Norfolk Church Crawling

 Another selection from my Norfolk church photos.

Aylsham, St Michael
One of the largest churches in the county in a bright, open churchyard off the market square with a fine historic lychgate to the north-east. Dated to the 13th/14th century, Pevsner says the interior is older than the exterior. The clerestory windows above the aisles make the nave open & airy.
There is a fine 15th C screen with 16 dado panels and interesting carvings. Depending on who you believe the font is either 15th c. “retooled” in the 19th c. or a completely new 19th c. one from scratch!
The reredos (the screen behind the altar) has incorporated into it some of the upper parts of the rood screen dado and some misericords!
There are a number of interesting brasses and some fine 19th c. stained glass.
The leading 18th c. landscape gardener Humphrey Repton is buried outside the church against the south wall of the chancel.

More detail can be found on Simon Knott's 'Norfolk Churches' website.

George Skipper

We have discussed George many times on our Heritage Walks.  It is well known he designed the Royal Arcade but did you realise that he designed the Norfolk and Norwich Savings Bank (now Barclays Bank) in Red Lion St, the Norwich and London Accident Assurance Association (now the St Giles House Hotel in St Giles’ St) and his most expensive and sumptuous project, Surrey House for Norwich Union Life Insurance Society.  His trademarks were turrets and cupolas.  One of his great admirers was Poet Laureate John Betjeman.  Please select the following link to learn more:

https://colonelunthanksnorwich.com/2017/02/15/the-flamboyant-mr-skipper/

Who Were The Greyfriars?

I was on a walk with Colin last Monday and it appears that there was a Greyfriars monastry on St Faiths Lane, which runs parallel to Prince of Wales Road.  But who were the Greyfriars?  

The Greyfriars were Franciscan friars, a Roman Catholic order founded by St. Francis of Assisi in 1209, named for the grey clothing they wore. Arriving in England in 1224, they were known for taking vows of poverty, living simply in towns, preaching, and relying on charity. They were highly influential until Henry VIII's Dissolution.

Key facts about the Grey Friars:

Order Name: They were officially known as the Order of Friars Minor (Franciscans).

Arrival & Lifestyle: The first nine friars landed in Dover in 1224, quickly establishing themselves in cities like Canterbury, London, and Oxford. They focused on serving the poor and living in poverty, often settling in crowded, urban areas.

Appearance: They were nicknamed "Grey Friars" because of the grey habits (cloaks) they wore, which were often tied with a knotted rope.

Role in Society: Unlike monks who lived in secluded monasteries, friars were mendicants who lived in the community. They were preachers and often educated, with some becoming influential scholars.  Mendicant friars are members of Catholic religious orders founded in the 13th century (e.g., Franciscans, Dominicans) who vowed poverty, lived in cities, and survived by begging or donations rather than owning land.

Famous Connections: King Henry III was a patron to them in the 1230s/40s. Notably, the Greyfriars in Leicester is where King Richard III was buried after the Battle of Bosworth.

Dissolution: Their houses were suppressed and confiscated by King Henry VIII during the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 1530s.

They established numerous friaries throughout England, with many locations today still holding the name "Greyfriars" or "Grayfriars”.

This article goes into a little more detail regarding the Greyfriars monastry at existed in the area of St Faiths Lane:

https://eaareports.org.uk/publication/report120/

Norfolk Church Crawling

Monday 23rd March 2026

Filby:
Decided it was time to get back to exploring/re-exploring some Norfolk Churches. Lapsed a bit since Gill is not as mobile nowadays.
As Gill has been house-bound with this cough for ages we decided to go for a drive and to revisit the church of All Saints in Filby. The area of Filby and Mautby is where my paternal great, great grandparents Miles and Elizabeth moved to in the mid 1860’s from Hoveton where others of the family remained. They had 12 children who survived at least infancy, some into their eighties or nineties, plus a possible thirteenth who died in infancy.
The churchyard, along with St Peter & St Paul at Mautby is where many of their descendants (and my ancestors!) are buried.
Filby’s church is large, 14^th C. with a tower added in the succeeding couple of centuries. Its outstanding feature is a 15^th C. roodscreen with eight figures. My modest photo selection is from earlier visits in 2010 and 2014.
I hope to post more photos of Norfolk churches in the coming months and if anyone is interested in a bit of ‘church crawling’ do let me know.
I will also post this on the club blogsite and in the meantime would recommend Simon Knotts superb website - Norfolk Churches  - for far better details of Filby than mine, and also around 924 other Norfolk churches!

Anna Gurney

Alison Dow did mention Anna Gurney in her talk on Tuesday, so I thought a related article would be of interest.  Anna worked with Amelia Opie in forming the Anti-slavery Society in Norwich.  However, Anna was more well known as a geologist, who was disabled after contracting polio at a young age and who lived with her lesbian lover, Sarah Buxton, in Northrepps Cottage in Cromer, they were known locally as the “Cottage ladies”.  To find out more, please select the following link:  

https://norwichcastle.wordpress.com/2023/03/08/anna-gurney-norfolks-disabled-lesbian-geologist/

