had been buried with some valuable goods. (Did he make his fortune by repairing leaking radiators?).
Very soon we were caught in a summery storm, but it served to highlight Woodbridge (and Melton) and the tidal river, the Deben which in Anglo-Saxon times would've provided the easiest access to Sutton Hoo.
See the stake in the field near to the fence and another just breaking the horizon? They mark the location of the bow and stern of the buried ship.
Each of these bumps covers a burial. Here's an aerial photograph taken, I guess, at the time of the big find: http://bit.ly/aWIMxj From times prehistoric the placing of burial mounds, etc. has required a real landscaper's eye with the desired result being that many a prehistoric structure appears to be on a hill or ridge top when in fact it is not, but has been so located to best draw the attention of passersby (many of whom were travelling by river).
Soon we were away, on over the very Danish / Scandinavian-looking Orwell Bridge south of Ipswich: http://bit.ly/aVncDM
From Harwich south towards Walton on the Naze. It amused me to think that had we been in Denmark, then all these estuarine inlets (Stour, Orwell, Deben, etc., http://www.stourandorwellsociety.org.uk/gallery.html), would be called fjords. (Fjords don't have to be in Norway and surrounded by towering cliffs, as once I thought).
The 2nd beach hut is called Villa Nora. That very low lighthouse (now a museum), is called the Low Lighthouse(!) and can be used as a leading light when lined up with the High Lighthouse north of it.
This is what had drawn me to Harwich. Having taken a land route to Esbjerg, Denmark in 2008 I was now falling into an exciting daydream in which I'd remembered to pack our passports and we simply drove from East Anglia to Denmark. Oh, well. (Of course, if Doggerland were to make a comeback, it'd be very straightforward: http://huss.exeter.ac.uk/archaeology/research/rdoggerland.shtml). How to prounce Esbjerg? http://www.forvo.com/word/esbjerg/
Flatford. (Constanoon, aftable).
Valley Farm is near the mill but on the opposite side of the road. It's a medieval hall house dating from the 15th century, the oldest building at Flatford.
Can you tell what it is yet?
About as close as one can get nowadays: http://bit.ly/c2BSrd
Ploughing through the centre of Ipswich at rush hour. The Scandinavian connection continued - last time I took a shot like this was in Copenhagen.
Somewhere in Ipswich is an "Historic Centre", but I didn't allow enough time to find it.
You know when you see a really bad town planning decision? Do you assume, as I tend to, that there was corruption involved?
A large statue of what appeared to be a policeman swatting flies.
Well, if you can't get good music there........
Has it come to this?
We swung off to Shingle Street so I could show Jo.
Now I was cycling out to Bawdsey. Shingle Street in the distance.
I still can't help but think that mechanical irrigation is a sign of growing plants in the wrong place.
Poppies and, I think, mallow filled the roadside verges.
The church in Alderton - another overambitious tower tumbled. Doubtless it's the case elsewhere in Suffolk, and in much of Britain generally, but because I was cycling I particularly noticed that I was passing "The Old Post Office", "The Old Swan" (pub), "The Old Bakery", etc., each an indication that the countryside is a place of agribusiness, second homes and perhaps not much else.
One of two extraordinary garage showrooms of H H Crane in Bawdsey. (In the other, which had even dustier windows, was an ancient Wolseley). Here we have two not long post war BMWs, and what I take to be a BSA. An elderly Norton is just out of view.
I overtook a flat-footed local lad as we cycled down to the wartime defences at East Lane, Bawdsey. With his senses partly shut down by an mp3 player and earphones, I gave him quite a shock, despite my warning call.
Extraordinary time lapse video of coastal erosion right here: http://youtu.be/gqc7wXdkOp4!
One of those enormous freighters that seem to sit around Britain going nowhere much.
Next morning: Lavenham, what a fine old place. The town made it's money mainly by exploiting sheep. In the medieval period it was among the 20 wealthiest settlements in England.
Round the back of a pub - I like to see elderly houses extended backwards with descending roof lines.
Pargeting, very unnecessary, but rather good, don't you think? In the Tourist Information Centre I'd bought an inexpensive little guide to the architectural history of Lavenham in which I read that this pargeting, much of which looked to be of quite a modern design, was far from recent.
A notice on the wall explained why limewash is used - essentially because it's what has always been done, and it works, and why. Clearly no need for that (silly old) black and white stuff. http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-lavenham
Subsidence, hardly a problem.
