Red Lodge Transport Café

Above: The café still stands beside the old A11 which is much quieter these days.

Red Lodge is a village and civil parish situated in rural Suffolk between Mildenhall and Newmarket, and very close to the A11 and A14 roads. Until the 1980s the old A11 ran through the village on a road that was only wide enough for a single line of traffic in each direction. It was called Turnpike Road and, because it was so narrow, it was very busy with traffic which was almost at a stand-still at times. When the A11 was upgraded, a road was constructed on a new alignment – just west of the old one. That is a dual-carriageway, bypassing the village and leaving the old A11 through the village almost deserted.

The village of Red Lodge dates back to 1926 when the first houses were built, although the pub – called Red Lodge Inn – is far older, being shown on a map of 1885. It is thought to have been a former hunting lodge dating from the 17th century. The area where most of the new housing is situated was formerly a rabbit warren attached to Freckenham Manor lands, with a history dating back to the 13th century. Red Lodge became a civil parish in 1987, having previously been part of Freckenham parish.

Since the 1990s, considerable redevelopment has taken place with several housing estates being created. More housing continued to be added. Living at Red Lodge is probably popular because of it being situated so close to the A11. However, many of the new homes remain empty, causing locals to rename Red Lodge as ‘Dead Lodge’.

Red Lodge has a long-established transport café which was renowned as being open 24 hours a day. When the café was first opened is not known. It has the appearance of a café from the 1950s or 1960s that is now ‘frozen in time’. Some years back, the BBC filmed a documentary in the café. It stands beside the road through the village which is called Turnpike Road.

This article concentrates on the well-known transport café, which has two things going for it. Firstly, there is the good food provided by the café, served up to truckers and passing visitors alike. Secondly, on the opposite side of the road is a very large piece of open land with enough space to park at least 40 trucks. For lorry drivers, easy parking is an important factor for a truck stop. With so many of them using the A11 and A14 trunk roads, it is not hard to realise why truckers continue to use this café. Until well after the turn of the millennium, the café was open 24 hours every day – even on Christmas Eve. Nowadays [2019] that is no longer the case.

Above: The railway truck with windows added to its sides.

As well as the feeling of stepping back in time as you enter the café, there is one further ‘blast from the past’ that comes as a surprise to new customers. The ‘extension’ to the main part of the café is a narrow area, with tables either side. As you look more carefully, you suddenly discover that the low curved ceiling looks like one to be found in an old railway goods truck. The length and width are the same as for a railway vehicle but the side windows were added to what was probably originally a truck that had a roof but no windows.

When carriages or trucks were no longer required by a railway company they were sometimes purchased for private use. Farmers used them for sheds – there are two still in use on a farm in Hempstead, in Essex. Shops in villages were sometimes set up in roofed trucks that had been moved some distance from the railway tracks. A tailor used a truck for his shop in Melton Constable, in Norfolk, around the turn of the 20th century. Sadly, that one no longer exists. Another example is a railway carriage that was used as a waiting room for passengers. It was at Ashdon Halt, a railway station on the Saffron Walden Railway, in Essex. The line closed a long time ago but the railway carriage remains to be seen beside a country lane. Other examples of trucks put to good uses are to be found all over England. The truck beside the café at Red Lodge is, therefore, a wonderful curio from the past. It is to be hoped that it is listed because such a feature is quite rare these days.

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St Mary the Virgin, Saffron Walden

Above: The large church and tall spire viewed from a vantage point in Saffron Walden.

St Mary the Virgin is the parish church of Saffron Walden, Essex. It is the largest non-cathedral church in Essex with an overall length of 183 feet (56 m). The spire rises to 193 feet (59 m) – the tallest in Essex.

It is believed that there was once a Saxon timber church on the site. A fragment of a Saxon market cross is embedded in the east wall of the south porch.

The Medieval Church

The timber church was replaced by a stone building in the early Norman period but between 1250 and 1258 it was replaced by a cruciform church in Decorated Gothic style. Surviving parts of this 13th-century building include arches in the north and south chapels and arcading set into the north aisle wall. The chancel and crypt are also late 13th century.

Around 1430 the Decorated church was almost completely rebuilt in Perpendicular style – the work took almost a century to complete. It is not known who was responsible for the early 15th-century work but the latter stages were supervised by John Wastell, the master mason who worked on King’s College Chapel, Cambridge. The rebuilding of the church by royal master masons is linked with the events of 1485, when work temporarily ceased at King’s College, Cambridge and the masons were obliged to undertake lesser projects. The work on the church at Saffron Walden was unfinished at Wastell’s death in 1515.

