Walpole St. Peter, 1

Our next stop after King's Lynn was another five-banger, the parish church of St. Peter, "the Queen of the Marshlands," in tiny Walpole.

Not sorted

South entrance

Please remove your "Pattens," (wooden shoes); this place is nearly as close to
Amsterdam as London

The old oak doors are original, 14th

Huge, ancient workbench on the porch

View from the porch; the carving within is wondrous

Nave view

Pew boxes

On the port aisle, these seriously smallish pews, hobbit-sized

Tin-lined rocker

To keep the priest dry during outdoor festivities

14th century/20th century

Hobbit door

Font and exquisite Gothic hood

Chancel view

Misericords not that great

Nonetheless...

King's Lynn: St. Nicholas Church

I was out walking in north Lynn Sunday afternoon (July 14th) and heard the bells start peeling, and I knew they were coming from the tall-steepled old church I had walked past the day before and wondered about: gates locked and all closed up but clearly as old and large as the main parish church, St. Margarets. By the time I had gotten to the bells, it was apparent the church was anything but disused. St. Nicholas was a "church of ease," that is, a church built for the convenience of those, in the north of town, for whom getting to St. Margaret's was a chore. Way back in the Middle Ages. This church of ease, like many others, presumably, became a "redundant" church in recent times, that is, decommissioned, and now cared for by local friends and by the Churches Conservation Trust. The bells rang throughout the time I was there and then for another hour or two after I had gotten back to the camper. In Jenkins' book it is a one-star church, definitely in the top one thousand. I thought rather more of it, but perhaps just in view of the scores of people around that afternoon, ringing the bells, and caring for the old, ancient, neighborhood church. The building is so large, and sufficiently hemmed in, I couldn't get a decent exterior picture. I did two videos of the peeling of the bells...and will post them to YouTube in due course.

Eleven pairs of hovering angels

Several burials bearing the name Cruso, but no relationship ever established with
Defoe

Through a slit window under the tower you could watch the men [sic] ringing
the bells

King's Lynn: The Lynn Minster, AKA, The Priory And Parish Church of St. Margaret Of Antioch, And St. Mary Magdalene, And All the Virgin Saints

It has a long history, too, begun in 1101 by the Bishop of Norwich, in penance for his having bought outright his ecclesiastical position. Nothing much remains of the original, but the present building dates from the 13th century, and it is a four star attraction, according to our guide, Simon Jenkins (England's Thousand Best Churches). Its central tower steeple crashed down into the nave during a storm in 1741 or so, and much of the church was rebuilt, omitting any further steeple. Its glory, mostly, is the variety of carving within.

Thus, with the Saturday market in high gear

Nice walk up

Unmatched west towers

Famous nautical clock, facing the port, told captains when the next high tide
would be

High tides in recent years

Old-looking font

Nave view

Quire

Elevation there

Numerous interesting misericords (butt-rests in the choir; as butt-rests they  were not
considered sacred spaces and thus could be decorated with irreverent and sometimes
raunchy images)

Green Man

The King?

The Bishop

Elsewhere, someone (a king?) running off with something?

The windows all are Victorian or later; the reredos, Jenkins
says, is a masterpiece of Victorian carving

Wearing virtual reality eye-wear?

A common pose on Romanesque/Norman churches here...I suspect it is somehow
related to the Sheila-na-gig; must research...

One of the largest of all brasses, anywhere, according to Jenkins: Robert Braunche,
mayor of Lynn in 1349 and 1359, and his two wives (serially), Letitia and Margaret;
at the bottom, a representation of his peacock feast, held for Edward III in 1349

Abaft the beam

Pretty, but Victorian glass

Ceiling

Church yard, all tidied up in neat rows

Interesting church, some Norman, some Decorative, some Perpendicular, some
Victorian...