Little Hall.
Over the years I'd noticed the same thing in Ludlow (Shropshire): No suburbs! To my eye it looks so very right, the way in which the town stops and the country starts.
Undoubtedly history will show, or indeed has shown, that Prince's guitar designs were far from original.
That one on the left, an estate agents.
Good cycling country.
http://www.theswanatlavenham.co.uk/history.aspx
There are very few houses from the Georgian era (by which time Lavenham's fortunes had failed).
See the bicycle?
One of the best known churches in Britain, so I read, but I'd never heard of it. It's certainly a whopper and has enought confidence to be a cathedral. Much of it is built from limestone imported from Lincolnshire. Just think how many genuinely deserving causes could have benefited from that cost.
Bury St Edmunds.
I really have never seen a road sign I liked more. It's very much of an era, I'm sure, but I'm not sure which.
"Hey gorgeous" has a roof like a hat, I thought. (Wheelie bins, they're not great, are they).
"On Christmas day 855, at the tender age of 15, Edmund was crowned King of East Anglia. Historical accounts note that Edmund was a popular and just King. When the Danes invaded he found himself leading an army into battle against them. It was during a forced retreat one fateful day in 869 that he and his followers were captured and Edmund was tortured and slain. Legend has it that Edmund refused to renounce his strong Catholic faith, and thus died a martyr. The Abbey, which dates back to 633, was renamed in his honour, and for the next five centuries, pilgrims from all over the world travelled to worship at the shrine of St Edmund. In fact, St Edmund was held to be the patron saint of England before St George."
There's Eddie!
Did you think "troglodyte"?
Portcullis in case too many people wanted to got to church, I suppose.
The Angel Hotel. Looks vintage, doesn't it.
http://www.highfieldfarmtouringpark.co.uk/
Next day: We'd driven through Grantchester just to get a hint of Rupert: http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/7444/ before heading to Grantchester Meadows for a re-run as described here: http://bit.ly/9BHhdb. Here's the music, almost silent at first: http://bit.ly/c0Glr3
Edwardian? I think so - very elegant anyway (despite those presumed to be later dormer additions).
What a cycling town Cambridge is! We'd left the van in Grantchester Meadows (CB3 9JL) and cycled into Britain's biggest cycle park: http://bit.ly/drNG3b (CB5 8AS).
We breakfasted very late at Carluccio's.
Thass (the design for) your next campervan, tha' is. So bicycle-oriented is Cambridge that those annoying people who in car parks would leave flyers under your windscreen wipers, will instead leave them jammed into the spokes of your bicycle's wheels, and A4 sized posters for local events are fastened to railings where yet more bicycles are parked.
King's Bolledge, Bambridge had been making me laugh ever since the early '70s so I was long over due for a visit. http://bit.ly/a2AncK Those two two older chaps right of centre really should be professors, don't you think? I won't admit to any pride, of course, but Cambridge seems to me to be a city to compare very favourably with any we've visited in Europe.
Notice that Michael Portillo is holding his copy of George Bradshaw's 170 year old railway guide while he speaks with one of the very many young people who try to punt out punt journeys.
Saint Edwards Passage with http://www.gdavidbookseller.co.uk/
After our big late breakfast we were still too full to eat here: http://www.rainbowcafe.co.uk/
A relatively huge VW T4 on hire from http://www.mietwagen-in-berlin.de/. I doubt I've ever been in any city where there was such a wealth of multilingual babble to be heard, most noticeably Chinese and Spanish sounds. Even the streetlamps are different and elegant.
Subject overexposed, or simply too much enlightenment?
Wheelie bins, eh.
Near to The Backs we were greatly amused by the punters. The chap in a blue hoodie had obviously fallen in, but the one in a boater was a skilful chauffeur.
One poster read "4 Free Talks Exploring the Buddhist Approach to Modern Life". I was amused to see that they were to be held at Jesus Green.
Ladybird books for sale in this seat of learning. As a child I'd had some, some of which went to my son, and I'd bought a few for my grandsons, but nearly stopped doing so after wondering if I was simply trying to impose my own interests on fresh minds. I do admire clever and knowledgeable people and amongst its inhabitants, bicycling or otherwise, Cambridge must have more than it's fair share. That's probably a major part of what attracted me to this city - and me too lazy to be even a pseudo-intellectual.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/chronicle/8622.shtml (It's very good).
