Some years ago when our Chinese student's "William" and "Mystery" were returning home, I gave each of them a bound copy of a book that I had compiled on the history of Norwich &. Norfolk. Much of it would have been of immediate interest, but I had also taken a long term view, and included a few items that were more likely to be appreciated in a few years time. And it wasn't all about Norwich & Norfolk, for in the personal letter to each, that formed the introduction to the book, I made reference to two famous people from China, one of whom, had come to England over a hundred years ago, and while here, had written a long poem in which he longed for home. The poet was Huang Tsun-hsien, and his poem was, Ballad of the Great London Fog:
The blue sky has died, the yellow sky rises;
Suddenly heaven appears drunk and God dreams in a stupor,
The whole country sinks into confusion at the loss of the sun.
Vast and boundless, the nation is confused, muddled;
Dark and hazy, like the black, sweet land of slumber.
I sit in my ladle-size room several months,
Facing the wall, I worship the king, the lamp.
I cannot tell if it's morning or night;
I cannot distinguish north from south.
Flickering low my wick burns green,
While everywhere, fly Armageddon's black ashes.
I feel like crossing the desert's endless yellow sand,
Or probing a bottomless cavern too dark to measure.
Things transform into dust, and the dust is blackened;
I watch the air, but the air is ink.
No names can be given to these colours or shapes;
Our eyes and nose are all blocked up.
How could we find another creator P'an-ku
To come forward and reopen the skies?
Could this have been the work of the devil's
Stirring the sea and beating up the waters?
Suddenly we plunge into the boundless night of Avici Hell;
Startled by this evil wind that drove our ship to Demon Land.
I go outdoors but cannot take more than one inch strides;
Everywhere on the Boulevards is the sound of bells.
Carriages and horses disappear and hide like roosting chickens;
In this mirage of towers and pavilions, the air stinks.
Heaven's net is firmly spread, yet a hole appears,
When we see the suns' red wheel, coloured like blood.
Dim, dim, not enough light to irritate the eyes:
Pallid and chill, it can't even warm my hands.
I have heard that the earth circles the sun, the moon circles the earth;
Now the English colonies spread over five continents.
There is nowhere the red English sun does not shine;
It's glory extends far and wide to the horizons end.
But who would have thought that their capital can't see the sun?
And people here are worried the sky is going to fall!
I have also heard the earth's moisture evaporates to form rain;
And clever mathematicians can calculate the number of
Raindrops.
This nation has always made its home on the water-
Not to mention the smoke from ten million hearths.
If you could add up all the fog within the Four Seas inch by inch,
It would still be less than the fog in London City!
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The other person of note was Ch'iu Chin, who, in 1907 at the age of thirty, was executed, by beheading, for her revolutionary activity. "A poet, writer, and educator, orator and feminist." And while I didn't include any of her work, I drew William and Mystery's attention to this line form one of her poems, which I considered to be a useful motto: "I pledge to seek the road of life in the jaws of death."
What I had hooped to achieve by introducing this note of patriotism, was to help William and Mystery to return home with a strong sense of pride and love of their own country, mindful as I was, of how big and impressive the cultural gap is for children who come to England from China, as compared to those who come from mainland Europe.
"The freedom of form she demanded as a poet was accompanied by the choice of a strongly personal style. Her verse is expressed in a simple, vigorous, direct language, and it eschews the heavy weight of historical and literary allusions so common to traditionalist poetics. Feminism, heroism, and revolution are themes commonly encountered in her poetry, and the strong note of patriotism she sounds in many poems reveals a deep personal sense of mission and a determination to sacrifice herself to the revolutionary cause."
Qualities, self-evidently present in her poem, A Song of the Precious Knife:
The palaces of the House of Han lie in the setting sun;
Dead is this ancient country of five Millennia.
Sunk deep in sleep these several hundred years,
No one recognises the shame of being enslaved.
Remember our ancient ancestor Hsien-yuan by name,
Who, born and raised in the K'un-lun mountains,
Expanded our domain to the Yellow and Yangtze rivers,
With great knives flashing conquered the Central Plain.
