Tacolneston Pirates and then, a few miles down the road, something truly unexpected….
In Norfolk for family visiting, I took a detour from my usual route back up the A140 and instead, went to Tacolneston, (home to both a significant radio transmitter and an alleged puma). I visited the church, part of the parish that covers my mother’s village, pretty much because I happened to drive past, as I was looking for other buildings. This unexpected stop was interesting on a number of levels. First, there is a rood screen, but its constituent parts are propped up inside the church against the south wall. Only two painted panels remain, both scratched out so badly that it is not possible to see much of the original image. The lovely decorated borders are untouched, and besides there is the wood-carving all around the edges of these panels and the remaining blank ones, from which agents of the reformation perhaps cut out the other paintings.
When I walked back up to the west end, looking down at the black marble stones set in the floor, I had a sudden thought that somehow there must have been pirates in Tacolneston at the end of the seventeenth century……..a very similar image, to that on ‘the pirate’s grave’, of a skull and bones etched into the marble, and alongside a further skull and bones, but in slightly different arrangement. Tacolneston is however quite far inland, and I cannot really think there would have been any likelihood of pirates there at all, so I suspect that the pirate’s grave I wrote about the other week may not after all be what I took it for.. perhaps the skull and bones simply indicate death. (Research will be forthcoming…..and if none of them were in fact pirates then there’s no debate either, about whether they died with their boots on )
There was a further stone in the aisle floor that had nothing to do with this conjecture, but simply left me touched. Margaret Browne died in 1685 and her husband, Thomas, left behind, chose this message for her…`Death was thy gaine tho not to mee/ I lost my better half in thee’ . How lovely that was, and how moving for any of us to be the object of such thought. I think I would be greatly moved if one day anyone ever thought that of me. (unlikely, I suspect) Poor Thomas lost another wife, too, who is buried quite close to Margaret and has an equally lavish marble slab, though no text other than the facts. Although thus a fair man to both his wives, I think he must have loved Margaret best, and more than 300 years later, his words reveal that still.
I drove on through to Bunwell, had a quick look at the church there, and carried on to New Buckenham -all just straight through from Tacolneston on the Norwich Road - although I noticed some signs labelling it ‘turnpike’, so I suspect it might have some interesting history. A few parts of it are very straight, so again, further research required.. (it is the B1113 and I know that the A140 origins are the Roman road from Caistor St Edmund, just outside Norwich, to Colchester).
I thought I would have a look at the church at New Buckenham, and this is a very good one. I did not look at Pevsner until afterwards, but cannot improve on his comment ‘ an uncommonly sumptuous perp church’. Lots to notice, particularly outside; a lot of decoration, and pinnacles on the tower. The truly unexpected was not however the church. Afterwards, I felt the need of a pub visit, and parked the car close to the market place. There is a market house with a whipping post in the middle- with iron loops on either side, presumably to tether the unfortunate during the flogging process. A bit grim, but quite interesting. On the wall of the market house- which is a sort of small open space covered by an upper storey, was a map of the village, indicating a castle, about which I had not known, so I decided to ask about it in the pub. As I left the market house, I saw a couple of wooden boards with reliefs- they were similar, but newer, to one I had noticed in the church. The one in the church was possibly an image of the village, as it showed a keep at the centre. I had wondered about this, as when I saw it, I had not yet known about the castle. Perhaps the one in the church was an original from the market house, and those on the market house itself were replicas- they looked quite new.
I stopped at The George, north of the Market Place. There was a fish and chip van fairly close at hand, but it was not yet in full swing, so I thought I would save that for later. The George had Shepherd Neame Spitfire and Black Sheep, so I had a half of Black Sheep. There was one other person at the bar, friendly, but maybe a bit of a stoner, I thought, in dark glasses and longish hair, who said that he was something of a black sheep. To be sociable, I said I was too, and it was nothing to worry about too much, and asked about the castle. He then gave me quite a lot of information about ley lines and druids, and the barman gave me directions to the castle. The black sheep said I’d need to get a key from the garage to open the gate to the castle, but as I looked quite agile, I’d probably be able to climb over the gate, and actually I didn’t look like a black sheep, I seemed more of a Boadicea, with the reddish hair etc. (hmm).
The way to the castle is pretty much following the road round onward past the George, then taking a right turn that leads past the garage on the opposite side of the road, then another right along a public footpath, just before the road bends round. Easy enough to find, but I had to return to the garage to ask for the key, as the gates were about 6ft high, and Boadicea or not (or even Boudicca as we call her in Colchester/Camulodnum) I did not feel like climbing them.
I paid £1 for the loan of the key and the man at the garage told me that if I had not returned them in a couple of days, he’d come and look for me. He warned me that the castle had been built as an instrument of war and remained so to this day, and if I fell off the top of the earth wall, I would probably kill myself as it was over 40ft down to the moat. So I walked back to the footpath hoping it wasn’t a clumsy day for me.
The footpath widens into a grassy track, curving round until you reach a pair of bright green metal gates. This was the outer bailey. Once inside the gates you are straight across the moat, which is quite wide and deep. The earth wall forming the rampart is grassy, steep and high and has lots of trees now in and around it on both sides. There are steps built into the earth on either side of the rampart as you enter the inner bailey. Once inside, I went straight across to the far right, towards the remains of the keep. The keep is circular and although probably only the bottom half is left, still looks pretty substantial. The walls are 10-12 feet thick and there is an internal wall across the middle. I was amazed by the whole thing- I have never seen a circular keep before and the bulk of this, despite the relatively small scale, and the height and steepness of the ramparts, and the murk and depth of the water below gave the sense of very serious business intended and implemented.
Later research indicates the castle was built circa 1150 to replace one at Old Buckenham. It was partly demolished in 1640.
I went back to the grassed over bridge across the moat to the rampart steps and walked round the entire ramparts. It is not very far, takes about 15 minutes, and mostly you walk along the top, but where the gatehouse used to be, you have to come down for a little way and then get back up on the top. I wanted to see if the moat was still wide and deep all the way round, and indeed it is. I should not at all like to fall in there as the water is quite black and still, with odd tree trunks and large branches spiking up here and there, having fallen in during storm damage.
On the way back, walking round the grassy path again, I noticed what looked like the remains of a church wall, now incorporated into a house. This would have been the west wall of a church and the small remains of a window, suggestive of a perpendicular construction - the slightly ogive curve of a top right hand corner. Above the old gable line were lines of stonework, and I could not work out what they might tell me.
I went to hand the key back at the garage and spent half an hour there sheltering from bucketing rain. The man who looks after the key knows the site well, in addition to having considerable knowledge of military history, so it was an interesting half hour and by the time the rain had stopped we’d got from the 12th century right up to WW2, but there was something he thought I had missed. I told him that I’d spotted the remains of the church in the outer bailey (a chapel in fact) and he asked me what I’d noticed at the top. I went back to have another look and was perplexed still by the top stonework above the old gable. He told me the answer in the end - a little bell tower, of course.
I went back to the George for the other half, and on the way met the Black Sheep, now accompanied by a young woman, walking towards the castle. I told him about my visit and he said he had decided to go and have a look round today, too, with his friend, as it was a very magical place. His magic might have been a bit different from mine, but he is right and there is of course magic in many, many places and in the things we see and the connections we make with past, present and future.
Sadly the chip van had gone when I got back to my car, so I had to have a cheese sandwich instead. Then I went home, but I’d had a brilliant afternoon in New Buckenham and might go back again, one day I think.. Happy trails