The 15th-century rebuilding of the church is a nave of extraordinary beauty, spacious and filled with light. The nave arcade is a work of art, with intricately carved spandrels, some decorated with Tudor roses. Additional Tudor roses decorate the bosses on the roof of the nave, along with symbols of Catherine of Aragon, and members of the Guild of the Holy Trinity. At the west end of the nave hangs a Garter Banner belonging to Robert Austen, Lord Butler of Saffron Walden. The banner once hung in St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle, the home of the Order of the Garter.

At the eastern end of the north aisle are a series of blind arcades – three arches set into the wall, decorated with 13th-century carvings. The decorative carvings are very worn, but it is still possible to make out a figure of King David playing his harp in the easternmost bay. Other identifiable symbols include a St Andrew’s Cross, angels, an inverted fleur-de-lys, a fig tree, and an eagle. Biblical figures include St John the Baptist, Christ, a Madonna, ‘Doubting’ Thomas and a depiction of the Agony in the Garden. Set against the wall within the arches are eight memorial brasses, dating back to 1430, which were originally on tombs in the south chancel aisle.

Lord Audley’s Tomb

The south chapel has tombs including that of Thomas Audley (1488-1544). Audley was the son of a simple yeoman farmer, but he rose to become Lord Chancellor of England under Henry VIII and became Lord Audley of Walden. Audley made a fortune by helping Henry force through his divorce from Catherine of Aragon.

King Henry VIII gave Walden Abbey to his Lord Chancellor, Sir Thomas Audley in 1538 following the Dissolution of the Monasteries. With a succession of notable aristocratic owners since, each leaving their mark on the house, including King Charles II between 1668-1701, Audley End house with it’s 30 lavishly decorated rooms is widely acknowledged as the finest example of a Jacobean stately home.

Over time, Audley acquired a considerable amount of property. At the time of his death, he was the third richest man in the kingdom. His table tomb in the church at Saffron Walden is fairly restrained, considering his wealth, being made of black Belgian slate – known as ‘touch’ – and decorated with heraldic symbols.

Above: Print from the early 1800s of the church with its ‘lantern tower.

Later Changes

In 1769 the church was damaged by lightning. The repairs carried out in the 1790s removed many medieval features but saved the building which was in a dilapidated state. In 1832 the old ‘lantern’ tower on the church was replaced by a tall spire, designed by Thomas Rickman and Henry Hutchinson. There was restoration in 1876 and a new east window was erected, designed by William Butterfield.

Great Ringing Day

Thomas Turner was a local man who once became lost in the woods near Saffron Walden after dark. He heard the bells of St Mary’s ring out and he followed their sound to safety. In gratitude, he left money in his will to the church. His gift is remembered each year, on the last Saturday in June, when the bells are sounded on what is known locally as ‘Great Ringing Day’.

Above: The tall spire viewed through the spring foliage of the nearby trees.

The impressive church stands on high ground in Saffron Walden, surrounded by its extensive churchyard. It was designated as a Grade I listed building in 1951. The small medieval streets, mainly lined with timber-framed houses, in turn, surround the churchyard and add to its historic interest. The tall steeple dominates the town from almost every viewpoint.

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Our Lady and the English Martyrs Church, Cambridge

Above: Exterior of the large church beside Lensfield Road, Cambridge

It should be remembered that, at one time, being a Roman Catholic in England was illegal – usually punishable by death, often by burning at the stake. On 15 January 1535, Henry VIII was proclaimed Supreme Head of the Church of England as a result of his controversial Act of Supremacy. After that time, it was illegal to a Roman Catholic or to celebrate Sunday services in the Catholic tradition. The saying of mass was made a felony for a foreigner and high treason for a native. Roman Catholics were incapable of inheriting property or of purchasing land. They were not allowed to undertake guardianship even of Roman Catholic children.

The first Catholic Relief Act of 1778 and another in 1791 removed many restrictions on Roman Catholics and enabled them to acquire property. In addition, the Acts removed political, educational and economic restrictions. It admitted Catholics to the practice of law, permitted the exercise of their religion, and the existence of their schools.

