Heritage Open Day 2021

Yesterday was Heritage Open Day 2021, and this is my account of the day as I experienced it.

Heritage Open Day in King’s Lynn happens on the second Sunday in September (except last year when for reasons not needing elaboration it did not happen at all), which this year was yesterday. This post describes the day as I experienced it, and is rather longer than my usual posts.

THE BEGINNING:
TUESDAY MARKET PLACE

There is a classic car show in the Tuesday Market Place in conjunction with Heritage Open Day, and viewed as the museum pieces that such contraptions should become some of the specimens are seriously impressive…

THE CUSTOM HOUSE

The first building I visited this time round was The Custom House, one of the two most iconic buildings in Lynn (The Townhall/ Guildhall is the other). They have an excellent little display upstairs, and it was well worth venturing indoors to see it…

THE RED MOUNT CHAPEL

A favourite of mine, standing on its own in the middle of an area of parkland, with the bandstand visible through the trees and the ruins of the Guanock Gate about 100 yards away. There are actually two chapels, the upper chapel and the lower chapel, and the thick walls and small windows that the outside of the building features are testament to the need to guard against religious persecution in earlier times…

THE JEWISH CEMETERY

This is near the top end of Millfleet, and most of the year if one spots it one can glimspe through the gate and see some of it. It was fully open for Heritage Open Day, and with lots of extra information made available…

ST NICHOLAS CHAPEL

I know this place well, but was interested to see what might be happening there in Heritage Open Day, and have no regrets about having ventured in.

VOLUNTEERING:
HAMPTON COURT GARDEN

I was assigned the 2PM to 4PM shift at Hampton Court Garden, also referred to as the Secret Garden, because most of the time very few people are aware of it’s existence – the only clue from the street any time other than Heritage Open Day is a very ordinary looking navy blue door set into the wall, an even the passage providing direct access from the courtyard is one that you would only know as such if you had been told (the extreme lowness of the door into the garden that way means that it cannot be used on Heritage Open Day for Health and Safety reasons). There are at least three places called Hampton Court, the famous one in Surrey, another in Herefordshire, and this one (Wolsey’s former pad in Surrey is the parvenu of the three). This Hampton Court is named in honour of John Hampton who was responsible for the newest side of the courtyard, which actually made it a courtyard (even this, two centuries younger than anything else there, dates from the 17th century). He was a baker who made good use of being based at the heart of a town that was the third busiest port in England at the time – he specialized in ship’s biscuits, for which he had a captive market.

The part of Hampton Court visible from the garden dates from 1440 and started life as an arcade fronted warehouse facing directly onto the river (it is the last surviving example of such a frontage in England). The earliest part of Hampton Court dates from 1350, and the first expansion happened in 1400.

The warehouse lost its raison d’etre through two factors: ships got bigger, and the river silted up. A new quayside was constructed resulting in the relocation of the river to its current location fractionally east of Hampton Court, and this left the warehouse quite literally high and dry.

It was nearly lost forever in the mid 20th century, because in the 1930s Hampton Court was basically derelict. At one time the council intended to knock it down and replace it with a modern block of flats but then a very determined lady by the name of Mrs Lane came on the scene. She bought the place up bit by bit and renovation work started. From this the King’s Lynn Preservation Trust came into being, and they own the freehold on Hampton Court to this day, with the individual flats, which are all different from one another, being leasehold properties.

My chief responsibility in my stewarding role was take note of numbers of people coming to visit. These numbers were reassuringly high – by the end of the day the tally was in the region of 500 visitors, and there were many expression of surprise and delight from those to whom it was a new place.

The first of two pictures showing the remains of the arcaded frontage – when this was first built those arches were completely open and good were off loaded directly from ships into the warehouse, where they would other have gone upstairs to be stored or straight through to the shops that fronted onto what is now Nelson Street.