Then, a painful cry from Plum Mountain, what could be done?
The imperial city filled with brambles, the bronze camels buried.
How often I've looked back on the capital's former glories;
The dirges of a fallen land bring copious tears.
Northward marched an allied army, eight nations strong,
And once more our territory was given away.
From the west came white devils to sound the warning bell,
To startle the Han Chinese from their slavish dreams.
My host bequeathed me this golden knife,
And now, possessing it, my heart is brave.
An "ism" of iron and blood is destined for our day;
One hundred million skulls we count as a mere feather.
Bathed by sun and moon, this radiant treasure,
Fit to be treasured by any death-defying man of stature.
I pledge to seek the road of life in the jaws of death,
For the peace of the world depends on force of arms.
Have you not seen Ching K'o as a guest of Chin
Bare the foot-long dagger hidden in the map.
A single thrust at court, though it missed the mark,
Was so startling that it seized a tyrant's soul.
With my bare hand, I wish to save my fatherland
Though this land of Emperor Yu overflows with a degenerate breed.
When everyone's heart is dead what can be done?
Seizing a pen, I write this "Song of the Precious Knife."
This "Song of the Precious Knife" strengthens one's resolve,
Awakens many a soul in this land of the dead.
With precious knife and valiant arm, what can compare?
Forget old friends and foes in this mortal realm!
Don't despise this foot of steel as of little worth;
The salvation of the nation depends on the miracle it will work!
Henceforth, I will take Heaven and Earth as my furnace,
The yin and yang as my fuel,
Gather iron ore from the six continents,
And cast thousands upon thousands of precious knives to cleanse this
sacred land.
To renew the august name and power of our ancestor, the Yellow Emperor,
And scour clean from our national history, millennium upon millennium, this
awful shame.
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Now in terms of Out & About, and having given them a brief introduction to the Iceni & Romans; the Saxons & Vikings; and the Normans, and to the centuries in-between, I provided William and Mystery with a record in text and pictures, of the history of the City of Norwich, and in particular, of Norwich Cathedral, of Teverham, where we live, (a hamlet recorded for purposes of taxation in the Doomsday Book); features on Sandringham: the Queen's private residence in Norfolk, which most students visit; and on the religious shrines to Our Lady, (the Virgin Mary) at Walsingham. And as Norfolk is largely rural, and Norfolk folk have a reputation for being insular, in the potted histories that I provided of noted personages, I gave the lie to this idea. Some of them, such as Horatio Nelson, Thomas Paine, and Edith Cavell, travelled far and wide. And if Ebeneezer Brewer didn't travel, his masterpiece, Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable, did.
Well we too have been out and about recently, which is what has sparked my reminiscences about William and Mystery, and caused me to want to share our experiences with you; for I have a compelling need to do something creative, working as I am on a project to do with the most notorious of the despots of the twentieth century: Hitler, Stalin, and Chairman Mao. I have no idea where my research will lead, but it is a path that I have chosen to follow, and reading these taxing historical accounts, at times, calls for rest and relaxation. But I am in danger of doing myself an injustice, for those things that I want to share with you, are, in themselves, worth sharing.
What never ceases to amaze us about living in Norfolk, is just how much there is to do, and still to be discovered, though we have lived here for 13 years. Recently, a newly acquired family friend, Mike, who lives elsewhere, but knows Norfolk well, led us to wonderful places that we hadn't heard of: to the Castle, at Castle Acre, and Castle Acre Priory. And we returned the compliment, and treated him to a new experience, at Hoverton Hall Gardens. And as is a common occurrence, we have been to the theatre, this time, to see Alan Bennett's play The Lady in the Van; whereby "hangs a tale"; and also to see a production of Verdict, by Agatha Christie. And not satisfied with all of that, just recently we have been trekking through a garden of exotic plants.
Though much of the original stonework from Castle Acre has long since been carted off, what remains and is impressive, is the scale and variety in this Norman earthworks. And just as I have a compelling need when on holiday, to climb to the top of towers and castle ramparts, at Castle Acre, I had that same desire to be at one with the past: to walk the length and breadth, and find myself lost, and secure, in the depth of this once great compound.