The Emancipation Act of 1829 removed most remaining restrictions on Roman Catholics. Roman Catholics were allowed to worship freely again after being suppressed at the Reformation. The Roman Catholic church was re-established in 1850. A group of Roman Catholics met to consider the most effectual way of establishing a chapel for their worship – resulting in the establishment of the church of St Patrick, Soho Square, which was one of the first Roman Catholic churches in England to be opened. After just over 300 years, Roman Catholics could openly worship according to their traditions once again.

The first Roman Catholic church in Cambridge was established in 1841 but it was not until 1865 that the church of Our Lady and the English Martyrs Church (often given the acronym OLEM) was established. The huge and impressive features of the church cannot be missed as people travel into Cambridge from the direction of the railway station. Designed by Archibald Dunn and his partner Edward Hansom, it was built 1885–90 in Gothic revival style.

The building – one of the largest Catholic churches in the United Kingdom – follows the traditional cruciform layout. It features a polygonal apse and a central lantern tower. The construction is entirely in stone – including Casterton stone for the foundation, Ancaster for the plinth, and the remainder in Combe Down. The interior is constructed in Bath stone, Plymouth marble and Newbiggin stone. The spire, the tallest in Cambridge, reaches 214 feet (65 m) and it can be seen for a distance of several miles around the City.

Above: Looking down the long nave towards the altar.

In 1941 during an air raid, a small bomb struck the sacristy, blowing a six-foot hole in the roof and another in the wall of the Sacred Heart Chapel. The blast also shattered most of the windows and caused part of the organ gallery to collapse. The repairs, including replacement windows to their original designs, cost at least £35,000 – the equivalent of a figure in excess of £1.3 million today. The stained glass windows depict, among other things, dedications of Cambridge Colleges and scenes from the lives of English martyrs, in particular, St John Fisher.

The large impressive church is situated at the junction of Hills Road and Lensfield Road in south-east Cambridge. It is a Grade II* listed building.

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Castle Hedingham Moot House and Guildhall

Above: The Old Moot House on the left of this view of St James Street.

Sometimes, you can walk into a village that you have not visited before and sense that most of the buildings around you are either old themselves or on ancient sites. Castle Hedingham is one such village. This village, in NE Essex, is situated on an ancient road from Colchester to Cambridge. The village takes its name from the Norman castle of the same name, built in Norman times, the ancestral seat of the de Vere family, who were Earls of Oxford.

Substantial walls of the fine castle remain to be seen. The parish church contains late Norman stonework, as well as other parts that are also medieval. In addition, there are a large number of interesting Tudor, timber-framed houses to be seen throughout the village. Finally, there are a few fine Georgian and Victorian houses as well.

Among all of this unusual architecture, there are two smaller buildings which have a remarkable history. One of them was once the Moot Hall and the other was used as the Guildhall.

Above: A traffic-free view of the Old Moot House.

The Old Moot House

The Moot Hall is a 14th-century building – believed to date from some time around 1320-70. If it was constructed with a cellar, it is likely that it would date from that time. Most of the original structure has been lost to rebuilding some time in the 16th century when the Tudor exterior would have been constructed. The building is now in use as a restaurant and called the Old Moot House.

A Moot Hall (or ‘meeting place’) was where, in early medieval times, all the business of the manor (or manors) was transacted. The name ‘Moot’ derives from the Saxon word meaning ‘place of assembly’. A Moot Hall was a meeting or assembly building, used traditionally to decide local issues. Affairs connected with the running of the manor were typically administered in the building. If there had been criminal acts – like stealing on the manor – then they would have probably been dealt with in the Moot Hall.

In Anglo-Saxon England, a low ring-shaped earthwork served as a moot hill or moot mound, where the elders of the hundred would meet to take decisions. Some of these acquired permanent buildings, known as moot halls.

In the days when England was administered as manors, with a Lord of the Manor as the principal resident, nearly every manor would have had a Moot Hall. These days such buildings are quite rare with probably only 30 or 40 still remaining standing in England.

Above: View from Google Maps of the front of the building that was once the Guildhall.

The Guildhall

Walking past this building, you could not possibly guess that it was once the Guildhall for the village. It is a relatively small building and, today, there is no indication of its illustrious past.

It is a reminder that Castle Hedingham was once a Borough town. The house is the original 16th-century Guildhall of Corpus Christi, now Hedingham House, built by John de Vere close to the Moot Hall (now known as the Moot House). Here the business of the town’s cloth and hop merchants was conducted, a reminder of important local industries of the past which virtually ceased to operate by the mid-19th century.

