Towards Great Yarmouth

Still on the B roads and this morning we headed for King’s Lynn.  Two reasons for this.  1.  It’s the other end of The Wash crossing. 2. The town is reputedly quite interesting from a historic perspective.

The first part of the visit took us down to the riverbank.

 

The tide was going out so obviously not much chance of seeing an arriving narrowboat.  This view is looking east towards The Wash.   No narrowboats in the other direction either.

Fishing boat Baden Powell

Baden Powell is the only remaining double ended fishing smack of its type.  More information <here>.

During the 14th century King’s Lynn was England’s most important port with sea trade to Europe.  Ports on the opposite side of the country didn’t come to prominence until after the discovery of the New World and Trans-Atlantic trade.

The riverbank would have been lined with warehouses.  I could only see one warehousead after peeking through a crack in the door I realised it had an internal steel girder frame and steel trusses for the roof.  Obviously not a old as I had hoped.

However on the walk back into the town centre we came upon some Hanseatic warehouses built around 1425AD.

The upper floor protrudes over the lane and is timber framed with brick infill.  The frontage is actually leaning toward the lane.  I did mention to Jan that weshouldn’t walk underneath the upper storey just in case a resident decided to empty the contents of their ‘Jays’ pot out the window. “Bucket and Chuck it!” 

This next photo shows the rear wall of King’s Lynn Minster.  You may notice the wall is both bulging and leaning outward ie,the wall isn’t vertical. I suspect the bulge has been caused by the weight of the top stonework and the lean is a result of slowly collapsing foundations.

The Guildhall was rather impressive.

Reputedly it’s the oldest working theatre in the UK and the only existing theatre where William Shakespeare performed.

And here is another photo showing what can happen when the structure of a building starts to fail.

I wouldn’t want the job of replacing the window frame above the door arch.

From King’s Lynn we drove to Sandringham for morning tea with Her Majesty.  Unfortunately she had cancelled the appointment because of another engagement which had occurred at short notice.  Who is this guy Donald?

Oh,Yes we drove very slowly just in case Phil had decided to take the Range Rover for a local spin.

We stayed on the B roads heading roughly towards Great Yarmouth.  Of course it’s Sunday and Jan was looking forward to a roast lunch.  This is where we have noticed the difference between England and Scotland.  Finding a rural pub in Scotland that served a cooked lunch was far more difficult than in England.  We must have passed at least six pubs today all serving a roast lunch.  Unfortunately we chose poorly. The beef was sliced too thick and overcooked whilst the Yorkshire Pudding had sugar in it.  Jan wasn’t impressed!  ’