OTHER PHOTOGRAPHS

These remaining photographs were taken at various places in and around town during the day but do not belong in any specific section…

There were many antique buses providing tours for those who wanted to see things that way. This particular example is actually old London Transport stock – buses of this type were still in regular service in London during my childhood and adolescence.

Heritage Open Day 2018 1: Setting the Scene

Starting my account of Heritage Open Day 2018.

INTRODUCTION

This year’s Heritage Open Day (Sunday 16th September) came in the middle of a very busy period for me. I was scheduled to cover the Bank House for two hours, and imagined spending a bit of time both before and after that taking in the rest of the event. As it happened I was laid up for the whole of the Saturday with a bug, and still not completely recovered by the Sunday morning.

THE DAY ITSELF

Eventually, at just after 10:30AM, I set off to visit Hampton Court, reassure my aunt that I was well on the way to recovering and then make a fairly leisurely trip round to the Bank House. I took in an arts exhibition and made myself known to the photographers there. I also visited a solicitor’s office which is set in a Norman house. I arrived at the Bank House a bit early, and after reminding myself what the cellars looked like I spent a few minutes watching my predecessor handle things before I relieved him a little early because he was doing another session immediately afterwards. After two hours of what was basically a crowd control job (right in the slot for an autistic person – natch) I was quite tired, so after a brief visit to a club on Ferry Lane where I could consume some lqiuid refreshment while looking out over the river I went home to chill for a while before having supper with my aunt.

PHOTOGRAPHS

I will be giving the solicitor’s office a post to itself, and will also be giving the Bank House extended coverage, so this pictures are from elsewhere:

Special Bus — This is an old red bus, made by Leyland who manufactured the iconic old London buses, but it is not a genuine London bus.

HC Plans — The passgeway leading in to the Secret Garden featured a historical display put together by the indefatigable Hendrina Ellis.

The secret garden — The series of arches at the rear of this shot were a warehouse frontage which in those days looked directly out on the river (now almost 100m distant from them)

rowing race — A rowing regatta was happening on the river.

Militia unit, Custom House — A militia company were stationed near the Custom House (the rifles were loaded with blanks btw)

Art Exhibition 1 — The first of a number of pictures from the art exhibition.

Modern day mosaics — Creatures made using tessarae

Butterfly set in mosaic frame — This butterfly set into a mosaic frame particularly impressed me.

TMP — A glimpse of the Tuesday Market Place

Walking boat — A walking boat – and no this is not the West Stand at Headingley on a Saturday!

Kings Lynn views — Two riverside views on display at Ferry Lane.

2 Hampton Court

Continuing my account of Heritage Open Day 2017 with an account of the unique opportunity presented by the fact that 2 Hampton Court is currently being renovated.

INTRODUCTION

This post continues my account of Heritage Open Day 2017, which started with an overview and continued with a post about my experience volunteering at 27 King Street. This post deals with an opportunity that was available for the first and probably last time this year. Having anticipated the effect that my two-hour volunteering stint was likely to have on me I had decided this warranted being seen before that.

SOME HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

A double sided A4 information sheet about some of the history of the place had been put together by Hendrina Ellis:

There is no connection between this Hampton Court and the famous Hampton Court in Surrey (there are in fact at least three places with this name, the other being in Herefordshire, and the one in Surrey is the newest of the three, being a touch under 500 years old).

2 HAMPTON COURT IN PICTURES

As well as the building itself there was a small exhibition about the history surrounding it. For the rest of this post my camera takes centre stage, giving you the chance to see what I managed to capture of this unique experience:

Elaborate lettering — I was so impressed by this display that…

Renaud de Bar — …I took close up shots of each individual sheet

CONCLUSION

This was an excellent start to Heritage Open Day. The King’s Lynn Preservation Trust did a splendid job of presenting this building to best effect.

Fundraising for a Public Bench Featuring Margery Kempe Launched on #InternationalWomensDay

A post for International Womens Day announcing the launch of a Just Giving page raising funds for a public bench featuring King’s Lynn’s most famous daughter, Margery Kempe, to be placed in the Saturday Market. Whether or not you donate please share widely.