Ketteringham Hall

Such a lovely place to visit, especially if you like a walk and some tea and cake at The Orangery, and it is only just through Keswick off the A11.  There is a lovely view if you sit outside.  But what is the history of the hall?  The best article I could find was by Britain but Car - so not the normal historical source!  Did you know it is reputed to be the home of Lady Jane Grey - the nine day queen?  What was it’s military purpose during WWII?  And what is it’s connection to Lotus cars?  To answer these questions and learn more, please select the following article:

https://www.britainbycar.co.uk/ketteringham/339-ketteringham-hall

Earl Grey

My wife loves Early Grey Tea.  Long gone are the days when only the rich drank it.  I thought a related article would be of interest.  Where did it come from?  As is often the case, there are a number of theories.  Who was Earl Grey?  How was Bergamot oil used to flavour the tea?  To answer these questions and learn more, please select the following article:

https://tea101.teabox.com/earl-grey-tea/

The Corsbies - a family of Norwich Union clerks

Here is an article from the Aviva Group Archive that provides further details on some of the stories Grace was reciting on Tuesday.  It is interesting to learn how the clerks lived and worked in the early Norwich Union of 19th century, the fines for being late, how long you could stand in front of the fire to get warm, but there were a number of clerks that worked for the company for many years including Joseph Corsbie who worked for N.U. for 50 years and received a warping £130 p.a. (£129K today).  Poor fellow he only received this income for a year before he died.  To find out more, please select the following link:  

https://avivaarchive.medium.com/the-corsbies-a-family-of-norwich-union-clerks-1624536a085a

Why is Abraham Lincoln connected to Hingham and Swanton Morley in Norfolk?

Did you know that Abraham Lincoln’s (yes the 16th American President's) ancestors lived in Norfolk and if the eldest son of Richard Lincoln, named Samuel, had inherited his will, then he may never have emigrated from Hingham to the Americas and Abraham Lincoln may never has existed.  To find out more, please select the following link:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/norfolk/content/articles/2009/02/12/abe_lincoln_swanton_20090212_feature.shtml

Mary Wollstonecraft

An excellent talk by Chad Goodwin about Mary Wollstonecraft on Tuesday.  Mary was an English writer, philosopher, and foundational feminist advocate who argued that women are not naturally inferior to men but appear so due to a lack of education. Best known for A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), she demanded educational, social, and economic equality for women.  Here is an interesting article about Mary:  

https://www.historyextra.com/period/georgian/mary-wollstonecraft-life-works-death-legacy/

History of King's Lynn Mart

I visited Kings Lynn last week and I was impressed with the museum located inside the town hall.  Did you know that Kings Lynn was the fourth largest port in England in medieval times, the other three ports were London, Southampton and Boston.  Anyway there was an information board in the museum stating that there had been a Mart in Kings Lynn for 800 years.  The Mart (meaning market) was originally an annual trading fair established by a Royal Charter by King John and was indicative of a typical medieval fair of the time.  By the 18th century it evolved into more of a fun far with games, performances, oddities and you guessed - drinking.  The 19th century brought more innovation and in particular, steam driven roundabouts which were the brain child of Frederick Savage, a local engineer.  To find out more please select the following link:

https://www.klmagazine.co.uk/articles/kings-lynn-mart# 

Edward Boardman

I’ve often referred to Boardman on my Heritage Walks, so I am sure you have heard of him.  His major works in Norwich include the refurbishment of the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, converting Norwich Castle into a museum, building the notable Royal Hotel and the mortuary chapel in the city's Rosary Cemetery.  But did you know that he became Mayor of Norwich and he built How Hill House and lived in the How Hill Estate?  Find out more by selecting the following article and view more of his buildings in the Gallery section and a list of his buildings in the Works section:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Boardman 

The Clabburn Family and Weaving

I hope you all enjoyed the film that Mike H selected on Tuesday about the Norwich textile trade.  The film mentioned the Clabburn family who I had never heard of, so here is a summary of their involvement in Norwich weaving:

The Clabburns were a Norwich family long connected with the city’s weaving traditions going back to at least the late 1700s.  Thomas Clabburn I (c.1762–1824) is recorded in an 1783 trade directory as a worsted weaver and “manufacturer of bed coverlids” in Norwich — showing the family were established as textile workers from this period. 

The family’s weaving business grew significantly in the first half of the 19th century under Thomas Clabburn II (1788–1858). He became a manufacturer of Norwich shawls, a major local textile product.  In 1846 Thomas and two of his sons (William Houghton Clabburn I and Thomas Clabburn III), together with Thomas Dawson Crisp, founded the firm Clabburn, Sons & Crisp — a well-known Norwich shawl manufacturer.  The firm became especially prominent in the mid-19th century, benefiting from the shawl vogue sparked by Queen Victoria’s patronage (e.g., at the Great Exhibition of 1851) and won prizes for quality and design at major exhibitions.  William Houghton Clabburn I, active in the 1850s–1880s, helped grow the business; by 1855, the firm employed around seventy weavers. William also secured a patent for an improved shawl-making technique.  Thomas II was admired as an employer: 600 weavers and assistants contributed to a memorial tablet in St Augustine’s Church, Norwich, honouring him after his death — a sign of high regard within the local weaving community. 

Despite early successes, demand for traditional Norwich shawls declined from the 1870s as fashions changed and Lancashire and Paisley production grew. The original Clabburn partnership dissolved after the death in 1878 of their non-family partner, though related textile ventures (like the Norwich Crape Company) continued longer. By the late 19th century the Norwich textile industry had entered a long decline, and shawls ceased to be a major local industry.

In the 20th century, Pamela Clabburn (1914–2010) — a descendant of the Norwich weaving Clabburns — became a noted textile expert, curator and author who championed the history and conservation of Norwich shawls and East Anglian textiles. She founded the Costume & Textile Association to support textile heritage and worked extensively on preserving and documenting the industry’s history. 

Here is an article for those interested in further information:  

https://www.johnbarnard.me.uk/Clabburn.html