A Coastal Village

While part of Happisburgh is in imminent danger of falling into the sea (as we saw in my previous post) there's also a larger part that lies further inland and is therefore relatively safe - for now at least. It's a smallish place but well worth having a stroll around.

Here's the village sign. On the right is a gentleman known as Edric The Dane, who owned the village at the time of the Norman Conquest. On the left is Maud, daughter of Roger Bigod, who gave the village to William d'Albini as part of Maud's dowry in 1099 AD. The group in the centre represents the 170 villagers who were baptised by Rev Thomas Lloyd in 1793. The good Reverend believed that the reason that so many were not baptised in the village was that parents could not afford a celebration, so he paid for a party for everyone.

As we start our wander we get another view of the lighthouse. I'd heard of it long ago; it's mentioned in an old sea shanty...

As we were a-fishing off Happisburgh light

Shooting and hauling and trawling all night

In this windy old weather, stormy old weather

When the wind blows we'll all pull together.

(If you want to hear the rest of the song then click here).

The red brick building above operated for a while as a pub and restaurant, but before that was a farmhouse. It's now back in residential occupation.

I've really no idea what the tiny building above might have been!

This though is the village Primary and Early Years School, for children between the ages of 3 and 11. I include it because I've never shown a picture of a village school before and it's fairly typical.

Opposite stands the Church hall and looking down the road you can see the fine Medieval church...

I don't intend to make a thorough tour of the church though I can't resist popping inside briefly.

There's an impressive fifteenth-century font, carved with angels, mythical animals and lions. 

And this is the Chancel, behind its Rood Screen. I would normally show you more of the interior, but we'll be paying a visit to another remarkable church within the next couple of posts. So lets go outside to the churchyard.

All along the Norfolk coast you'll find large graveyards and stones with a nautical look, like the one above. Sailing and fishing these waters was dangerous work and shipwrecks were frequent. The inscription on the one above commemorates the all-too-short lives of seamen lost from the barque Young England in 1875. The bodies of two Swedish seamen, two Englishmen, one Norwegian and a Dutchman were washed ashore and buried here. Other stones recall the deaths at sea of sailors whose bodies were never found. 

The stone above is a recent addition to a mound in one corner of the churchyard which was formerly an unmarked mass grave.

Like many other churches in this part of Norfolk it has a very impressive tall tower which must also have been a useful mark for mariners to ascertain their position before the lighthouse was constructed. 

And there's a handy pub nearby which must have been as popular with fishermen of past centuries as it is with tourists and villagers today.

We'll complete our circuit by taking a field path behind this grand holiday home built in the Arts and Crafts style in 1900 by the architect Detmar Blow. Almost all the materials were sourced locally.

And here's what we were looking for all along "Fresh Cromer Crabs"!

Take care.

In A Battle Zone

It'll be OK. There's a ceasefire at the moment in this particular battle, though it's an absolute certainty that hostilities will begin again in the next few months, maybe sooner. On one side is one of the greatest powers in the world, while pitted against it is a tiny community who seem largely forgotten by most people. Every year the national news reports another battle lost in their endless war. Sooner or later they seem to be doomed to complete obliteration. 

This is the battle between the plucky village of Happisburgh and the world's oceans, specifically the North Sea. Not that Happisburgh has always been at war in this way; there used to be another village between them and the sea - no need to tell you what befell that little community. There's a Whimpwell Street in Happisburgh but the village of Whimpwell disappeared as long ago as the twelfth century.

Every winter storms tear in and nibble away at the friable cliffs on which Happisburgh stands: a few houses tumble down on to the beach below, the lifeboat station is swept away, roads plunge over the cliff, water-pipes are left hanging forlornly in mid-air. The sandy ramp you can see on the right-hand side of the picture above is just the latest solution to allow people to get down on to the sands.

As if the residents of Happisburgh didn't have enough problems they are also involved in a perpetual struggle to convince people that their village is not pronounced "Happy's Burg" at all, but is actually HAZE-br.

Every cloud, they say, has a silver lining. These soft eroding cliffs have several little holes up near the top; if I'm not mistaken these are the nest-holes of Sand Martins (that's Bank Swallows, for those of you across the Atlantic).

And this lovely sandy beach has been formed just south of the village, which has helped the tourism industry and provided the local dogs with a marvellous playground.

Then in May 2013 the sea uncovered some human footprints in the soft rock at the base of the cliffs. Within a few days the tides had destroyed them, but not before they'd been studied, measured and photographed. Someone also had the bright idea of investigating the pollen that had survived in the deposits. What was discovered was astonishing and reshaped much of our thought about early humans: these footprints were no less than 840,000 years old! From the size of the footprints archaeologists believe it was a family group, possibly searching for shellfish or other food in a river delta.

By the time my brother and I reached a place known as Cart Gap we were looking for food too, but luckily there were ice creams for sale. We began the walk back behind a row of seaside shacks built on the cliff tops that are rather better protected from the sea. Little holiday homes like these sprang up before strict planning rules were introduced and have been there ever since.

