Sunday afternoon necessitated a trip to King’s Lynn Station, so I decided that I would make this the last overnight stay of my sabbatical, and complete the set of Norfolk Fenland churches I started in Walk 7 and Walk 8.
I checked in at my hotel in time to attend Choral Evensong at King’s Lynn Minster. ‘The Priory and Parish Church of St Margaret, St Mary Magdalene and All Virgin Saints’, to give it its old-fashioned title, was founded in 1101 by Herbert da Losinga, five years after he had set to work building Norwich Cathedral. It is a venerable building, wearing the layers of nine centuries of Christian worship at the heart of this historically important town.
Hats off to St Margaret's for maintaining a(n almost) weekly Choral Evensong, even if the robed choir of 17 adults outnumbered the congregation by more than two to one. (I suspect that temperatures in the mid-20s meant that some parishioners couldn’t be lured from their loungers.) And hats off that a sermon is prepared for such a small congregation. The Rector, Canon Mark Dimond, preached thoughtfully about interfaith dialogue.
I didn’t have time to explore this building properly, but, in a way, I was happier spending an hour rooted to the spot in the thirteenth century chancel. From here you get some sense of just how old and prayer-soaked these walls are. High up on the wall opposite me, a little grotesque spent the entirety of Evensong pulling a face at me. How very rude!
It had been my intention to spend a day in King’s Lynn earlier in the sabbatical. This walk got jettisoned, partly because I read somewhere that St Nicholas' Chapel, which I have never been inside, was closed for building work. It transpired that either my informaton was out-of-date, or that the work had been recently completed. I will have to return another time.
Nonetheless, I wandered from St Margaret’s Church in the Saturday Market, to St Nicholas close to the Tuesday Market, so from the first medieval town to the second. I had forgotten how fascinating King’s Lynn is. The town gets a bad press, I guess because it is (now) on the way to nowhere. But for so much of its history the very opposite was true. In the fourteenth century there was no port more significant in the country. Bishop's Lynn, as it was, continued to prosper through the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, its patronage tranferring from Bishop to King at the Reformation. The sheer quantity of mercantile, civic and ecclesiastical buildings testify to Lynn's former wealth and prosperity. It is not hard to imagine the Lynn in which Margery Kempe, the medieval mystic, would have existed. A leaflet I picked up in my hotel introduced Lynn as the UK's most underrated town, and I think it might be right.
I met Fr Robert Fayers, in his beautiful fifteenth century house close to St Nicholas Chapel, for dinner. Fr Robert is born and bred Lynn, the fourth generation of funeral directors in the town. Although now back in the town of his birth, Fr Robert spent all his ordained ministry away from Norfolk, and it was during his time in Brighton that I spent a year as his Pastoral Assistant, testing my vocation.
I knew that he had a deep knowledge of this town, but I hadn't quite realised the pride that went with it. He is part of the King's Lynn Civic Society, and contributed to a pilgrimage trail round the town. When I come back to do my walk here I will use it.
Today was the hottest day of the year, so lathered with sun cream and laden with water, I began my walk at Walpole St Andrew. An elderly man was sat outside the cottage by the church. I waved, and said I was off on a 9 mile walk, and joked that I would see him again in a few hours.
Surely nowhere in the country has such a concentration of magnificent medieval churches as the fenland between King’s Lynn and Wisbech. That this was the least significant of the three buildings I visited today tells you a great deal.
Declared redundant – it is less than a mile from the other, greater Walpole – the Churches Conservation Trust took it on in 1986. It has the unusual feature of heavily eroded pillars, possibly because this church spent a good deal of its life roofless, and the harsh marshland weather did its thing. The consequence is the feeling of visiting a church which was once a shipwreck, and has been dredged from the sea.
The Fens attract industry which would be unneighbourly in more heavily populated areas. I passed a gigantic electrical substation, before taking a path marked on the map as one of those ‘other routes with public access’. I got as far as a huge solar farm, from where I got my first sighting of West Walton’s tower. Here the path became gradually less discernible, until, eventually, I was surrounded by grass almost as tall as I am. With ditches either side, I decided to turn back, and take a different route using the road.
The detour irritating, but was worthwhile. St Mary, West Walton is a remarkable example of triumph over adversity. The church itself, which I will come back to, was built between 1225 and 1240. The ground was not firm enough to bear anything weighty, so West Walton’s bell tower is located on the edge of the churchyard, south of the church, on firmer ground. 'The wise man built his house upon the rock.' A picture of the church includes a verse from Psalm 33, quoted, it would seem, in thanksgiving: 'For he spake, and it was done: he commanded, and it stood fast.'