A Guildhall – as its name suggests – began as a meeting place for the guilds in a City, town or village. Each craft (like Wool-merchants, Butchers, Bakers and, yes, Candlestick-makers) formed themselves into guilds. Each guild had a master and a governing body which meant that standards could be laid down. If a member of the guild was not producing goods to a satisfactory standard he could be threatened with expulsion from the guild with the result that he would lose his licence to trade and therefore his ability to earn money. If a customer complained about a member of the guild, because he was not producing goods to a satisfactory standard, the guild would take action against that member because they did not want people thinking that everyone in that guild made poor quality goods.

Above: Side view of the same building from Google Maps. Notice the side window that is so low that the window-sill is level with the pavement. It could be that the street level has been raised over the centuries. Part of the Old Moot House is to be seen on the right of the view.

The various crafts, having formed themselves into guilds, met from time to time in the Guildhall to agree common rules of conduct. These were in addition to and separate from the rules of conduct that would be agreed within a particular guild to regulate its craft.

In general, a Moot House came first, being Saxon in origin. The Moot House was a place of local government or administration. Technically, a Guildhall was where guilds met but, in later years, a Guildhall was used for local government. The Guildhall in the City of London, for example, is still in use for meetings by the Court of Common Council which is involved with the day-to-day running of the City.

Final Comments

The two buildings just described are quite insignificant when compared to other grander buildings in the nearby streets. Sadly, very few of the historical facts about the Moot Hall and the Guildhall are known which is a great shame because the life of this once prosperous village was closely linked with the two buildings.

Much of the village would have come into existence as those who worked for the castle established places to live. Castles (and also religious houses) were large and needed a ‘small army’ of people working for them. The building of a castle in the case of Castle Hedingham indirectly led to the development of the village. Men were required to work on the land, tending the crops. They were also required as workmen to erect walls and construct roofs. The owner of a castle often had new ideas that he wanted to complete and manpower was always in demand. The large kitchens had to be staffed, often with women, who worked in the kitchens, cleaned the premises and served at the ‘high table’. It is not hard to realise that a large family living in a castle like the one at Castle Hedingham could employ hundreds of staff. They all had to live somewhere and so a village grew up beside the castle grounds. With time, other trades were gradually developed and a flourishing village would emerge, as in the case of this one.

Today, the village lives on its tourism because the trades just described have all fallen into decline. The village lost its railway link in the 1960s and it is now a dormitory location. The residents now commute by car or bus to their place of work. It is all a ‘far cry’ from the day when the local population could walk to work.

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Erith

Above: View looking upriver from Riverside Gardens, Erith.

In 1965, when Greater London was formed, the 28 Metropolitan Boroughs that made up the County of London were combined into just 12 Inner London Boroughs. Around that boundary, another 20 so-called Outer London Boroughs were created, making a total of 32 Greater London Boroughs. While Inner London Boroughs, like Lewisham, have London post-codes, the Outer London Boroughs have retained their ‘county’ postcodes.

Erith is now in the London Borough of Bexley. An address in Erith will have a postcode starting ‘DA’, which represents the Dartford area. For the purpose of these blogs, therefore, Erith is treated as a location outside London – meaning that is well outside the original boundary of Metropolitan London. While we are ‘getting things straight’, the name Erith is pronounced as if it was spelt ‘Earith’.

The village of Erith was on the banks of the Thames in the County of Kent and it has Saxon origins. The name is also Saxon, being derived from two – words ‘eald’ meaning ‘old’ and ‘hythe’ meaning a ‘landing place or haven’. Hence the name means ‘old hythe’ or ‘old haven’. The first documented mention was in AD 695. Erith was essentially a small riverside port, given prominence by King Henry VIII’s decision to open a naval dockyard there, approximately where the Riverside Gardens are now. Henry’s famous warship, ‘Henri Grâce à Dieu’, was fitted out there in 1515.

In the 18th century, the village of Erith was quite small. In 1797 Edward Hasted described it as ‘consisting of one small street of houses, which leads to the waterside’.

Above: Google map showing places of interest mentioned in this article.

In the mid-19th century, Erith started to gain in popularity from visitors. A pier was constructed of wood and extended some 444 feet (135m) into the river, being opened on 22 August 1842. Thames passenger boats travelled between London and Gravesend daily, calling at Erith Pier. That pier remained until 1957 when it became unsafe and a new concrete pier was built, with a bend in it. Its new total length is about 1,180 feet (360m). The pier has been adapted from commercial to leisure use and is popular with anglers. It is the longest pier in Greater London.