A young family enjoying the ruin that is Castle Acre
Castle Acre was the home of the de Warenne family: William 1 de Warenne and his wife Gundrada, and as such, it was an especially potent symbol of the conquest of England by the Normans; and not just because William 1 de Warren had fought at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, but because his wife, Gundrada, (through whom it is believed the family wealth came), was William the Conqueror's daughter. And while there is no certain date for the construction of the castle, (sometime in the 1070's) it is a matter of record that Gundrada died there, in childbirth, on 27th May 1085. And in terms of exercising power and influence over their new subjects, this citing of the castle at Acre was ideal, for it stood at a crossing point over the river Nar: on Peddars Way (the Roman road between north west Norfolk and central East Anglia). And what is interesting from the archaeologists point of view is, that Castle Acre in its construction conforms to the "motte-and-bailey" format that was common in pre-Conquest Normandy and throughout Norman England.
The earthworks viewed from the outer bailey
From Castle Acre we moved on to Castle Acre Priory, a splendid ruin that dates back to the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII in 1537, but not before we called in at the parish church of St. James The Great. There is almost certainly a direct historical link through the de Warrenne family, between these various places of worship, and the features in the church of St James the Great that I would like to share with you, are the 15th century hexagonal baptismal font, and the "wine-glass" pulpit that dates from the same period.
What is unusual is the font cover that also belongs to the 15th century; and we are told that, the mechanism for lifting the cover when the font is in use, still works. As for the "wine-glass" pulpit, we had seen nothing like it before.
The beautifully preserved hexagonal pulpit
on a wine glass stem
The paintings on each of the four panels that make up the pulpit are believed to date back to 1460, and each is a representation of the early Doctors of the Church. Theologians who were renowned not just for their understanding but for their holiness of life. They are St. Augustine, St Gregory, St Jerome and St Ambrose. In this panel the detail is of St Augustine. Converted to Christianity at the age of thirty three, (387 AD) Augustine was bishop of Hippo, on the Algerian coast. And besides his eminence as a philosopher and theologian, he is remembered, for his "Confessions" and his prayer, "O Lord, make me chaste, but not yet". And the Latin inscription invites the preacher, "filled with the Holy Spirit", to speak of the virtue of St. Augustine.
The Priory at Castle Acre
It seems to me, a safe bet, that today, Henry VIII is best remembered more for his six wives, than for the historical fact that he has to be numbered among the great political vandals of all time. As a young man he may well have been intellectually gifted, a man of promise, but he died a despot: someone who had not only destroyed the lives of some of the people closest to him, but who, under the guise of his dispute with the Pope, had allowed the religious and cultural life of England to be turned on its head. So looking at this great monument to the past, so carefully preserved for the nation by English Heritage, I was faced with a dichotomy: the simultaneous representation of good and evil.
When William 1 de Warenne, in the 1090's brought a small group of monks from his foundation at Lewes in Sussex, he could not have imagined where it would all end; nor could his successors, who gave the monks this new and more expansive piece of land. The monks were Cluniacs, that is a religious order whose mother house and ultimate governance came from the abbey of Cluny in France. And as we contemplate these ruins, it is worth reflecting on this passage taken from the English Heritage brochure:
"The priory site today is as beautiful and peaceful as any in England. But for almost 450 years it was the home and workplace of monks and their servants, a refuge for pilgrims, and a stopping point for royalty, clergy and nobility rooted in the economy and society of Norfolk, it was also part of a vast monastic network centred on the great abbey of Cluny in France".
The craftsmanship that is still apparent,
after centuries of decay.
Desolation
Something of the scale of this monastic network can be gleamed from the expansion and influence exercised at local level. By 1140, the Priory held property in some 28 Norfolk parishes, and in a further 50 by 1291, from which, by way of endowments, it secured most of its income, usually by way of rents, titles, and grants and gifts to the parish churches that it controlled, with additional income coming from baptisms, burials, mills, and the priory's own farm. By 1534 the annual income was calculated at £306, a mid range figure for monasteries.