INTRODUCTION

This is very appropriate for International Women’s Day, and very useful for the town of King’s Lynn if we manage to raise the money.

THE PLAN

The plan is for the bench to be located in the Saturday Market Place, in the area of town where Margery Kempe, King’s Lynn’s most famous daughter, lived.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

If you are able you can donate on the Just Giving page created by my Aunt with some minor assistance on my part that has gone live this very afternoon by clicking on the image that ends this little post. Whether you do so or not you can help by sharing this as widely as possible.

This carving of Margery Kempe, used to illustrate the Just Giving page, can be seen in King’s Lynn Minster.

Toxic Earth

A warning note courtesy of http://www.indy100.org, some stuff about public transport, some stuff about science, a link to a satirical pamphlet and some photographs.

INTRODUCTION

The title of this piece comes from an article on www.indy100.com although I am sharing many other things besides that, including some of my local photographs. However before I get into the main meat of my post there is one other matter to attend to:

ERRATUM

In a recent post I identified a bed of yellow flowers as daffodils. It has since been brought to my attention that they were in fact yellow crocuses. I apologise for the mistake, and please note that I am not resorting to the equivalent of putting the apology in six point type somewhere in the middle of of page 27!

TOXIC EARTH

Reading this article put me in mind of Anna’s recent post “No 17 drawing in my goals for 2017” where the drawing is about a group of people stranded in space looking for another planet to replace the one that they had to leave behind because they messed it up too badly. Click on the image below to read this important and sobering article.

A COUPLE OF LONDON
TRANSPORT RELATED BITS

I usually reserve stuff about London transport for my London transport themed website http://www.londontu.be, where indeed I shared the second piece in this section yesterday, but I felt these two bits should also be shared here.

LAURIE PENNY ON UBER

Laurie Penny has turned her fire on private cab hire firm Uber, and the result is a devastating article in the Guardian, which I hope will succeed in weaning a few people off this vile organisation. Please read the article in full please click on the image below.

TUNNEL ARCHAEOLOGY AT THE MUSEUM OF LONDON

The central section of the Elizabeth line (nee Crossrail) cuts through London on an east-west axis, and there being no space on the surface it also cuts vertically through millennia of history. It is this latter that has led to the creation of a new exhibition at the Museum of London showing the best finds unearthed during the building of the line. Accompanying this exhibition is a short video, embedded below. After the video are links to more about this and about the Museum of London.

Extra links:

The Museum of London website
The Museum of London Tunnel Archaeology page
http://www.londontu.be on The Museum of London
http://www.londontu.be’s take on this particular story.

PAYING MORE BUT GETTING LESS

This is a petition put together by Going to Work which calls not only for affordable affairs on our railways but also for a fully publicly owned and publicly accountable rail network. To view, sign and share the petition please click on the screenshot below:

PHOTOGRAPHIC INTERLUDE

Here are some pictures from in and around King’s Lynn:

dscn4141 — Planning information posted near Lynnsport.

dscn4148 — The good and the bad of Bawsey drain in one photo – it is home to many species but in spite of continued efforts to clear it is still used by uncaring human residents as a dumping ground.

dscn4154 — This bridge crosses a stretch of the Gaywood, carrying Littleport Street across said river.

dscn4323 — The inaugural NAS West Norfolk curry night took place on Thursday, delayed by a week due to bad weather. Although some of those who had originally booked did not make it, those who did enjoyed it.

dscn4324 — My choice – Lamb Rogan Josh. The accompaniments are boiled rice, two small poppadoms and a garlic naan. The curry was a little spicier than I would have liked but other than that splendid. The accompanying drink, included in the £6.49 price tag, is a pint of Doom Bar ale (and yes for the record I drank only the one)

dscn4325 — One of many fine pictures to adorn the wall of The Globe, and the only one I got a clear shot at.

