The Priory and Parish church of St Margaret, King's Lynn Minster, King's Lynn, Norfolk

No one goes to Norfolk by accident. I means its not on the way to anywhere else, so those who come, we must assume, want to go there either to visit of live. And in Kings Lynn, out in the bandit country of west Norfolk, you really only come here because you're going to Kings Lynn, or gong on to Hunstanton or trying to escape via the A17.

I was posted to RAF Marham at the beginning of the 90s for two years, though before getting married we used to go to The Globe and other such delights, the finer points of its trading past were somewhat lost on me.

So, a long held plan was to revisit, so when Jools suggested I go away for a few days, King's Lynn was the answer.

The answer to the question nobody asked.

I found a cheap place to stay, paid, and so come Tuesday morning, after coffee and packing, Jools dropped me off at Dover Priory, where I found that they only sell "anytime" returns at that hour, and the £88 return I saw online the night before was going to be that amount for just the single to get me there.

Sigh.

I paid, and hoped I could get something cheap on the way back on Wednesday, though I was seeing how I could use this to factor in a stop off in Ely on the way back.

I took a seat once the train pulled in, and a working couple, colleagues at Saga, sat opposite, and she began talking about how undervalued she was there, and how people were not promoted on merit, and then they left, the company had to pay double to get someone to take over those tasks.

Such a familiar story.

Anyway, the train wasn't full, so all very pleasant, and just a walk over the road to King's Cross, so time to go to M&S for something for breakfast, then ambled over only to find I had just 90 seconds to gallop over the platform 9 to get the train, which was three quarters full.

The young lady in the seat in front took an hour to re-apply her make up using the phone camera as a mirror. I don't know, but it that normal amount of time to achieve the "natural" look?

I don't know.

I ate my fruit and pastrami sandwich to follow, eating as the countryside rolled by, happy in my air-conditioned chariot.

Through Cambridge, where most passengers got off, and off into the fens beyond and north, where once upon a time this was endless mires, marshes and stagnant pools, where the Isle of Ely, once an actual island, is visible for ten miles before arriving,

Tomorrow, I thought, I'll explore the Isle of Eels once again.

The train eased out and after the junction with lines leading north west and east, we headed north to Downham Market and King's Lynn beyond.

A family got on at one of the small intermediate stations, two older parents to a hyper ten year old boy who wanted everything, but out here in the wild west, there was no signal, phones could not be pared, so there was just looking out the window at the flat line of the horizon and the drainage sewers and sluices.

We arrived in King's Lynn just before eleven, and the heat hit like it did when I worked in Vegas. I walked out of the station, over the main road, the family following me as the father tried to cope with two suitcases, their son and a cowardly small dog, stopping every ten yards to collect everything that had been dropped.

They had to get to the bus station to go on to Hunstanton or some other glittering resort dotted with casinos and pleasure beaches.

Their bus was in, waiting.

I walked on.

I walked through a shopping centre exotically called "The Vancouver Centre". I couldn't see nothing in common, but who knows?

I walked through and along the main street to a junction, where I felt I should sit down and have a swig of the remaining pop I had. I was outside the King's Lynn branch of Wimpy.

Wimpy, a British fast food chain based on at table slow food, named after a character in Popeye, so of course King's Lynn had a huge branch.

There were signs to the historical quarter, so after a while I set off, heading for the Purfleet Sluice and the Customs House.

Did I mention it was hot?

I got shots, then walked on to the quayside, where candy-coloured buoys were lined up for their next duty, and behind the quay, a warren of cobbled lanes with brick houses and courtyards and warehouses, showing how prosperous the town clearly once was.

A lady saw me taking shots and made sure I came to her private yard to see the large, church-like tower built to keep an eye on incoming ships.

It was getting hotter.

I walked down the quay, then into Saturday Market Place where there is a market on Saturdays. One side is lines with the Guildhall and the other the Minster church.

I took shots of the Guildhall, and it being half midday, went in search of food and drink, and came upon Wenns Chop and Ale House, where I asked if they had cold bears (beers). They did.

I ordered a pint of Coke and burger and fries.

The place was quiet, but efficient, with enough staff to fill glasses and bring sauces.

I eat up but order another half pint of coke to build fluids up, then after paying walk over to the Minster to take shots, before an organ recital meant children and photographers made their escape. Not that I don't like organ music, church organ music, but this had a shrillness to it, that wasn't altogether pleasant.

It was then I received the call.

The room where I was booked into, had a flooded toilet and so I would not be able use it, so there was nowhere to stay. Something was mentioned about a refund, but I was in town, there was a music festival on and almost no rooms.

I tried a hotel portal, got a room for eighty quid, like I had a choice, then repaired to a pub for some more cold beer.

I watched the Hundred cricket as I drank, and people watched a family as they tried to claim control over their finances after falling out with a son who had messed up their mail be redirecting it, or something.

So calls were made between pints, games of pool and going outside for a gasper.

I drank on, and the cricket carried on.

I had three pints of ice cold German beer. It was wet and cold, which is all that mattered as the hottest part of the day blazed down outside.

