Old Dive's History of Norwich Castle - Part the Eleventh - 1121 Revisited - Chapter VII - A Bridge Not Too Far

Gosh, it's been nine-hundred-and-fifty-three years since Herbert the Ditcher turned up with his shovel and started work on Norwich Castle for good old William the Bastard.

Nine-hundred-and-fifty-three years will soon turn to nine-hundred-and-fifty-four years and still we've not finished it …

This week's exciting goings on include - as promised - a man holding a piece of plywood.

Some more crash deck covering the archæology in the basement.

 

 

 Does he drop it on his foot? Of course he does; that's what site safety boots are for …

And as I also promised you a man in a hole, here he is; I'm a man of my word, even if that word is usually plucked from my Roget's Profanisaurus.

Oooooh … a brick wall! Be still my beating heart.

Those of you who have heroically endured the history so far will recall the hideous monstrosity of a gaol that Sir John Soane erected against the east wall of the keep. You may also recall my sweary rant about the damage he caused and how he patched it up with cheap brickwork, the git.

Local hero William Wilkins the Younger tore out most of Soane's execrable wen of a building but this bit got left in place. See the chalk marks on the wall?

Well they mark the dimensions of the arched piece of arcading that Hugh is measuring in this photo. The wide arcade was once a window before being bricked up by Soane and re-faced by Salvin.

It will soon be opened up again as it will form the level wheelchair access to the Great Hall at the end of Gabriela's waffy glass bridge.

The glass bridge is the kind of beige arched contraption that will glom onto the newly re-opened arched arcading, shown in a rather confusing cutaway of Old Dive's working model above.

Gabriela is designing all the modern stuff outside the keep, replacing the 1960s crap; the keep and everything inside it being my domain. The junction between the bridge (and all the other new works abutting the keep) and the Norman fabric is designed so that, if the bridge gets demolished in a hundred-and-odd years time, it will leave no trace on the keep walls.

All drawings & 3D renderings copyright F+M.

Here's Gabi's design for the glass bridge. She's brilliant at the modern stuff while crusty Old Dive is the historic buildings expert and I'm very protective of "my" keep!

Anyhoo … here's what it might look like crossing the glass bridge from the café area toward the keep.
 

I'll finish today with a classic Tom Gauld cartoon which I think he must have drawn especially for our Petrea, whose voice coach looks to be very versatile …

And speaking of Anubis …

Old Dive's History of Norwich Castle - Part the Eleventh - 1121 Revisited - Chapter VI - What Lies Beneath - A Dirt-Nerd Special

First up: a bit of mosaic porn for Katie.

This is a section of the Boardman mosaic floor around six-by-six feet containing the Norwich coat of arms which has been carefully lifted by the mosaic restoration specialists ready to sit in its new location in the main entrance.

The area under the mosaics (the Victorian museum entrance hall, lobby and reception area) has never been dug and so - with our much longer lockdown timescale the archæologists and the Norfolk Museums folk extended the scope of the archæological dig to include this.

In our last post we saw a happy archæologist pointing at a shovel …

All 3D scans courtesy Oxford Archæology, bless their cotton socks.

Well, that whole area has now been excavated and the lovely folk at Oxford Archæology sent us their 3D scan of the dig. Yay!

The stair and bricked-up dungeon doorway are on the right with the old dungeons beyond. So you can orient yourself, the castle keep is just off to the left and we're looking north, into the museum, from the new entrance.

We don't really know what most of this stuff is yet. That's why the detailed archæological reports usually take at least a couple of years after the dig to be published. Lots of guesswork and forensic fun to come!

For Dirt-Nerds such as Petrea and Old Dive, this is all tremendously exciting. For most folk it is a hole in the ground and a bit of a mess.

With the 3D scan we can even look at the dig from underneath, as if we were deep inside Herbert the Ditcher's original motte from 1068 (see Part the First - Chapter II).

We've found no Norman work as yet and we don't really expect to find any as this area is outside the keep and when Soane desecrated the Bigod Tower staircase for his ugly county gaol we know he destroyed it down to the foundations. Wilkins then demolished Soane's work and built the panopticon gaol in it's place. All this mess is from the two main prison builds.

The remains of a possible bendy brick corridor may be pre-prison-era as it appears to be of a kind with the original dungeon (the basement of the guard tower built by Roger Bigod after the city was sacked by King Louis during the first Barons' War). For now, however, that's all just speculation.