We soon came to a path leading back along the cliff top - keep well back from the edge!

Not the sort of place to wander on a dark, foggy night!

Just a little inland stands Happisburgh Lighthouse, built in 1791, shortly after a terrible maritime tragedy when 70 ships and 600 men were lost in a storm off the Norfolk coast. In 1988 Trinity House, who operate lighthouses in England and Wales, announced the closure of Happisburgh Lighthouse. Local people realised how dangerous that could be and began a campaign (yes, they're always fighting something!)  to keep it open. It is now the only independently operated lighthouse in the land.

If we go north from Happisburgh we'll see more of the efforts to control the destructive force of the sea.

Although attempts at coastal protection began along this stretch of coastline as long ago as 1802, little was done at Happisburgh till 1958 when a structure of steel and wood did much to protect the cliffs.

Regular repairs took place to maintain the breakwaters and revetments but these merely delayed the inevitable. 

In recent years a line of huge boulders has been placed along the beach to absorb some of the power of the waves. This is all very expensive work and official Government policy is to protect only the most valuable coastal areas, which mostly means big towns. Unfortunately for the people of Happisburgh and similar places the re-alignment of coasts is an unavoidable natural process.

Take care.

Walks With An Imaginary Dog

While I was out walking a few months ago I met a family with a little girl. "Where's your dog?" she demanded. When I told her I didn't have a dog she turned to her mother and said, "He must have an imaginary dog!"

The only people I saw on my rainy walk this morning were two men with dogs. So lets say I had an imaginary dog - I wouldn't want you to think I'm completely mad.

If you want to meet my imaginary dog, just wait there in the rain; he'll be along soon.

Take care.

Shonks

We'll start today's walk in the village of Brent Pelham in Hertfordshire.... 

And this was once the communications hub of the little settlement! I don't know how many people still post letters rather than firing off emails, but they certainly take good care of their post-box, freshly-painted in bright red with the details picked out in gold. The telephone box, however, now houses a defibrillator rather than a telephone since everyone now carries a phone in their pocket.

The remaining cottages have been spruced up for modern living, though they retain their picturesque charm. And there are other reminders of the past...

Here are the stocks and whipping-post, left from a time when justice was handed out more brutally than today.

So lets go for a walk in the surrounding fields, where harvest has been gathered in once again as it has been throughout the centuries, albeit with rather less sweat and toil in these mechanised times.

Even now it's just about possible, from time to time, to glimpse the mystery and magic of this ancient landscape; for this whole area is woven together with myths and legends, the texture of which still shows through in some places, despite our attempts to gloss everything over with our modern preoccupations.

Just over the fields in Anstey there's the legend of the Blind Fiddler, who walked off into a secret tunnel playing his violin. Screams were heard but the fiddler was never seen again. They still call the local pub "The Blind Fiddler".

And a little further afield they speak of Jack O'Legs, a friendly giant who robbed the rich to give to the starving poor. Nearby, Jane Wenham was the last person in the country to be convicted of witchcraft.

(I wrote about Jack O'Legs and Jane Wenham here)

The mystery we were struggling with on this drizzly morning was where exactly the footpaths were; if they weren't plunging us into waist-high vegetation, they were vanishing without trace as they crossed newly-ploughed fields. But we did see a ghostly figure ahead of us at one stage....

....an unusual white pheasant. These occur occasionally as the birds are reared to be released for what some people call "sport". Helpful, I suppose, for very short-sighted marksmen!

We completed our circuit and arrived back at the church. If we go inside we can hear about Piers Shonks, the subject of Brent Pelham's very own legend.

Piers Shonks lived around here back in the eleventh century - you can still find "Shonk's Moat" marked on modern maps. Now, around that time the district was much troubled by the existence of a dragon who lived in a hole in the ground. In 1830 farm labourers engaged in felling an ancient tree found the very lair (or at least that's what they thought). 

The brave Shonks slew the beast only to find that it was the Devil's favourite dragon and Old Nick was naturally displeased with Piers. "I'll have your soul, whether you're buried inside the church or outside", he hissed. When Shonks neared his death he asked if he could have his bow and arrow; wherever the arrow landed was where he was to be buried. The arrow flew through the air, passed through the window of Brent Pelham church and buried itself in the wall.

And there Shonks was buried, in the church wall, neither inside nor outside, and thus cheating the Devil.

The carved stone, which lies in the niche, is richly carved and, whatever the exact details of its history, must have been to commemorate a rich and powerful individual. It's also very old.  What's more it's horrible to photograph, being at an awkward angle and badly lit. I was down to about half a second exposure time.

The enigmatic verse above the stone was added much later. The legend and how it's been added to and re-invented over the centuries is the subject of a book (Hollow Places: An Unusual History of Land and Legend by Christopher Hadley) which attempts to unpick the various strands of story-telling, superstition, misunderstanding and facts.

Whatever the truth behind the story of Piers Shonks it's always interesting to consider how our ancestors' lives differed from ours - and how many similarities there are.

Take care.