4 April 2015 - The Old Stracey, Kirby Bedon, Norwich, Norfolk

We were horrified this morning to discover the damage wrecked upon our hired motorhome by a hay bale. I had mentioned yesterday that our host, Mr Farmer, had removed hay bales from our entry to the equestrian arena. It was raining at the time and I had sat in the cab thinking I should get out and help this man clad in overalls and certainly no younger than I, but then decided that I was weak, dry and demure (well, perhaps not the last) and so watched him struggle. Had we, Chris and I together, climbed down out of the cab and helped him clear the route properly, we may not have ended up with lengths of dirty straw caught in every uneven joint, the screw on the indicator light hanging out, a hairline crack evident on the bodywork, and a glued label plate turned up at the corner. None of this made for a good start to the morning, as you may well imagine.

We passed the responsibility of our exit from the Sheffield area to Mavis; she instructed us to head almost north to Doncaster on the M18, before bringing us south again on the A1. I would have brought us directly eastward from our camp, but then we might, just might, have become caught up in traffic snarls, although I think not; today was Easter Saturday and the early morning motorists were few.

After that roundabout start, we took the most direct route to our next general direction, south on the A1 to Newark-on-Trent, then south east on the A17 through to King’s Lynn on the southern shore of The Wash.

As we travelled across the southern parts of Lincolnshire, we crossed wide drains; the South Forty Foot Drain, the Glen Welland, and the Nene. We were crossing the Fens, a term I had often heard but never really understood.

One of the strangest of all English landscapes, the fens cover a vast area of eastern England from just north of Cambridge right up to Boston in Lincolnshire, a little to the north of our route today. For centuries they were an inhospitable wilderness with bogs and marshland, scattered with clay islands on which small communities eked out a living cutting peak for fuel, using reeds for thatching and living on a diet of fish and wildfowl. Attempts were made to reclaim the land during the Middle Ages, but it wasn’t until the seventeenth century that systematic draining of the Fens was undertaken, amid fierce opposition, by a Dutch engineer Cornelius Vermuyden. This wholesale drainage had unforeseen consequences; as it dried  out, the peaty soil shrank beneath the level of the rivers, causing frequent flooding, and the regions windmills, which had previously been vital in keeping the waters at bay, now compounded the problem by causing further shrinkage. The engineers had to do some backtracking and the task of draining the fens was only completed in the 1820s following the introduction of steam driven pumps  which could control water levels with much greater precision than the windmills had been able to. Today, the Fens comprise some of the most fertile agricultural land in Europe.

Today, much of it was laying bare, either ready for sowing, or recently sown waiting for the warm sunshine to germinate the seed. We saw some fields of rape, or canola, the first blooms appearing, to us rather premature, given the recent cold days and seemingly late arrival of Spring. Further on, we came to expansive fields, bright yellow, which in the first instance reminded us of canola crops seen in Australia, but these were something else entirely; daffodils and jonquils in enormous commercial quantities ready for harvesting.

We arrived in King’s Lynn, known as Bishop’s Lynn until the Reformation. In the Middle Ages the town was one of England’s most prosperous ports, shipping grain and wood from the surrounding countryside to Europe. The downscaled port operations on the banks of the River Ouse, the Trinity Guildhall and St Margaret’s Church are the few points of interest to the passing traveller. We found the modern shopping centre on the edge of the town, parked up, shopped at the Tesco supermarket and ate lunch, uninterrupted by parking wardens before setting off on our drive along the coast of North Norfolk.

Our first destination, if a drive-by can be considered as such, was Sandringham House, where the Royal family spend at least every Christmas. This large Norfolk estate has been in royal hands since 1862 when Queen Victoria bought it for her idle son, the Prince of Wales. Here he could occupy himself hunting and shooting, considered more constructive pursuits than the frequenting of bawdy houses. The 18^th century was elaborately refurbished by the prince and now retains an Edwardian atmosphere. The large stables are now a museum and the grounds are open to the public for a fee. Today there were hundreds of loyal subjects drifting to and from the entrance, and even more taking advantage of the extensive grounds. Our itinerary had not allowed for time here so we drove on, now satisfied we could visualise its location when we  next heard it mentioned on the news.

Back on the coastal road, we could see hundreds of wind turbines out in the Wash, and then again, later further east. Research since has suggested this is the Lynn and Inner Dowsing Wind Farm, located in the North Sea, rather than The Wash, as I had understood. The fifty four wind turbines were completed in 2008 and have a generating capacity of 194 MW, enough to power 130,000 homes on average.