There's a trench running north-south which seems similar to the hypocaust heating trenches of Wilkins' panopticon, but what it's doing over here is anybody's guess as the known hypocaust is way off to the north.

So … lots of dirt-sifting, archive-delving, head-scratching and fun to come over the next couple of years as this lot gets sorted out.

Next time, a man holds a piece of plywood and another man stands in a hole. That should get you drooling in anticipation …

Old Dive's History of Norwich Castle - Part the Eleventh - 1121 Revisited - Chapter V - All Colours Welcome Here

… Well a few, anyway. not enough for a Pride march, maybe, but a pretty colourful bunch.

Red people look at some pieces of steel.

Yellow people look at a hole in the castle wall.

Orange people play in the dirt.

(Please note judicious use of large "Covid Mask" undercrackers to shield sensitive folk from the ghastly sight of builders' arse-crack). When you see a signboard saying "Considerate Builders' Scheme" this is what they mean …

Blue people play with asbestos.

They have their own Little Blue World to live in.

… And, as promised, a grinning archæologist points at a shovel.

One of the few silver linings of Covid has been that the castle opening deadline has been booted into touch and we've used the lockdowns to expand the archæological brief to areas outside the original scope.

Here, Happy Heather has discovered a prison-era stair and bricked-up opening to the old dungeons.

Hints of even more exciting stuff are leaking down the hill from the castle as I write and I'll keep you informed.

We'll finish today with a couple of general shots of the inside of the keep with lots of scaffolding sitting on the temporary crash-deck floor which protects the archæology beneath.

More soon …

Architects' Coffee Morning

If you ever wondered what goes on inside a high-end Architectural practice …

This morning's coffee morning catch-up with the residential team consisted of Emily (chief resi partner) drawing a portrait of me at the beach.

I'm kinda relieved this lot aren't on my team for Norwich Castle.

Old Dive's History of Norwich Castle - Part the Eleventh - 1121 Revisited - Chapter IV - "Boy, You're Gonna Carry That Weight, Carry That Weight A Long Time"

Sing along … you know you want to …

Remember that lucky sod from a few posts back who got to play with that sexy little mini-piling rig?

Well his piles (concrete ones, not his bottom-grapes) were all located so as to avoid any archæology, especially around Edward Longshanks' old palace foundations and before we can go any further we have to ensure that they're up to the job.

 

This entails using our jolly, cheerful, yellow, "whacking great crane" to hoist enormous lumps of hefty steel up from the moat, all the way over the castle keep roof and down the other side into the old café area … without hitting the castle on the way.

Then do the same with a bunch of reinforced concrete slabs and get a couple of guys to stand on top for good measure.

If this fails, then it's back to square one, so pretty nerve-wracking …

Whew! The lady with the pooter she say "Yes!"

Yaaay! Mini-pile party!

Then of course we have to repeat the whole process for all the other piles (that's them with the little yellow "don't trip over me" antennæ on top).

The darker line at the bottom of the keep wall on the right indicates the old café floor level. We're adjusting our levels so that we can make a feature of the Barnack stone plinths to the buttresses as these date to 1096 and the first phase of William Rufus' palace build.

Next time: a grinning archæologist points at a shovel. Don't miss it!

The Boys Are Back In Town

 "BOYS!" Ha!

Fourteen-and-a-half months without Saturday Breakfast Club is waaaaay too long …

Good old Tony is apparently unable to take anything other than a thumbprint-sized photo on his iPhone.

Headmasters … huh!

Anyhoo … ten days after my second jab was when I promised we'd meet up and that's this morning, so cue lots of rubbish talk about cricket and rugby, lots of moaning about the Tories and LOTS of ogling pretty girls wearing not much more than a mask.

Then a trip to the gallery for a squealy reunion with the beautiful Becky and home in time for lunch.

Gods I've missed it …

Fecking, Feckity Feck!

Buggrit … You wait years for a partial solar eclipse to be visible from Norwich, get all your camera gear and tripod into the orifice, check with the weather-folk that it's going to be clear and sunny all week and what happens?

It's fucking cloudy; that's what happens. The eclipse is now at its most intense and all we get is clouds and a little gloominess.

 That's the partial eclipse, just about in the centre of the photo.

Arse …

Hi !

 Meanwhile, way over the Pond in super-sunny California our ever-wonderful Katie has discovered my secret US business venture … 

Many thanks, Katie for a fit of the giggles - and I'll be pronouncing it DRAAANKS! from now on.