ATHEISTS ARE BECOMING MORE POPULAR

Here is a truly international link – a Brit sharing a post written by a New Zealander about the USA. Heather Hastie has carried out a typically thorough comparison between the Pew Research Centre’s findings of three years ago and of just recently. Please read Heather’s post in full by clicking here.

A TRIO OF SCIENCE PIECES

The first two pieces in this section were initially posted on whyevolutionistrue starting with a piece drawing on the work of Pliny the in Between, who runs a website called The Far Corner Cafe, and of a doctor who posts under the name of Orac on scienceblogs, whose piece can be read here, to demonstrate that Chiropractic is not merely nonsense, but dangerous (indeed potentially fatal) nonsense at that. Jerry Coyne, creator of whyevolutionistrue (it takes its name from his landmark book of that title published in 2009), has received many hostile comments in response to previous pieces he has written that are critical of Chiropractic. To read this piece in full please click on the image below, the first in a series of five drawings from Pliny the in Between that were used to illustrate the post.

Second of the trio, again courtesy of WEIT, is a piece linking to a paper published in the journal Nature that mentions the discovery of potential traces of life in sediments that range in age between 3.77 and 4.28 billion years (the earlier end of the scale being about as early given what is known about our planet’s turbulent beginnings as life of any sort could have taken hold). To read the post in full and possibly move from there to reading the paper in Nature please click on the image below:

The third in my science trio comes from the Smithsonian and has the self explanatory title “NASA Wants the Public to Log In to Help Find Plant 9”. To read the piece in full please click on the image below.

A SATIRICAL PAMPHLET
FROM UNLOCK DEMOCRACY

To read this pamphlet from Unlock Democracy in full please click the screenshot of the cover below:

SOME FINAL PHOTOGRAPHS

This set of pictures are of items that will be going under the hammer in James and Sons’ March auction, a full catalogue listing for which can be viewed here.

Lot 149 (three separate images joined together)

149-b. In the past, before the American way of reckoning up large numbers took over, a 1 with nine zeros after it was not designate one billion, but either one thousand million or one milliard, and one of the banknotes here shows that the Germans with a small difference in spelling used the same word when necessary.

393-c. When putting these together I decided to make this image the centre of the picture, thereby splitting the two sets of booklets.

407-e – I could not resist extracting this close-up.

A Walk and Some Links

A walk in and around King’s Lynn and a number of interesting and important links.

INTRODUCTION

I am making the walk the centrepiece of this post, with some links either side of it, starting with some general links, and then following the walk with some science and nature themed links.

SOME GENERAL LINKS

First up, Heather Hastie has produced this post titled “Betsy Devos Doesn’t Inspire Confidence in the Future of US Education”

From The Mighty comes this piece, titled “17 Things Not to Say to People on the Autism Spectrum”

Steve Rotheram has put out a call for Jeremy Hunt to end the NHS crisis. The link is here.

Courtesy of Disability News Service, here is an article about how one of Britain’s biggest bus companies is attempting to weasel out of a supreme court discrimination ruling.

THE WALK

Yesterday was bright and sunny, so I went out for a walk. The sun was shining on to the Lower Purfleet, revealing that the surface still had a thin covering of ice…

When posting about a walk in King’s Lynn I always like to showcase at least one of our historic buildings, and today I have this picture showing Hanse House and the Rathskeller with the towers of King’s Lynn Minster in the background:

There was nothing else of note until I reached the Nar outfall, where I have often observed cormorants. This time there were no cormorants, but there was a small wading bird which I had not seen before and which consultation of my bird book suggested was a Common Sandpiper…

I left the river by way of Hardings Pits, taking a couple of shots (one each way) at that moment.