It was five, so I had better find my room for the night. Now, here's the thing with these hotel portals: you don't know if its an hotel or just a room in a house.

This was a room in a house.

And it was a 15 minute walk, but in temperatures of 33 degrees back round to the station and then on a bit, and I had to check the address twice as I walked past it three times.

I had been texted a code to get in, and a code for my room on the top floor.

So far so good.

The room as in a converted attic, a foot from hundreds of tiles that had been baking all day in the sun. It was like an oven.

I should have gone to the station and went home, but using the desk fan, I cooled down, though any time away from the bed and the fan meant I was sweating like a waterfall in a couple of minutes.

I hoped it would cool down. I had a shower in the bathroom one floor down, went back up and was as hot and sweaty as before in ten minutes.

There was water to drink, and I wasn't hungry, so I whiled away the evening until dusk, when I collapsed on the bed and facing into the full force of the fan, fell asleep.

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Kings Lynn is Norfolk's third largest town, but it feels bigger than the second largest, Great Yarmouth, because it is so far from anywhere else. Lynn is proudly and inarguably the centre of its large rural hinterland, the gateway to the Ouse delta and the largest town on the Wash.
It is a fascinating town. In the middle ages, Lynn was one of the dozen biggest towns in England, and until 1960 or so it could boast one of the finest medieval centres of any town in England. During the course of the next twelve years, about a quarter of this was destroyed, to be replaced by dull, soulless pedestrian shopping concourses; these are now themselves being taken down, and replaced with superstores and car parks. Given that traffic in the town is already horrendous, you might think that they'd be better off trying to keep traffic out rather than attract it.

But much remains of Medieval Lynn, and of Georgian Lynn as well, for it was a wealthy merchant town until well into the 19th century. The geography of the town is complex, but satisfying. As the Ouse silted up, the mouth of the river moved westwards, and the town was extended towards it in a series of phases. Parallel with the river front, and several hundred metres from it, the main street connects two open spaces; at the north is the wide square of the Tuesday Market, and at the other is the more cluttered Saturday Market. This was the heart of the town at the end of the medieval period, and contains the finest buildings, including the magnificent 16th century guildhall. Opposite is the vast bulk of St Margaret. The church's three towers rise high above the Saturday Market and the narrow streets around, the huge bulk of the nave and chancel brooding at the ends of openings, new and intriguing vistas presenting themselves. It is one of the finest urban medieval moments in England.

St Margaret is far bigger than any of the Norwich medieval churches, and is second in size in East Anglia only to St Nicholas at Great Yarmouth, which is the largest medieval parish church in England. From the west, the overall layout consists of two western towers separated by a west front, a clerestoried and aisled nave, a central tower above a crossing with transepts, and a clerestoried chancel. Pevsner, who has measured it, tells us that the building is 235 feet long from end to end.

To understand it, it is best to consider the order in which it was built. A Norman Priory church came first, probably on the site of the present nave, but little trace of it survives. The Priory was founded in 1101, five years after Norwich cathedral, by the same man, Herbert de Losinga. The Priory's fortunes burgeoned, and about the middle of the 12th century the two massive towers were begun at the west end. They would take almost a century to complete. The south-west tower is pretty much in its original form, changing from Norman to Early English as it climbs. The tower to the north-west was either not completed, or was for some reason taken down and replaced, because what we see today is largely the work of the 15th century. It would continue to cause trouble, as we shall see.

In the 13th century, the body of the church was rebuilt, the vast chancel being added in the height of the Early English style, with a walkway in the clerestory. The east window was added in the 15th century; it is a curious rose shape, although we need to be aware that it was reconstructed by Ewan Christian as part of a 19th century restoration. Beneath it, in the external east wall, are three large and elaborate image niches, which may have contained a rood group. Because of the layout of the town, this east front is hidden away in a narrow side street, and is easily missed.

Also in the 15th century, the crossing tower was surmounted by a lantern, probably a bit like that at Ely cathedral, 20 miles away. The nave was completed, and the upper exterior of the chancel was redone, retaining the internal structural features. The west front with its porch and massive window was completed, as was the north-west tower. Both towers were surmounted by steeples, and the church was now at the peak of its glory, spired, battlemented, replete with gargoyles and grotesques. It must have looked like a cathedral.

The Priory was dissolved along with all the others in the 1530s, and after the Reformation the church fulfilled its new role as a large, urban protestant preaching space. The lack of emphasis on the upkeep of buildings in the 17th and 18th centuries served it ill, however. About midday on the 8th of September 1741, the spire and the top of the north-west tower came down in a storm, right into the heart of the nave, pretty much destroying it.

It took five years to replace the ruined nave, during which time the congregation retreated into the chancel. The rebuilding was the work of the architect Matthew Brettingham, most famous for Holkham Hall. Perhaps because country houses were being fashionably designed in a kind of proto-gothick at this time, Brettingham used the same language for the nave of St Margaret; intelligently, because there was no liturgical imperative for the aisles, arcades and clerestory. The result is curiously modern, a smoothed-off Gothic with wide, languid arches and elephantine pillars. The lantern tower was removed, as was the spire on the south-west tower. Externally, that was pretty much it; the Victorians tarted up the transepts and removed a row of shops that had been built on to the north side (hence the curious north porch with its tall arch to the east). The clock on the south-west tower shows the time of high tides.