Old Dive's History of Norwich Castle - Part the Eleventh - 1121 Revisited - Chapter III

And so, 'tis May, 2021, nine-hundred years after Norwich Castle's completion and here we are, back again with the builders in. This time we have a big yellow crane and a shedload of groats but I find comfort in the fact that our stonemasons still use identical tools and methods to their mediæval counterparts.

Unlike the days of Henry the First we no longer die so much of arse-gravy mayhem; instead we choke to death in our millions due to governmental incompetence and fuckwits who won't wear masks … 3,390,000 dead as of today and the Indian Variant that our imbecile Dear Leader is ignoring will slap us back into lockdown before much longer. Happy days …

But at least the bluebells are out on the castle mound and the big yellow crane looks cheerful and jolly in the spring sunshine. So that's alright then. This is the view from the stage of the little outdoor theatre in the moat.

And at last that smegging 1960s café has gone and we can see the beautiful north wall of the keep as nature intended (or at least as William Rufus and Henry the First intended). The archæologists have recorded and covered up the remains of William Longshanks' palace and things are moving along nicely.

The Museum opened (pre-bookings only and limited numbers) on Monday and the swear jar in the site office is gasping for groats as the builders are once more on their best fucking behaviour … Sorry; that's a pound in the jar from me …

If anyone fancies this Victorian window in their front room the sign says "External window remove carefully for architectural salvage" so it'll be on sale as soon as they've got it out of the wall. Getting it in the back of your car might be a bit of a bugger, though.

We're up in the keep again now, just below what will be the Great Hall floor level. you can see the original Norman wall on the left, with some of Gitty Soane's crap brick repairs in it; the arch is Boardman's from the 1890s and beyond will be the restored King's Chapel.

Some Danish seasoned oak floorboard samples for areas where we're not using reclaimed mediæval boards. Thanks to every monarch from Henry the Eighth through to the Georges destroying our ancient tall oak woodland to build navies we're left with attractively gnarly, stumpy old oaks which are no good for the very long and very wide boards we need. The Danes still have plenty, however, and since the Normans who built the castle were descended from Danish King Rollo in the 900s (see the early history chapters below) we feel pretty comfortable with using them.

I'll leave you today with another picture of the crane and the south face of the keep. More stuff as soon as I get round to it. Toodle pip from your masked mediævalist!

Old Dive's History of Norwich Castle - Part the Eleventh - 1121 Revisited - Chapter II

Being some photographs of holes in the ground and assorted gallimaufry at the castle to date …

Don't say I didn't warn you. Yup, it's a hole in the ground. A new drainage run carefully excavated by the archæologists under the crappy old 1960s café.

This one's inside the keep basement and is one of Boardman's old Victorian drains that needed replacing. The new drain is in and they're surrounding it with peashingle in preparation for the archæologists to backfill the trench.

Don't fret; we're not putting plastic pipes in; those are the temporary diverted drains on the surface. 

And yes, that blackish stratum on the left is part of the porpoise party of Christmas 1121.

Bet you never thought working on a Norman castle could be so glamorous and exciting, did you?

This is up at what will be the Great Hall floor level where we've taken out Boardman's "pitiful walkway" (see posts passim) and are surveying the holes he dug into the keep wall as we have to re-use those for our own structure so as not to cause any more damage to the mediæval fabric.

Another view of the same area. Yes, we still use pencils and duct tape. The chalk (and chalk …) mark shows where the Structural Engineer had planned to put steel prior to this area being exposed, but due to the Boardman hole locations we're having to faff and fudge it to suit what's there.

Socially distanced faffing and fudging. Much masked mumbling and hard-hatted head-scratching.

Meanwhile, outside the keep, some lucky sod gets to play with the mini-piling rig, now that the archæologists have determined where is safe to pile so as not to disturb anything interesting. Boardman's Victorian vandal builders destroyed much of Edward Longshanks' royal palace remains so we have plenty of room to plan our foundations.

The steel post and beams are part of the old café roof and will soon be removed.

I'll finish this month with a view of the whacking great crane having just lowered some steelwork into the now happily-demolished crappy 1960s shop area. This will be the new reception atrium and have my whizzy glass roof on it so you'll be able to see the Bigod Tower (on the left) for the first time since the eighteenth century.

More faff and blather to come when there's something interesting to photograph.