Now while accepting that the reason for the priory's existence was to give glory to God, by men whose lives were dedicated to that end: through the daily celebration of Mass, the chanting of the Divine Office, and other forms of prayer, privation and religious devotion, it is worth reflecting, (in the context of our capacity to fail when it comes to good works), on some of the "visitations", or official reports, into the conduct of life at the Priory.
In 1265 32 of the brothers were found to be living with "propriety and regularity", but among other things were rebuked "for the habit of journeying and riding about the country", and "eating and drinking indifferently in houses of laymen and secular persons". In 1279 the conduct of 35 monks was found to be satisfactory, although the prior was found to be both extravagant and eager to resign. And there was at least one feud when it came to the appointment of a new prior. In 1283, the candidate approved by the prior at Lewes,was opposed with armed resistance, a dispute that required the intervention of the abbot at Cluny to settle. A century later, the prior William de Warenne absconded in disgrace, and was last heard of in 1351 as a "vagabond" with a warrant out for his arrest.
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Now the quid pro quo was. that in return for Mike having introduced us to Castle Acre, we would take him to somewhere new in Norfolk, so to that end we spent the day at Hoverton Hall Gardens. The truth is, that we had only just discovered them, and had come away with the feeling that it was a place that you would want to return to. So here is a virtual tour, with minimum text, which I hope you enjoy.
The Walled - (Spider Garden)
and replicated as a contemporary centrepiece below
Sculpted in flint by the landscape gardener James Smith
and installed in 1998
The Walled Kitchen Garden- This the Knot Garden, is separated
from the rest of what was once a Victorian kitchen garden, by a
yew hedge with a central laburnum arch. Among other features
are herbs, grown along the south-facing wall.
These descriptions of the medicinal properties of herbs
are taken from Culpeper's Herbal (1649)
Within the circular hedge of Japanese privet lies a collage of lavender
and box thyme. The Gallicia roses Versicolor and Officinalis are
planted in the inner beds among varieties of sage, hyssop,
and cotton lavender. Tulips and irises add colour during spring and
early summer. Clipped bay leaves, standard roses and eight crab
apple trees give height to the borders.
For the young, the woodland walks are an adventure playground.
By the lake
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Now among the plays that we saw during the summer moths, was Alan Bennett's, The Lady in the Van, and this is the point at which I have to sound a discordant note, for not withstanding the fact that Alan Bennett is a man of proven pedigree, by the time it came to the interval, I just had to leave. For me it had been the most dreary theatre experience ever, and though Jenny was staying with our companion, she remarked at the interval, that she was not at all sure where it was going.
Well, I made my way in the general direction of The Bell, a splendid pub next to Norwich Castle, thinking that I might call in for a drink and watch what was left of the European Under 21 football final, between Switzerland and Spain, and especially as we had Swiss students staying. But as I pushed open the door and a wave of heat and sound hit me, (on what was an already barmy evening), I decided instead to go for a walk, before returning to the theatre to wait, "like a fish out of water", or so it seemed, for the play to end.
When Jenny appeared, her mood had changed, for the second act had been altogether more interesting, and she was resigned to the possibility that the tedium of the first act, was an necessary prerequisite for the play as a whole. But no sooner had she said this, than Roger, peering over her shoulder, was lamenting the fact that he had missed me at the interval. Having come with his wife, by the interval he too had had enough, and hearing that I had gone off for a drink, had tried to catch me up; and that in itself was something of a mystery, for as far as I recall, on this occasion, I was more of a danderer than a walker.
So what you might ask, was the problem?
Well The Lady in the Van is based on a true story, that of Miss Shepherd, who parked a mustard coloured van at the bottom of Alan Bennett's garden, and lived there, uninvited, for fifteen years. She was educated, opinionated, politically aware, religious, and not withstanding her circumstances, had placed her name on the electoral register so as to be able to vote. As Bennett explains, over many years, flyers and other pamphlets were delivered to his address in her name, much of which, with regret, he had discarded. But as the play unfolds he appears in two guises, that of the compassionate man who goes so far as to pick up bags of excrement, and the questioning, philosophical Bennett, who is exploiting Miss Shepherds eccentricity in fulfillment of his craft as a writer. And though there are witticisms along the way, in terms of Miss Shepherd's view of the world, it becomes apparent that there is something in her past, that as yet, is unexplained.
