In praise of Marriotts Way

 

HAPPY as I am living in Loddon, I felt a slight pang of envy for those who live in the north western suburbs of Norwich today. The reason? Marriotts Way, a car-free highway which takes two-wheeled residents into the heart of Norwich without as much as a whiff of exhaust fumes. Is there any excuse for driving into the city from these parts? Marriott’s Way does the job with so little fuss, criss-crossing the Wensum by way of functional but charming old railway bridges (pictured) as it does so.  And today everyone was at it. Dogs were walked, families dawdled and serious bikers whizzed through shouting a friendly “sorry” or “thank you” in their wake. Even a Brimstone got in on the act, providing me with my first butterfly of the year. Aided by eight and nine year old researchers, I started at Sloughbottom Park, where the swings and the BMX track delayed us for ages. Complete with a picnic in Hellesdon, we took a magnificent three hours to do less than four miles up to Drayton. And book-wise what did I learn?

1) You can’t undersell Marriott’s Way. This much traffic could mean a lot of sales so I need to “big up” both the path and the railway which preceded it.

2) Bayer Crop Science dominates the landscape almost as much as the Cantley Sugar Works does down on the Yare. I need facts on what it makes and how many it employs.

3) Sloughbottom Park probably needs a mention. Was it one of those parks which was created during the 1930s by Colonel someone-or-other. It’s back to the library on that one.

4) Where does this book start? Is the first chapter Drayton or Taverham ..or some sort of combination of both.  If it’s Taverham and Drayton, am I in danger of exceeding my 40,000 word budget?

Your thoughts as ever…..

* Of course Marriotts Way has a flickr fan club. See their shots here.

Munnings: a second draft

SOMETIMES it helps to blog on a subject, just to get a first draft down on this strange computer-generated brown blotting paper called Riverside Norwich. Once something – anything - is on paper, you feel more confident in fiddling, editing, adding and subtracting. And it helps if you’ve done your homework. I had already read the relevant chapter of his autobiography and all of a hefty biography by Jean Goodman. It’s ended up longer than I planned, 500 words rather than 200, but he is a genuinely big name for this part of the world. So, with the help of a couple of photos which might just break the odd copyright law, here goes:
Alfred Munnings was a whimsical artistic genius who became famous between the wars for his paintings of horses. He was often eccentric and always the life and soul of the party. “If at the end of the evening he had insufficient money,” said his biographer Jean Goodman, “he would present the landlord with a drawing offered with such confidence that it was invariably accepted as good currency.”
His most high-profile years saw him capturing the colour and drama of the races at courses like Epsom and Sandown, where he was loved by everyone from the stable lads he joked with to the royalty who offered him commissions.
But his Costessey links go back to an earlier stage of his life when this miller’s son from the banks of the Waveney was still finding his feet. His first job was very commercial; designing posters and adverts at a lithographer’s in Norwich. (Incidentally, he loved Norwich and its pubs. A favourite haunt says Goodman, “was a little Dickensian panelled bar at the Maid’s Head.”)

And it was while he was living in Norwich that he discovered The Falcon Inn at Costessey during a bicycle ride. “Meeting a landlord who looked like one and just a ride [away] had opened up a new world with fresh ideas.,” he wrote in his autobiography An Artist’s Life. “My first short stay at The Falcon was only a feeler for my future painting on the Ringland Hills.”
Those future paintings came in the spring and early summer of 1910 when he left Norwich with a motley collection of caravans and carts, horses and ponies. Accompanying him was a man called Bob, who looked after the gear, and a teenager called Shrimp whom Munnings later described him as an “utterably uneducated, wild ageless youth”. These two, paid handsomely by Munnings, would set out each day from The Falcon Inn in Costessey to find a suitable spot for the outdoor paintings that Munnings craved. Shrimp, says Goodman, had a talent for grouping horses just as his master wanted. And over six weeks dozens of 50 inch by 40 inch canvases were completed by an artist making the most of his new found freedom.
So why here? Well, Munnings described Ringland and Costessey as being “situated in one of the loveliest districts of all the pleasant country surrounding the old city.” Of the Ringland Hills he wrote:  “I developed a passion for the gorgeous blazing yellow of gorse in bloom.”
He invited friends to stay in Costessey, loving the relaxed atmosphere of The Bush (which survives as a pub) where he enjoyed “the soothing, idle holiday atmosphere about its garden”. 
So how is Munnings country in the 21^st century? Well Costessey keeps its village feel and The Bush retains its lengthy garden. And the undulating hills between the Tud and the Wensum are both pretty and pretty unusual in this part of Norfolk. But a land of wild heathland suitable for a bunch of scruffy bohemians? Not any more I’m afraid.

