In The Valley Of The Glaven

A couple of posts back we were in Blakeney on the North Norfolk coast, enjoying an ice cream and thinking about the history of the little seaport. Its harbour, and that of nearby Wiveton and Cley, was formed by the estuary of the River Glaven. Today it's time to turn our attention a couple of miles inland to where the Glaven runs through some unusually hilly countryside (for Norfolk). We can't do it sitting on a bench eating ice cream though, we'll need a map, walking boots and maybe binoculars too.

It's pretty country but anyone trying to farm it would soon lose heart; the soil is poor stuff, mostly sand, dumped here by a retreating ice sheet at the end of the last ice age. The land is in the ownership of the occupants of Bayfield Hall down in the valley and, like local aristocracy everywhere, they've been a mixed bunch down through the ages - some incompetent, some utter scoundrels and a few good men who did the best they could with this unpromising land.

One of those who is remembered unfavourably by history was Colonel Robert Jermy who lived during the seventeenth century. In those unsettled times Jermy, despite his privileged upbringing,  saw it was to his advantage in to join Cromwell's Parliamentarians. He suppressed his opponents quite ruthlessly including several executions, rigged an election in his own favour, and eventually became so unpopular that he was forced to flee to New England, though he did return to Bayfield Hall later in life.

Successive owners of the estate let it fall into disrepair, the church stood derelict, barns were allowed to tumble down and the cottages became unfit for habitation. Presumably this poverty and hardship did not extend to the inhabitants of the Hall itself.

The present Hall dates from the eighteenth century and is based around an earlier Tudor mansion. The parkland around it was landscaped at around the same time. It's now used for filming and photographic shoots so you may have unknowingly seen the inside on TV or film.

The existing village of Bayfield would have been cleared and the occupants moved elsewhere as a result of these grand eighteenth-century plans. The church, already largely ruinous, became a picturesque addition to the scene.

The River Glaven has been diverted and dammed near to the Hall to create a long lake for scenic purposes. 

In 1882 the estate was inherited by Sir Alfred Jodrell who found much of it in a sorry state indeed. He vowed that whatever happened he would leave things in better condition than he had found them.

Today he is chiefly remembered for restoring the little church at Glandford, just over half a mile from the Hall. You can see the church tower peeking over the treetops in the photo above, but it's by no means the only achievement of Sir Alfred. He had virtually every house and barn on the estate rebuilt to the highest standards. He had a wall built around the estate to provide work during times of high unemployment. He also restored several other Norfolk churches and donated a weekly box of fresh fruit and vegetables to the hospital in Norwich.

He was a great collector too, especially of sea shells, of which he amassed so many that he had to build a small museum to house them - that's it above. It also contains many other curious items.

Glandford Church is a small jewel-box of a building. Jodrell undertook the restoration of the church in memory of his mother. It's remarkable for the quantity and quality of the wood-carving found in such a confined space. Although it was completed in the early twentieth century it has all the features one might expect to find in a great medieval church, though necessarily on a much smaller scale.

Surprisingly there's no great memorial to Sir Alfred himself in the church, though there is one to all the workmen employed on the restoration of the building. It also has a church clock that plays a hymn-tune on a carillon (a set of tuned bells) every third hour.

The present owner of the estate has turned to diversification to supplement the agricultural business. There are cafes, an art gallery, wildlife centre, antiques business and many other activities going on, mainly in the barns and farm-buildings that are superfluous to the needs of modern agriculture. Oh, and Cley-Spy, who have the largest showroom dedicated to high quality optics and other things needed by bird-watchers. That was the one of the reasons for coming here. (You won't make much sense of the name of the business unless you know that "Cley" rhymes with "Spy").

It's a lot bigger inside than it looks and has all sorts of things that I good easily invest a great deal of my hard-earned money into. In the end though, after a long chat with the salesman about walking, the weather and several other matters I went off to spend my cash elsewhere.

"One swallow doesn't make a summer" or so they say. But The Three Swallows does make excellent fish and chips.

Take care.