And so, to the inside. This is one of the most welcoming of all urban churches. It is open everyday, and the people greet you warmly as if they're really grateful that you've come; which they probably are, because Lynn is a socially deprived area and benefits from tourism when it can. There is a little cafe in the south transept where you can get a cup of tea and a bun. It is possible to enter from the north porch, which is done out really well in a full-on 1960s style in modern glass and slate. You certainly should not miss this, but for the full effect it is really important to enter St Margaret for the first time through the west doors. As you go in, notice on your right the markers that record successive town floods in the 19th and 20th centuries.

You step into a vastness that swallows all sound. The arcades stretch away into the distance like a forest glade, and you will see straight away that, as little as the Victorians found to do outside, no effort was spared by them internally to bring the church up to scratch. An acreage of shiny encaustic tiles spreads before you, and the windows to north and south are all full of Victorian glass, most of which depicts Saints, but only some of which is good, I'm afraid. George Gilbert Scott was responsible for the restoration of the nave, and the font is, again, not the best example of 19th century work, although it looks rather imposing on its high pedestal. However, be patient; the nave is not St Margaret's best feature.
Brettingham had raised the nave floor, and when Scott lowered it again he revealed the bases of the original pillars of the arcades, which are curiously elaborate, like elephants feet, under Brettingham's columns. The nave is a good place to wander; it is not a complex space, but each vista is pleasing, and some are of interest; note the way that the west end of the south aisle ends in a Norman arch, and you can see the roofline of the original Norman church above it. There is a massive Norman pillar and arch facing south from the base of the north-west tower. The soaring chancel arch is surmounted by a Charles II royal arms, which looks a little lost up there.

You step beneath the chancel arch and immediately it gets more complex and more interesting; you wonder at what must have been lost in the nave. Now the eye is drawn by Bodley's 1899 reredos, a glorious Flemish-style confection of angels and Saints. In such a large sanctuary it does not impose as it would in a smaller church, instead providing a backdrop to the complexities of the chancel. In the middle of the chancel is one of those big latten eagle lecterns with lion feet, so familiar from this part of Norfolk. This is the best of them, I think, being from the same workshop as the one at Redenhall. A modern sculpture of the Blessed Virgin and child has been intelligently placed to the north of the sanctuary. Again, the hugeness of the space means that nothing dominates, and allows you to take in the whole chancel with all its details.

Most striking of all is the clerestory. Unusually, it has a walkway within it, the inner pillars being 13th century and the exterior windows 15th century, so the arrangement must have existed from the start. The south chancel aisle extends to the east end, tapering slightly, while that to the north is truncated. The aisles are separated by some of the most elaborate screens in any Norfolk church, wonders of intricate and characterful carvings. In particular, the little figures that form the conceits of tiny corbels to the arcading. The best date from the early part of the 14th century. The capitals to the arcade are also full and elaborate, full of intricacies. Shadowy beyond, the chancel aisle chapels are secretive places, each furnished in a modern style for private prayer.

Ewan Christian was responsible for the 19th century restoration of the chancel, and it was much more successful than Scott's work in the nave; even the encaustic tiles lend a sympathetic rigor to the place, as if acknowledging that this is the business place of the church. There are reminders of the Priory status of St Margaret before the Reformation; return stalls with misericord seats fill the western part of the chancel. The best of the seat carvings features a mysterious green man, but all the heads are full of 14th century confidence.

Coming back into the crossing, there is another screen which is equally remarkable in its own way. This is across the north transept, which now houses the 1754 organ. The lower part consists of blank arcading, while above there are two levels of open arches. It is dated 1584, but as well as Thomas Gurlin, the mayor, who was perhaps the donor, it also records James I becoming king in 1603. The wood is a delicious chocolatey brown, as evocative of its age as the 14th century screen in the chancel.

East Anglia's two largest brasses are reset in the south chancel aisle. They date from the middle of the 14th century, immediately after the Black Death; they depict former mayor Adam of Walsoken, who was carried away by it, and Robert Braunche, who was himself mayor at the time. They are not English brasses, but Flemish, being uncut latten plates, and reflect Lynn's links with the continent. Each man is depicted with his two wives; either bigamy was a privilege extended to burgesses of 14th century ports, or the first died and each man then remarried. The plates are about two metres tall, and there are elaborate illustrations at the feet of the figures.

St Margaret is a pleasing church to visit; it is not a complicated building, but repays time spent poking into its corners. Peter and I were in here for nearly an hour without getting bored. As with many big, Victorianised buildings, there is not really much of an atmosphere; but unlike the Lavenhams of this world this is not a pompous building. It has a feel of the thousands of ordinary townspeople who have known it over the centuries as their church; less a matter of civic pride, than recalling busy lives lived in its shadows.

Simon Knott, November 2005

www.norfolkchurches.co.uk/lynnstmargaret/lynnstmargaret.htm

Taken on: August 12, 2024

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