Searching for Munnings Country

DURING the spring and early summer of 1910 a strange trio of men would leave their lodgings in Costessey each morning and head for the hills – the Ringland Hills. In charge was a man who would later become famous as Sir Alfred Munnings, but at this time was just a promising and spirited young artist. Accompanying him was his man Bob (whose “stiff black hair, his sunburnt face and arms, gave him the look of a tinker”). Bob looked after the gear. Finally there was a youngster called Shrimp who was in charge of the horses and ponies. Munnings later described him as “a good lad, a son of the wild. He could neither read nor write and had no need of either. The best model I ever had.” These two, paid handsomely by Munnings, would decamp from The Falcon Inn in Costessey to find a suitable spot for the outdoor painting that Munnings craved. The horses were the stars of every canvas.  In his wonderful autobiography “An Artist’s Life”, he says he first  discovered The Falcon in 1908 while on a bicycle ride from Norwich – where he had worked as a lithographic artist.

“Meeting a landlord who looked like one and just a ride, had opened up a new world with fresh ideas. My first short stay at the The Falcon was only a feeler for my future painting on the Ringland Hills.”

That future painting took place in 1910 when the trio left Norwich with a van, a cart and a host of horses and ponies. Various drunken adventures ensue over the next six weeks with the countryside around the Ringland Hills providing the backdrop. “I developed a passion for the gorgeous blazing yellow of gorse in bloom,” he wrote. He invited friends to stay in Costessey, loving the relaxed atmosphere of The Bush (which survives as a pub, unlike The Falcon) where he enjoyed “the soothing, idle holiday atmosphere about its garden”.

So how is Munnings country today? Well Costessey keeps its village feel and The Bush retains its lengthy garden. The village of Ringland is also pretty and placid with one of the most elegant village churches (pictured)  I’ve seen in Norfolk. But I need your help on the Ringland Hills. We did a circular walk from Honingham Lane up into Ringland then round onto Costessey Lane, returning via Sandy Lane. The  landscape to the east of Honingham Lane looks great, but the “keep out” signs are everywhere. Next to the Wensum in Ringland, we failed to find any way of hugging the river and had to retreat to Costessey Lane with its drivers rat-running down to the southern bypass. Finally Sandy Lane, which passes the very acres claimed by the OS map to be the Ringland Hills, was a fly-tipper’s paradise, but not an artist’s. Munnings says “Ringland and Costessey on the west side of Norwich, are situated in one of the loveliest districts of all the pleasant country surrounding the old city.”
Well yesterday – albeit on an un-sunny March day – it didn’t quite live up to that description. So if I want to take a photo of a beautiful landscape so beloved of Munnings where should I go?
* More on Sir Alfred Munnings “one of England’s finest painters of horses, and an outspoken enemy of Modernism” here.

The Hellesdon ghost train

HERE’S the problem. So little remains of the railway paraphernalia along the Marriotts Way that it’s pretty difficult to imagine what came before. We know we’re walking along the track bed of the old Midland and Great Northern line, but our imagination needs a little stoking to take us back in time. And as a result a normal photo somehow doesn’t quite cut the mustard. Then along comes Stuart McPherson with this stunning combination picture. (The technical term is a mash-up, by the way.) Here, Stuart’s “now” combines with Gerry Balding’s “then” to brilliantly evoke a different era. There’s much more of Stuart’s stuff here and Gerry’s here. I think it’s a great picture.  

* Check out this EDP article for more great mash ups this time by another photographer Nick Stone, this time of the Baedeker bombing raids in Norwich of 1942.

Norwich: The Wensum in the 1970s

 

THANKS very much to Carol Gingell from Broadland Memories for passing on this photo taken in the 1970s from a collection by the late John Chesney. It shows the Wensum heading down to where the Novi Sad bridge would be built a quarter of a century later. That will be part of a Boulton and Paul factory building on the extreme left, with Carrow Bridge and Carrow Road not too far out of shot in the distance. You’ll remember I was looking for photos which showed what a mess the river used to look like. This will do nicely don’t you think? Meanwhile the photo below – also taken by John Chesney – shows the old power station further down river. As I understand it, this massive development was on the river because its fuel – coal – was delivered by river in huge coasters. How times have changed.