In 1844 a new hotel – the Pier Hotel – was built, catering for any visitors who might like stay overnight in the town. The following year Pleasure Gardens were laid out nearby – a site now covered by Morrisons. In July 1849 the railway came to Erith and the station is still the original one, with staggered platforms. The railway provided faster transport, and gave a boost to Erith enjoying a short spell as a riverside resort. Its pier formed an attraction and the nearby hotel provided hospitality for day-trippers arriving by railway or by Thames pleasure boats.

Unfortunately, the Southern Outfall Works opened at Crossness in April 1865, disgorging 70 million gallons of raw sewage into the Thames on each high tide. It was assumed that the effluent would all float gently out into the North Sea but that was not the case. The nearby Outfall was the nail in the coffin for any ideas of Erith continuing as a place of recreation for Londoners seeking a day out. The Pier Hotel and gardens were all sold at auction in 1865 and Erith became more and more industrialised.

From 1881 Erith was home to a cable factory founded by William Callender. This became British Insulated Callender’s Cables (BICC), and eventually Pirelli, which announced its partial closure in 2003. The remainder became Prysmian.

The Marine Police Force, sometimes known as the Thames River Police, claims to be England’s oldest police force and was formed by magistrate Patrick Colquhoun and Master Mariner John Harriott in 1798. There have been very few river police stations. The ‘headquarters’ was (and still is) at Wapping. There used to be a floating river police station beside Waterloo Bridge. There was a river police station in a street called Coldharbour, at Blackwall. The only other station was at Erith which became part of the Metropolitan Police on the 13 January 1840. In 1908 a new riverside police station was built at Erith which included a separate station for the River Police. The old building beside the Thames continued in use until 1979. It was later converted and is now in residential use. Today the jurisdiction of the river police extends for a total of 47 miles along the Thames – between Hampton Court and Dartford.

Above: View downriver from Riverside Gardens of part of the Dartford Bridge.

Above: Close-up of the image above.

Many people now live in Erith. Their local food store is the very large Morrisons which opened in 1999 and is also near the water-side. In fact, it occupies the site of the old Victorian pleasure gardens.

The riverside is probably one of the loneliest parts of the town. That is not a bad feature because it is one of the few place near Inner London where it is possible to take a stroll beside the Thames and still have the feeling of how the riverside probably looked in times gone by.

This blog concentrates on Erith’s riverside views. The pictures were all taken from the Riverside Gardens which are a short walk from Erith Station. The Morrisons store is east of the Gardens – standing beside the Thames and also very close to the pier.

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Lincoln Cathedral Roof

Above: Looking towards the western end of the nave while standing on the floor. Not all the masonry is in a line.

When visiting one of England’s cathedrals we often marvel at the construction. However, most of the construction at the time was mainly experimental. The majority of the cathedrals were built in Norman times but not all those buildings remain today. Some were deliberately rebuilt, some fell down and had to be rebuilt and a few suffered destruction from natural causes and that also required a rebuild.

In the case of Lincoln Cathedral, it had its fair share of problems. Work started on the first Cathedral in 1072 which was consecrated in 1092. In 1185 Lincoln suffered an earthquake and the Cathedral was partially destroyed, leaving only the West Front which still remains today. In 1237 the Central Tower collapsed due possibly to most of the work on the Cathedral being experimental. In 1256 the building of the Angel Choir began and was eventually finished in 1280, ready for its dedication that year. In 1548 a raging storm caused the spire on the Central Tower to collapse, destroying a large section of the NE transept roof in the process.

The building we see today is therefore not one complete building but parts of several buildings that form the whole structure. From what has been said, the roof has been constructed more than once. One point of interest is to look up when standing about halfway down the nave. From that point, look back towards the western end and study the roofline. It will be seen that there is a discontinuity in the lines of bosses. The line of bosses, running from the Central Tower, suddenly stops and then continues on a slightly different alignment – which is to be seen in the picture at the top of the page. From the dates listed above, it will be seen that the masonry at the far western end dates from 1092 but the rest of the roof of the nave was rebuilt almost 200 years later, in 1280.

Looking at the large misaligned stonework, it is reasonable to ask why the stonemasons did not notice the problem at the time. When working on the roof, the craftsmen would have been closer to the stonework and the error would have been even more obvious than standing on the ground. It is possible that the newer roof did not align with the old shorter part at the western end making it impossible to have the bosses in one line. Another possibility is that the supervisor had noticed the error but he told his workmen to carry on regardless because the project was going to take another 20 years anyway and that rectifying the fault might add another 20 or 30 years to the completion date. We shall never know the actual reason. It is clear that medieval workmen did have problems with the construction of large buildings like cathedrals and that not everything always went according to plan.