Now interesting as all this is, written down, the pace in the first act, for me was slow, and in the sparsely decorated stage, the sight of the eccentric Miss Shepherd, living in her van, reminded me of another eccentric old lady, whose house I had visited, and whose biography I had just read, and who, for many years, had lived in even more taxing circumstances, in a caravan in her own garden; and putting the two together, I decided that I had had enough of eccentric old ladies.
The woman in question was Miss Savidge, who, having fought a long but unsuccessful battle to save her Medieval hall house in Hertfordshire, from demolition, at the age of sixty, decided to dismantle it, and rebuild it, 100 miles away in Norfolk: at Wells-Next-The-Sea. To her relatives, she was aunt May, but the story as told by Christine Adams, (her niece by marriage), is published under the title "Miss Savidge Moves Her House."
At its most simple, it is a remarkable story of single-mindedness and perseverance, but viewed more broadly, it came at a cost to Miss Savidge, and her niece in particular, that for me, was as tragic as it was interesting. Having moved the house, aunt May worked on its reconstruction as and when she could, the "as and when" having mostly to do with the weather. But as she aged, and with the rebuilding still far from complete, she became less productive. And though her nephew and his family came to lend a hand, (usually in the summer months), their efforts, in effect, were undermined by the tradesmen she employed, and for whom, she had endless patience. Understandably they would, fit her in, with the more lucrative work elsewhere, which helps to explain why, from start to finish, it took in excess of two years to install a Rayburn cooker. In the meantime, and through the bleakest months of winter, aunt May continued to keep her diary, and sleep in a chair, in a house that was far from weatherproof. She was a woman who kept everything, every bus ticket that she ever bought, every receipt, every magazine and newspaper or whatever, all of which were stashed in her caravan or moved about the house as the work, or foul weather required.
So it should not come as a surprise to be told that aunt May died before the task was complete, but not before her niece had promised to fulfil the dream, and with aunt May saying, "sorry". For six more years, Christine Adams and her husband Tony worked at the task, only for their marriage of forty years to fall apart. They had been childhood sweethearts, and as Christine readily admits, aunt May's project, even if completed, was something that her husband Tony had never wanted to inherit.
So it was after all, a combination of circumstance that caused me to walk out of the Theatre Royal.
And here is something to wonder at, Will Giles' Exotic Garden; we visited it earlier in the week, and it is not much more than a stones-throw, form the train station, here in Norwich.
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N.B. By clicking on any one of these photos, you can view all the photographs in the blog, independently of the blog itself.
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© Cormac McCloskey
Castle Acre Castle & Priory: English Heritage
The poems Ballad of the Great London Fog and Song of the Precious Knife are taken from
Waiting for the Unicorn:
Poems and Lyrics from China's Last Dynasty, 1644-1911
Published by Indiani University Press
Edited by Irving Yuchang Lo and William Schultz
ISBN 0 253 20575 1
Hoverton Hall Gardens
Miss Savige Moves Her House
Published by: Arum (2009)
By Christine Adams with Michael McMahon
ISBN 978 1 84513518 8
Will Giles' Exotic Garden
Castle Acre Castle & Priory: English Heritage
The poems Ballad of the Great London Fog and Song of the Precious Knife are taken from
Waiting for the Unicorn:
Poems and Lyrics from China's Last Dynasty, 1644-1911
Published by Indiani University Press
Edited by Irving Yuchang Lo and William Schultz
ISBN 0 253 20575 1
Hoverton Hall Gardens
Miss Savige Moves Her House
Published by: Arum (2009)
By Christine Adams with Michael McMahon
ISBN 978 1 84513518 8
Will Giles' Exotic Garden
