Sea View

More of the little street leading to the cliff top from Wednesday's photo location.

How lovely to poke your head out of your bay window in the morning and see and smell the sea.

At the end of this street on the right is the wrecked Dickensian garret house that Lynn and I both covet. I'll post it later.

It's being restored at the moment and I shudder to think of how much it'll cost when its finished.

The Last Piece of Land Betwixt Me and The North Pole

Here - apropos of nada - is Cromer Pier just after sunset last Sunday, while Lynn and I were moseying our way back up the cliff into town. The sea really was that colour; we were trying to describe it but ran out of words.
What a splendid day we had. And later today I'll be missing from Blogville as I enjoy a splendid evening, treating myself. Yay! I'm going straight to the Theatre Royal from the office to revel in Angela Hewitt and the Britten Sinfonia playing Wagner, Sibelius and Beethoven (2nd and 4th Piano Concertos). Just enough time when I've crossed the city to down a warming cognac before the pre-concert talk. Yum.
Have a spiffy Tuesday, people.

Sunday Sequel

Follow-up movies rarely have the same impact as the originals.

Τηαλαττα, Τηαλαττα!

Νo Photoshop wankery; straight out of the camera. Oooh, sparkly!
And yes, it's the bit down at the lower right of the photo in the previous post, from a different angle and zoomed in a bit. Blow it up and see if you can count the sparkly bits.

Orange - No Reason; Just Orange

Random Norfolk - Wrack

Oh, We Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside

Just to bring you up to speed now that Blogger has managed to get its trousers on the right way round:
Our Lynn from Cheltenham Daily Photo is staying in Norfolk for a bit. She's caring for her Mum and Dad; her Mum's been ill and her Dad's been in hospital for an op, but thankfully they are both on the mend.
Anyhoo, Lynn came for three days and has been stuck here for weeks, so we've been having some fun together (Lynn's joined the Saturday Breakfast Gang) and enjoying little excursions to distract her from worries and chores.

As for where we went last weekend, Vanda suggested a circus and Petrea a gay bar and I must confess this place combines the two. For we return to the heart of kitsch-crappy, tourist-tacky cultural desolation that is Great Yarmouth.

Ah, tristesse …
When I was a wee laddie, this beach at this time of the year was so packed with people that you had to tread on them to reach the sea.

No takers for the deck chairs

And only a single … er … sunbather, avoiding the rays.




What on earth has happened to the traditional seaside holiday? Where are the queues waiting to use the beach huts?

Whither the kids clamouring for their turn at the telescope?

Aha! Some sign of life! A busy shopgirl rushed off her feet by the crowds fighting to purchase buckets, spades and windmills.

Sqwawk!

At least there are fresh doughnuts. Yummy!
More from Lynn and myself later.
Oh, and please come to the beach for your holidays and liven the place up. It's like a bloody morgue down here.

Nice Thatch

Right.
Last pretty post for a while as we've run out of sunshine.
Tomorrow I'll be back to the usual crap so make the most of this.

Just next door to the church from yesterday's post sit the very few but very beautiful houses that constitute Blythburgh.

They're mostly sixteenth century but with the remains of earlier buildings mingled in, plus some later additions.

I'll let them do the talking for themselves while I twiddle my thumbs for a bit.

Twiddle

This one is the old priory for the church.

This flint end is Tudor but the main hall that you can see behind it is mostly fourteenth century with sixteenth century bay windows added.

If you can afford to live here I want to marry you.

All Saints, Blythburgh

As threatened, we're off today to visit All Saints' Church at Blythburgh.
Blythburgh is a tiny hamlet sitting on a sandy hillock just inland from Southwold and overlooking a vast tidal salt marsh, permanently a'twitch with birdwatchers.
It boasts about ten houses clustered around one of the largest churches in this or any other area.
And nothing else.
At all.
It's an odd kind of place.
You can see the outside of the church and the magnificent view of it from across the marsh in the piece I posted earlier this week, when I trudged across the frozen mud to photograph it.

The outside is beautiful; a massive, late Gothic, perpendicular priory church that would grace any city, yet here it is all on its lonesome, miles from anywhere.
Of course, my favourite part of the exterior is the quite astonishing dancing bear with a monster stiffy which I photographed for my second ever post (you'll have to click the link to see it because I'm sick of loading bloody photographs).
Those mediæval stonemasons liked a good giggle.
As you can only see it with a telephoto lens the size of your leg it has remained unnoticed for centuries and it was only thanks to Helly wanting me to photograph all of the carvings so she could reproduce some in her studio that we came across it.

Right. Enough prattle. Let's take a look inside, shall we?
(cue: sound effect of creaking door) …


A general view from behind the font gives an idea of the airy spaciousness achieved by the "perpendicular" style of late Gothic church architecture.
Contrast this with my photos of the massive, chunky Romanesque Norwich Cathedral (I can't be arsed to do another link; if you want to look, follow the "Norwich" link in the sidebar … it's somewhere down near the bottom of that).
I love the warmth of the old brick pamment floor. The whole church has a lovely "feel", not cold or uninviting like some places.

This is what most historians and architects come to see.
What can only be described by words such as beautiful, magnificent, spiffy or boffo; the incomparably splendid "Angel Roof".

Good, innit?

