Once again in the summer sunshine we set out on another local adventure. We were led by one of our members, Janet Edwards, a volunteer Heritage Town Guide in Great Yarmouth. She admitted to feeling a little nervous at the start, possibly imagining that her friends and colleagues of the Local History Group would be more critical than the average group of sightseers. No need!
Much of what we saw was new to most of us, and Janet guided us through the tour briskly, confidently and with great clarity.
There is no way that one can try to tell you all the detail of what we saw and heard. You must take one of the three regular tours: will get you started.
We started outside the Fisherman’s Hospital and found out why it was pretty good to be a 60+ retired fisherman during the 1700’s but rather less good to be his widow. We saw the first stand-alone statue ever to be erected in Great Yarmouth and noticed another of St Peter in the Cupola on the roof. Do you know why he is there?
En route to the wall we saw the home of the writer of Black Beauty and another of a doctor who had a passing interest in body-snatching (that’s another tour). We observed the Minster, the largest parish church in England, and heard the first hint of the devastating plagues that have ravaged Great Yarmouth. Our first brush with the wall was at a crossroads where a simple plaque marked the site of the North Gate, which had been pulled down many years ago. Just a few yards further on was an enormous flintstone wall as high as a house. This was the beginning of an almost continuous structure, including eleven towers, that extends along the seaward side of the town centre for well over a mile. Sadly, the great gates are all gone. But the wall’s very presence reminds you of what an important place Great Yarmouth has always been. Henry III gave the town permission to build a wall in 1261, for defence and to control trade. It was strengthened in the 1500s when Spain threatened to invade.
Then we stopped briefly in the Sainsbury car park! In Leicester they discovered the body of Richard III beneath a car park - beneath where we park our cars and push our shopping trolleys rest hundreds of victims buried in what are known as plague pits.
Yarmouth’s is one of the longest medieval walls in England, perhaps the second longest, competing with York and Chester. Their walls differ from Yarmouth’s: you can walk along the top and they are featured parts of the landscape. Yarmouth’s wall is tucked away amongst the buildings – a shy, almost secret wall. But that proved to be one of the joys of the tour – the feeling of discovery as it popped up in most unexpected places. One is beneath Market Gates, where we got really close to the wall’s top and where it seems to have a new role as guardian of the public toilet.
Another is where it forms the imposing boundary of a play area. Did the children playing on the grass realise that they were performing cartwheels on a potential battleground? Then there is that house built high up, right on top of one of the towers. How, or maybe why, on earth? An intriguing morning.