This offshore wind farm cost more than 300 million GBP and was built in depths of up to 18 metres of water, in less than two years. The foundations were driven to a depth of around twenty two metres below the seabed. I was disappointed that we did not come upon a comprehensive information centre.

We called into the seaside town of Hunstanton, the official beginning of the Norfolk coast. Today there were thousands here, walking about the town, along the beach and the top of the cliffs that are apparently stripy and quite attractive. The low-key seaside towns along this northern shore have drawn tourists for over a century. Beyond Sheringham, further to the east, today frantic with day trippers, the shoreline becomes a ragged patchwork of salt marshes, dunes and shingle spits which form an almost unbroken series of nature reserves, these too attracting the more energetic tourists today.

In fact the roads were crowded, and the narrow streets literally jammed with traffic. We sat in a street for five to ten minutes while queues untangled themselves from the single lane labyrinth. We had already given up on the thought of joining the crowds on the beach, the piers, the streets; parking was impossible, but even the roads were impossible. 

Brancaster Straithe is famous for its oysters, but then so does every other settlement along the coast seem so. Crabs and all manner of seafood is for sale in kiosks, cafes and pubs. Everywhere we saw long queues of people outside fish and chip shops. We managed to find a spot down on the shoreline, a rather odd place for someone used to New Zealand and Australian coasts. Here at Brancaster Straithe, the sea has left muddy inlets and stranded boats, and more interestingly a long history documented on interpretative panels near the stall selling crab snacks.

Brancaster Harbour was once a busy port, sailing ships carried cargoes of coal and grain for a malt house said to be the biggest in England. Trade declined in the 1800s, but a thriving fishing industry survives, and these days the harbour is busier with pleasure craft, although today, most of the boats still seemed to be in winter hibernation.

In the far distant past, Branodunum was the northernmost of a string of Roman forts on the east coast confusingly called Saxon Shore forts. The garrison at Brancaster would have been manned by a unit of cavalry of up to five hundred men and their horses from Dalmatia, built around 250 AD, three metre high walls survived into the 17^th century. It is claimed that the stones were taken for various buildings in the village including the church at Brancaster. Now all that now remains is a grass field with crop marks and east and west defensive ditches.

Brancaster Estate forms part of a unique coastal common. Most common rights in Britain relate to a patch of land that a commoner can graze. At Brancaster the rights relate to a range of activities and commoners can have rights, amongst others, to collect samphire, gather shellfish, take wildfowl or graze marshes. Originally common rights were created to help local people make a living from the land; today these rights also help to protect the land by giving local people a vested interest and legal rights.

We had also wanted to call into Wells-next-the-Sea and Cromer, but today was not the day for motorhomers; perhaps we shall have to return another year and with another travel modus operandi. We have come to the conclusion that motorhoming is not the best way to see England.

On a positive note however, it was about then that the sun came out. There had been rain showers all day, or at least until lunchtime, although the day had remained bleak, dismal, more of the same old, same old, so the advent of the sunshine was indeed a joy. 

Giving up on delving into these quaint little towns and intimate streets, we headed south toward our camp, a Certified Location immediately to the south of Norwich, travelling on better roads, and soon with Mavis’s help, in the thick of Norwich’s centre. Again I would have suggested a more roundabout but easier route, but then sometimes it is easier to remain silent.

We found our accommodation without any problems, “a gate immediately after a cream house”. Our host, a character straight out of a Dicken’s film, unlocked the gate and led us into his delightful garden, immaculate, planted out in well planned blooms, devoid of destructive moles. He explained the charms of this tiny village and we duly went off to explore once we were set up.

Immediately behind the property stands what appears in the first instance the remains of a Norman tower, but on further exploration, proves to be the ruins of a large stone church. Across the road is yet another lovely church, this one amid a fenced enclosure of daffodils.

The village of Kirby Bedon has two medieval churches next door to each other, the ruined church dedicated to St Mary and the parish church of St Andrew still in operation. Both churches have walls built of large broken flints in nest courses, suggesting they were built within a few years of each other. 

Norfolk apparently has around one hundred ruined churches, many more than any other county. Many of these are of great architectural interest and landscape importance and the Ruined Churches Repair Programme set up in 1992 – 1997 does its best to save what it can.

Unfortunately the ruins of St Mary’s visible from our camp is in such disrepair, orange plastic fencing surrounds it as a deterrent and danger notices succeed in keeping even nosy Kiwis out.

Tomorrow will be Easter Sunday, the day the World shuts down, or at least that part of the world based on Christianity. The cupboards are full, or at least as much as they need to be for the remaining days of our travel, lunch is packed for an early getaway, and we just hope that the Park & Ride system is operating.