"Rhythm of desire” anyone?

CROSSING the Wensum, in a no-man’s sort of land between Heigham and Hellesdon in Norwich lies a poetic bridge. It forms part of the Marriott’s Way, although you only see these rather sombre pronouncements on the steps if you get down to river level. The bridge itself is a swirling beauty, despite the graffiti. Does anyone know any more?

Cosseyware from where?

NEXT up Cosseyware. Who can tell me anything about the decorated bricks known as Cosseyware?. They were made – I think – at a brickworks in Costessey.

Norwich: the neglected Wensum

REMEMBER I was after grotty shots of the Wensum in yesteryear? After industry abandoned it, but before the planners rediscovered it. Well Katy W got in touch to recommend this shot which Boaty Granny had already posted on flickr. If I’ve got it right, it shows the King Street bank of the river, immediately downstream of where the Novi Sad bridge has since been built. And it’s much later than the 1960s or 1970s mentioned below; in fact it could be as late as the mid-1990s. But it makes Pete Chambers’s point beautifully doesn’t it? The city was still ignoring the river – leaving it to rack and ruin in fact – until less than 20 years ago. Thanks very much to all involved.
* By complete coincidence there’s more like this on another blog – Broadland Memories.

Costessey: my ebay chapel

AS someone who dabbles in local history I shouldn’t admit this, but I always struggle a little bit with record offices and archives. I really admire people who can patiently plough through pages and pages of ancient copper plate handwriting, but personally I get impatient looking for a needle or two amid all that hay.

The great thing about photos – as opposed to facts – is that ebay makes it so easy. Enter “Costessey” as a search item, sit back and let the wonderful web do its stuff. This picture shows a postcard of the Catholic chapel at Costessey Hall which arrived by post today for a few quid. The chapel – like the house – was demolished after the First World War.  It’s a great window into my Catholic Costessey entry which has now finished its first draft:

In a society which is steadily becoming more secular, it’s intriguing to discover that Catholic heartlands can survive in the most unlikely of places and for the most unlikely of reasons.

Historically, Norfolk is overwhelmingly Protestant. And yet there is a strong Catholic tradition in Costessey thanks to the whim of a Tudor queen almost five hundred years ago. As we’ve seen from Costessey Hall, that queen was Mary. She had only come to the throne thanks to the efforts of a handful of Catholic gentry who were duly rewarded once she was safely in place. Sir Henry Jernegan’s prize was the manor of Costessey and the Catholic Jernegan family would exert their considerable influence here for more than 300 years. In the words of one academic writer in the 1960s “Old Costessey became an introspective Roman Catholic enclave in a Protestant region.”

It’s difficult to say how many people stuck to the Catholic faith here during the dark days of the 16^th, 17^th and 18^th century – the age of martyrs and priest holes. But once Catholic emancipation got underway in the 19^th century we see how quickly influential Catholic gentry could move. By 1809 a Catholic chapel had been built as part of Costessey Hall. (Incidentally stained glass for this chapel was collected from all over Europe for what appears to have been a sumptuous building.) By 1821 a Catholic school had been built with land provided by the family whose surname was now spelt Jerningham. Enlarged and extended it remains the only school in Costessey – a rare Norfolk example of where the village school is a Catholic school.

By 1834 the estate chapel wasn’t big enough for a growing congregation. Again the Jerninghams obliged, providing land for a church in the middle of the village. True, fund-raising for Our Lady and St Walstan’s took time and the church was not completed until 1841. Almost 175 years later the building is still going strong and has recently been given grade II listed status.

Out in the graveyard the family are still remembered. “Pray for the Souls of the Jerningham Family, “ runs the text on a notice next to a simple cross.

Wanted: 1960/70s Wensum photos

PETE Chambers has been in touch via the Wherryman’s Web blog to wish me well for “RIverside Norwich”. He writes:

“I think it's a great idea for a book Steve. In my youth it always seemed odd that the city had turned it's back on the Wensum.
The riverside was ugly and unloved from Whitlingham to Taverham. The last 15 years have seen the City slowly turn to face the river once more and whilst not being a total success it has provoked much thought about the very existence of Norwich and it's relationship with the river that has been it's very lifeblood.
Lets face it, with no riverside there would have been no Norwich.
I really look forward to following your new adventure.”

Hear, hear. I quote Pete, because it got me thinking. Us newcomers (well since the mid-1990s in my case) and anyone under 30, has no idea of how different the river through Norwich used to look. It’s an idea I’ve touched on once before when I quoted a Jonathan Mardle column in the EDP from the 1950s, but Pete makes it much more forcefully. This book has got to include some photos of grotty river scenes from the 1960s or 1970s hasn’t it? Something that really shows how much of a change there’s been. Can anyone help?
*In the meantime we’ll have to make do with a surviving King Street warehouse overlooking the Riverside development.The trouble is that I actually quite like this building. In fact I like it more than I like most  of the “could be anywhere” Riverside architecture. I like its scale, I like the fact that’s it clearly had to earn its keep over the years and I even quite like at peeling paintwork look.

Costessey: Knott on St Walstan’s

I’M STILL researching the Catholics in Costessey. But I should have known Simon Knott would have got there before me – at least as far as the church is concerned. His Norfolk churches remains the gold standard for local websites. There’s loads of good detail there:

There were pockets in Norfolk where the Catholic Faith not only survived through the long penal years, but flourished, and not as an exotic species. These were the parishes where the local Big Family refused to switch to the new protestant Church of England, but stubbornly clung to the Faith of their forebears. The most steadfast of all these recusant families were probably the Jerninghams of Costessey Hall.”

This pictured is pinched from there too. Have also found a lovely quote in the Millennium LIbrary archives from what looks like a an academic thesis from 1965. The anonymous writer describes Old Costessey as “an introspective Roman Catholic enclave in a Protestant region.” A nice one-liner which sums it up perfectly.

The Tas: non league but beautiful

MOST of the book will focus on the Yare and the Wensum, they are of course Norwich’s major rivers. But the city has a couple of under-rated non-league streams too. The Tud has already had a mention here, but Cameron Self from Literary Norfolk reminds me that that the Tas has got to get a mention too. And his flickr set is a very good place to start. As well as some good shots (including the one I’ve pinched above) there is also one of Cameron’s poems and – unbelievably – a shot of the poet Philip Larkin being punted along the Tas by his literary editor Anthony Thwaite. The Tas and Philip Larkin? As well as being thoroughly incongruous, it is as Cameron says “a rare shot of the old git smiling”.