More Boring Stuff About Flints

I had intended popping up to Norwich Castle this morning to take photos for a post but the weather was crap and quite frankly, I'd rather be sitting here in the warm.
When the weather improves I promise I'll go there.

In the meantime, I did manage to take some photos of more flintwork from around the city so here is some of that. The photos with the clear blue skies were taken a while back but I've used them here as the Guildhall is covered in scaffolding right now for repairs to the clock tower so I couldn't photograph the flintwork.

This is what I was talking about the other day: fine coursed knapped flintwork.
Click on it to enlarge it and go "Ooo" at the pretty colours. It would be even better if the smegging sun was shining. A pox on Februarys.

Anyhoo, this type of facing was only used on high status buildings as producing squared-off blocks from rough flint nodules is a royal pain in the arse.

This is part of Suckling House, originally a Flemish merchant's house in the 1400s but later owned by the unfortunately named Mayor and Member of Parliament Robert Suckling.

It now houses the kitchens at the back of the restaurant in the delightful mediæval courtyard of Cinema City, our lovely little independent movie house that is enlightened enough to have food-free nights, where no fucking popcorn can be crunched and I where can actually enjoy the movie for a change.

At the other end of the social scale of flint houses are these cute little nineteenth century fishermen's cottages in Cromer, built with flints picked up off the beach and trimmed with brick quoins.

The mediæval walls of both Norwich and Great Yarmouth were built from flint rubble faced with knapped flints. This is the North-West Tower of Great Yarmouth's walls, sitting beside the river.
Shame about the fire escape but health and safety legislators have no concept of beauty.

Just around the corner from Suckling House is The Bridewell, Norwich's medieval prison and now a rather spiffy museum. The quality of the coursed and knapped flintwork shows just how far civic architecture has fallen over the centuries.
Hey and indeed ho.

Norwich, however, still maintains some standards, witness this little curiosity.
A delightful medley of fine flintwork and glazed faience (see posts passim), it is actually the modern public toilet at St.Andrew's Hall.

And just opposite St.Andrew's Hall and Monastery sits (surprise) St.Andrew's Church.

This beautiful building boasts lots of lovely flint detailing on the outside and some some boffo monuments inside. Built by rich wool merchants (see my old Dragon Hall posts, here and here) it gained later infamy as the rabble-rousing preaching house of John Robinson, pastor to the clique of idiot fundamentalist bigots who set sail for the New World as the Pilgrim Fathers and whose descendants have since caused us all no end of trouble.

 

I'll finish up today with a couple of my favourite Norwich buildings.
First up, that monument to Ethel and Bert, the Ethelbert Gate at the top end of Cathedral Close.
This glorious little architectural gem was built in the early 1300s at the cost of Norwich's famously rebellious citizenry as recompense for burning down St.Ethelbert's Church and the timber parts of the Cathedral's Norman Monastery during the 1272 riot
(see posts passim for lots of local rioting peasantry - yay).

 And last but not least we have the fabulous Guild Hall at the north end of Norwich's marketplace.

Built mainly in the early 1400s on top of a wonderful vaulted undercroft dating from 200 years earlier, this was a gaudy "Up Yours!" to the poor from the monstrously rich wool merchants and guild masters of what was then England's second city.
They also kept all the city's arms in it, but that didn't stop the peasants revolting on a regular (and occasionally successful) basis.
The wonderful chequerboard flint and stone decoration to the east end pictured here was added a hundred years later as a kind of "Yo! Check out my bling!" statement.

The other end is much plainer but the flint makes a lovely contrast with autumn leaves.

This end housed the armoury and is now a museum. The old miscreants' cells and police house in the sticky-out bits (you can tell I'm an architect by my grasp of terminology)  are currently a rather good tea room and a rather tacky crystal shop.

Finally, here is the Guildhall's frontage on to the market place.
Sweet, huh?

So what are you waiting for? Get out there and build stuff out of flint.