The Churches Conversation Trust relieved the parish of responsibility for the tower, and their little board in the tower’s base draws a parallel with Lincoln Cathedral, suggesting the same masons. This edifice is so vast that it seems as though a hurricane has severed the top of Lincoln’s central tower from its cathedral, and unceremoniously dumped it fifty miles away in this Norfolk marshland.
The church it dwarfs is very fine too. The style is Early English, which we don’t find much of in Norfolk. The nave pillar capitals have the most sumptuously carved foliage. From both inside and out, you can see why the builders decided against a tower at the traditional west end of the nave. The westernmost bay has not 'stood fast' after all, and has sunk into the ground quite considerably. The line of the aisle roof pierces the line of the clerestory. The west wall is held up by great buttresses, similar to those at Tilney All Saints on Walk 7.
I was apprehensive about chancing a similarly marked ‘other route with public access’ back towards the Walpoles. The route I had planned was effectively a figure of eight, and my intended path ran the other side of the solar farm. I gave it a go, keen not to spend too much time on tarmac, and this path proved to be beautifully maintained. Had I persevered earlier in the day, would my sojourn through the long grass been a brief one after all? We will never know.
I recall being pleasantly surprised by my two Fenland walks back in April, having dreaded trudging through bleak, uninspiring landscape. Today’s walk was, in many ways, the fulfilment of those fears. Perhaps it was the hot weather, but these paths didn’t deliver the same diversity of wildlife and wonder that I had experienced in the Wiggenhalls either side of the Great Ouse, or even between the Terringtons and Tilneys just a couple of miles away.
The Fens and the Broads are the areas from which Norfolk gets its reputation for being flat. Or, as an old boy at Carrow Road said to me a couple of months ago, ‘Stand on a milk crate and you can see for miles.’ There’s an eeriness about some the housing, and a higher-than-usual proportion of properties have unfriendly dogs running loose in front gardens. There’s little of the softness and charm of the Norfolk I am more familiar with.
It was with both relief and utter joy that I reached Walpole St Peter, whose surroundings, like nearby Terrington St Clement, belie the utter magnificence of the architecture. The churchyard is immaculately kept, with attractive borders and planting. It was as though I had been transported from Marshland to Middle England. A man was tending a memorial stone in the garden of rest. I commented on the churchyard. He told me that a team of 15-20 volunteers mowed the lawn at the weekend. One person was on the sit-on mower, while the others followed, raking enough grass to fill a dozen dumpy bags.
Externally, the tower is simple, like a plain older sister from a previous marriage. The fourteenth century nave, and chancel of 1420, form one of Norfolk’s finest exteriors, with finely carved battlements. The east wall is flush with the churchyard boundary, so a processional arch runs under the high altar to enable outdoor processions. This and the porch both have valunting and a splendid set of roof bosses. Neither has escaped the etchings of bored youths (past and present).
Entering the church the first thing which strikes you is a Jacobean screen, running the width of nave and aisles, forming an antechapel at the west end of the church. Here there is a seventeenth century table – ‘gargantuan’ is the word Mortlock uses – which may have been a Communion table.
Through this screen, and you have a chance to take in the proportions and beauty of the building, the eye being led up to the high altar, which, to make way for the processional subway, is truly high. Eight steps takes the priest from chancel to sanctuary. I climbed them; to turn round to face the nave, as the priest does during the Eucharistic celebration, is dizzying.
At the back of the church are some framed cuttings from the visitors’ book. This is a popular jaunt for members of the Royal Family and their guests staying at Sandringham. Fr Robert had told me this is His Majesty The King’s favourite church. In 1996, his party included the author, P. D. James.
What is noticeable in this church is that every single item is worthy of its surroundings. West Walton, for example, has been spoiled by blue, upholstered chairs. (Why are they always blue?) At Walpole St Peter even the lighting is attractive; the great brass chandelier of 1701 is complemented by contemporary, wood-carved chandeliers, which are attractive and graceful. I wonder where the money comes (or came) from? Perhaps royal visitors were generous.
Passing the community centre and then primary school, I quickly found myself back at Walpole St Andrew, the sun now glistening on the west side of its tower. My man was still outside his cottage. He nodded, and smiled sagely. The temperature had now peaked, and I was a good deal sweatier than when he last saw me. I suspect he may thought he had chosen the better part.
Walk 9.5 miles
Really enjoyed your journey.