Crossing the Nar on my towards the parkland I took a picture from the bridge…

Passing through the Vancouver Garden I spied a squirrel. It eluded my first attempt to photograph it, but…

I then decided to make it a long walk and headed for Lynn Sport, to then go back into town by way of Bawsey Drain. Along the way I got a shot of the railway station as seen from Tennyson Road level crossing…

At Lynnsport I stopped to photograph a decorated signpost…

The Bawsey Drain segment of the walk provided a number of pictures, including a raven and some moorhens…

bawsey-drain-2 — Unfortunately Bawsey Drain is used as a dumping ground by people who cannot be bothered to dispose of their rubbish properly.

While walking a,long John Kennedy Road I took this picture of the back of St Nicholas’ Chapel…

Right at the end of the walk I spotted a pied wagtail..

NATURE THEMED LINKS

The first link in this section is to a piece that appeared as part of WEIT’s Hili Dialogue series. The star of the series is a cat, the eponymous Hili, also known as the Princess of Poland. Hili has a staff of two, Andrej and Malgorzata and graciously permits a dog named Cyrus to share in this. The pieces always feature something about that particular date, and apparently yesterday was Penguin Awareness Day. While I do not object to a day being designated Penguin Awareness Day, surely we should be aware of them and the rest of the natural world every day. To read the piece in full, click on the graphic below which is extracted from it:

This leads neatly on to two recent pieces from Anna, the first of which is titled “This can never be wrong”, the ‘this’ being taking care of our planet. The other piece from Anna that I am sharing here is about the Save Trosa Nature campaign.

Rationalising the Universe’s latest offering is about Newton’s Laws of Motion.

WEIT get another mention, for this piece about a new species of moth which has been named after Donald Trump.

I started the ‘general links’ section of this post with a piece by Heather Hastie. I now finish the piece with another piece, the title of which, “Huge Crack in Larsen C Ice Shelf in Antarctica Grows” is sufficient introduction. I ‘pressed’ a link to this yesterday, but it is so important that I choose to share it again.

Pictures and Petitions

A couple of important petitions, a couple of interesting links and some photographs taken in and around King’s Lynn – enjoy!

INTRODUCTION

I have two important petitions to share with you, a couple of other links and some new photos to share.

RENATIONALISE THE RAILWAYS!

For my first offering I turn to the campaign group We Own It, and their petition calling for Britain’s railways to be publicly owned and controlled. Click on the screenshot below to visit and sign this petition.

AN ANTI-FRACKING PETITION

The latest area to be targeted by fracking companies is Derbyshire. Click on the image below to visit and sign the petition against this:

PHOTOGRAPHS 1:

A COUPLE OF LINKS

Autism Mom’s most recent post is entitled “Words My Son Can Use” and is a very interesting read.

Welfare Weekly have produced a list of the 10 worst excuses produced by employers caught failing to pay the minimum wage which you can read here.

PHOTOGRAPHS 2

We finish with a few more pictures, these ones taken this morning:

Winter Pictures

A few links and some pictures – enjoy.

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to my first post of 2017. I have some pictures to share with you of course, and one or two other things.

SOME LINKS

My first link is a quiz from the British Humanist Association entitled “How Humanist Are You?”

My remaining two links are to petitions:

38 Degrees are running a petition to stop filibustering in the House of Commons.
petitionsite.com have a petition calling for the renationalisation of our railways.

Mention of the railways leads me to the following from twitter:

Join campaigners outside King’s Lynn railway station from 7am to make your opposition known https://t.co/G21HNBd7uc

— JoAnne Rust (@JoRust45) January 2, 2017

This is part of a nationwide protest against the continuing increase of fares for increasingly poor services on British trains.

PHOTOGRAPHS

These pictures comprise my last from 2016 and my first from 2017…

dscn8581 — This picture is the last of the 2106 vintage…

dscn8582 — …and this is the first of the 2017 vintage.

Walking in the Winter Sun

Mainly photographs – a drone that my nephew was given for Christmas and some pictures from a walk I took in the winter sun today. Read, enjoy and please share!

INTRODUCTION

I am having a quiet day today, having spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in the company of various family members. Earlier today there was blue sky and bright sun over King’s Lynn, so I went for a walk.