Blythburgh boasts a fabulous set of misericords, probably second only to Boston Stump.
I've got a full set of photos of these but I'm buggered if I'm loading all that lot up, so this will have to do.
Some of them are very odd indeed.

As is this guy.
I have no idea what he is, but I think all we need to know is that he is wearing a chamberpot on his head and sports a quite startling codpiece, which seems to have acquired somewhat more of a lustrous polish than the rest of him.

Spooky time.
Call in the Scooby Gang.
Shortly after the church was built a massive storm brought down the tower and the congregation cowering inside the church were not particularly comforted by the appearance of Satan himself.
Apparently he turned up in fancy dress as a big black dog, ran around for a bit and clawed his way out through this very door, leaving his burnt claw marks on the right hand leaf.
According to local folklore he then went off to terrorise Bungay, a tradition that little brother Phil and his reprobate cronies carry on most weekends to this very day.

This is a photo of one end of the rood screen.
Somewhere in it is hidden Old Dive.
Can you spot him?

Yup. There I am, bestowing my benedictions upon you all from a very odd little window, the use of which I've never quite figured out, though the BBC made good use of it when they recorded Songs Of Praise from here.
I have yet to be convinced that the mediæval builders put it there for the benfit of TV cameras, however.

This is the cool little staircase that leads up to it.

I like this one.
Clerestory windows are designed to do just this.
Lovely.

Here's that wonderful roof again, with the light from the clerestory doing its thang.

So that's Blythburgh All Saints' Church.

Spiffy, huh?

A Southwold Gallimaufry

Before we leave Southwold and head off to Blythburgh Church, here's a last view of the town from the entrance to Walberswick harbour, accompanied by a gallimaufry of images left over from earlier in the week.
Gallimaufry, by the way, is a word that Peahen dredged from the musty past and hurled at me one day. It means a collection of various things; a hodgepodge, jumble or confused medley; a miscellany; a mishmash. Isn't language a strange and wonderful thing?

Apparently, you're not allowed to bring cats, dogs, rats, rabbits, monkeys or mice into Southwold from the lands of Johnny Foreigner.
America has homeland security at its entrepôts; we have a lone seagull on a stick to keep an eye on things.
Be sure and leave your monkeys at home when you visit or you risk a good pecking.

Seaweed, mussels and mud; a typical East Anglian harbour.

We do still have some defences up on the clifftop, unconquered by the Spanish Armada, Hitler, the Soviets and our eternal foe, those cheese-eating surrender-monkeys across the channel.


These cannon stare menacingly out over Sole Bay, scene of the historic Battle of - quel surprise - Sole Bay, which kicked off on May 28, 1672, and starred an Anglo-French fleet under the Duke of York facing off against - for some unfathomable reason - the Dutch fleet.

Of course, just before the battle started those craven, garlic-scented poltroons in the French fleet turned tail and ran away, leaving our gallant lads to fight those perfidious tulip-loving dope-smokers on our own.
After a day of knocking the shit out of one another the contest was declared a draw and everyone went home for tea.


Southwold's cannon were not recovered from that battle, but are much earlier, having the Tudor Rose stamped on them.

These days we use them to execute pensioners.
This couple were discovered eating chips on the pier and are about to be scattered severally over Sole Bay, to the cheers of happy local children.


Another military relic sits above the pier; a deactivated mine from the Great War of 1914-18. This is now a moneybox with a slot in the front for donations to a local seafarers' charity.


One last look at Lynn's House from the clifftop. This, too, as you can see in the foreground is protected by cannon.

So … That was Southwold.
Tomorrow we'll be off to look at Blythburgh All Saints Church, which you glimpsed across the frozen marshes earlier this week.

Toodle-pip!

Southwold Again

And so we meander along to the pretty end of town to look at some of the houses I will never be able to afford.

As we wander up the cliffs from the dunes a pleasing vista of Georgian houses and fisherman's cottages greets us.
No crappy town planning here; just a mess of different styles and periods jumbled together as it sould be.


Here we have a grand Georgian villa, quaint Victorian cottages and pretty town houses clustered around one of the greens leading down to the dunes and to Walberswick across the marshes.


This lovely Georgian flint cobble house has always been a particular favourite. Its front windows look out over the clifftop with a panoramic view of Sole Bay and its side windows gaze across the dunes and marshes.

This is my personal favourite, however, a Regency villa perched right on the clifftop with a grand ballroom overlooking the sea.


Another favourite of course is the pubs.
Southwold is home to Adnams' brewery, makers of the world's finest ales (they won CAMRA's top award so many years it's hardly worth bothering to enter any more).
This is the beer that has suckled Old Dive for many a decade.
And this is the sort of place I sup it.

Though this is my favourite pub in Southwold, the Sole Bay Inn.
Nestled under the lighthouse with a bunch of crusty fishermen enjoying a lunchtime pint of Adnams.
Glorious.

All around Southwold's handsome lighthouse are delightful little alleys.

This is Primrose Alley, leading to the clifftop.

And here is what - after her comments earlier this week - will forever be known as "Lynn's House".
While we wandered round town looking at the houses we were constantly going "Ooooh! Lynn would LOVE that!"
And we were right. Hee hee.


She'd also probably enjoy this. The Amber Shop. Though she could always walk along the beach and pick the stuff up for herself.

If you can afford to live in Southwold you can afford to shop here.
Hey ho.
More coastal gallimaufry tomorrow.