THE STAR GIFT OF YESTERDAY

Although most of the presents given out yesterday seemed to go down very well there was no doubt as to which was the best received – a drone that was given to my nephew. Here are some photos from yesterday…

dscn8358 — My cousin and his Swedish girlfriend came bearing gifts – this crispbread is exceedingly good.

dscn8361 — A piece of stained glass at my aunt’s house.

dscn8360 — The side view of my parents new burner.

dscn8359 — Front on picture of the same.

dscn8385 — The remaining pictures all feature this drone…

A WINTER WALK

I walked along the riverbank as far as Hardings Pits and then back into town by way of the parkland…

dscn8429 — Two pictures of the bright but very low sun reflecting off the river.

dscn8438 — Moorhens in and around the Nar

dscn8440 — The Red Mount Chapel from a distance.

England Out of the Cricket World Cup

A personal view of England’s exit from the Cricket World Cup

The match between England and Bangladesh at the Adelaide Oval has just ended, with James Anderson being clean bowled to give Bangladesh victory by 15 runs. This means that Bangladesh are in the quarter-finals, and irrespective of what they do in their last game against Afghanistan England are heading home at the first possible opportunity. Buttler’s aggressive 65 kept the match alive longer than the England team as a whole deserved. The dismissal of Chris Jordan, run out when his bat was over the line but in the air, summed up England’s failings in a nutshell.

This is England’s worst ever showing in a cricket world cup – although morally speaking 1996 when England progressed into the quarter-finals only by virtue of unconvincing victories over Holland and the United Arab Emirates was on a par.

To Bangladesh, and especially Mahmudullah and Mushfiqur Rahim who batted so beautifully, the former racking up Bangladesh’s first ever world cup century my heartiest congratulations. To England: it is time to face facts – you are not even a passable one day side – never mind a good one.

For the rest, I hope that Ireland can conjure up one more good result against either India or Pakistan to ensure their progress to the quarter-finals. I think that todays result is a good one for cricket as a whole – it nails for good and all the notion that the quarter-final line ups could be predicted from the start of the tournament.

I have some pictures from yesterday to share…

DSCN1662

I have some pictures from yesterday to share..

	Thomas on Heritage Open Day 2021
	The Cheesesellers Wi… on Heritage Open Day 2021
	sidestreambob on A Plan for Australia
	Thomas on A Plan for Australia
	sidestreambob on A Plan for Australia

INTRODUCTION

THE DAY ITSELF

PHOTOGRAPHS

INTRODUCTION

SOME HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

2 HAMPTON COURT IN PICTURES

CONCLUSION

INTRODUCTION

THE PLAN

WHAT YOU CAN DO

INTRODUCTION

ERRATUM

TOXIC EARTH

A COUPLE OF LONDON TRANSPORT RELATED BITS

LAURIE PENNY ON UBER

TUNNEL ARCHAEOLOGY AT THE MUSEUM OF LONDON

PAYING MORE BUT GETTING LESS

PHOTOGRAPHIC INTERLUDE

ATHEISTS ARE BECOMING MORE POPULAR

A TRIO OF SCIENCE PIECES

A SATIRICAL PAMPHLET FROM UNLOCK DEMOCRACY

SOME FINAL PHOTOGRAPHS

INTRODUCTION

SOME GENERAL LINKS

THE WALK

NATURE THEMED LINKS

INTRODUCTION

RENATIONALISE THE RAILWAYS!

AN ANTI-FRACKING PETITION

PHOTOGRAPHS 1:

A COUPLE OF LINKS

PHOTOGRAPHS 2

INTRODUCTION

SOME LINKS

PHOTOGRAPHS

INTRODUCTION

THE STAR GIFT OF YESTERDAY

A WINTER WALK

A COUPLE OF LONDON
TRANSPORT RELATED BITS

A SATIRICAL PAMPHLET
FROM UNLOCK DEMOCRACY