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Wells and its Coaching Inns

Above: The Crown Inn, beside the ancient Market Place at Wells.

Pubs or hotels whose buildings were once in use as coaching inns are relatively rare in England these days. Coaching inns served the era of travel across England by a stage coach, usually pulled by four horses. The speed at which four horses can pull a coach is about 10 to 15 miles per hour. Horses can only keep up that speed on a relatively flat route. So, at intervals of about 10 miles, there were coaching inns at which the coachman could replace the four horses with a ‘fresh four’. The ‘change’ took very little time because one ‘four’ would already be in their harness and waiting for a coach to arrive. When it did, the ‘four’ was removed from the coach by a single hook on a long pole which held the four horses in place and then the ‘fresh four’ would be coupled up using another pole with a similar hook on it.

In 1825 the Stockton to Darlington railway opened in the North of England and by 1836 London saw the opening of its first railway. Over the next two decades, most of the cities and large towns of England were served by a railway, with their own station. Coach transport and coaching inns went into rapid decline. Most coaching inns either found sufficient income from being a local hostelry in a village to town or if their income fell dramatically, they just closed and were often pulled down.

The above scenario took place in London to the extent that all the coaching inns are now just a memory. Only a small part of the George Inn, in Borough High Street, remains to show the visitor what such a building once looked like. Cities and towns across England have a few inns remaining from the days of coaching. Usually, there is just one inn to be found – if you are lucky. In the County of Somerset is Wells which although it is a city, is not large. In fact, it is smaller than many towns. It is, therefore, all the more surprising that it has three hotels which can all rightly claim to date from the 16th and 17th centuries and also to have been used for coaching. To add to the list, there if a fourth building that was also once used as coaching inn. The building remains but is no longer functioning as a hotel or even a pub. Brief descriptions are given below.

Crown Hotel – Its picture is to be seen at the top of this article. Parts of the building are said to date from the 15th century but most of it is more likely to be 17th century at the earliest. The building has a large entrance arch which is now used by pedestrians to enter the hotel. In the 18th century, it was the entrance for coaches, leading into the yard at the back.

Above: The Swan Inn, with its large swan emblem and large entrance yard. The look of the building is Georgian.

Swan Hotel – This hotel, in Saddler Street, has a Georgian facade but it is claimed that parts of this building also date from the 15th century. There is an entrance arch to the side with a long yard where stables and hay-lofts would once have been seen in the 18th century.

Above: White Hart Hotel is a short distance from the Swan Hotel, both in Saddler Street.

White Hart Hotel – This hotel, also in Saddler Street, is probably Georgian and looks less like a coaching inn but it was in use for that purpose at one time.

Above: The old Star Hotel, complete with it name on the exterior and its remaining large inn sign, but now in use as offices.

Star Hotel – The building remains but it is not functioning as a hotel. The old Georgian front stands beside the High Street, near the Market Place. The name is still to be seen in stone on the front and the old inn-sign still hangs on the wall. Below the sign is a typical entrance archway, leading into a long narrow yard which is typical of the yard of a coaching inn, where the horses entered to be stabled and the passengers were provided with food and, if necessary, lodgings.

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Wells Cathedral West Front

Above: Late afternoon sunshine illuminating the west front of the cathedral.

As is the custom with most churches and cathedrals, the plan of the church is in the form of a cross with the altar (or high altar) at the eastern end. The two sides of the cross are called transepts and the long part of the cross is the nave. Although such buildings can have entrance doors at any part of the outline, the ‘Great West Door’ is usually the ‘grand entrance’.

While many cathedrals in England have magnificent architecture, it is often the view of the western end that is the most impressive. Due to the position in which a cathedral is situated, it is is not always possible to view the western end to full advantage. Wells Cathedral presents no such constraints because it faces onto a large expanse of grass – called Cathedral Green.

In earlier centuries, a visitor would have seen a vast array of gravestones covering this open land because this was the churchyard for the cathedral. While the ‘modernisation’ has swept away the memorials and stones covering this open land because this was the churchyard for the cathedral. While the ‘modernisation’ has swept away the memorials and headstones, it has really enhanced the view of the cathedral’s west front.

The stonework is impressive enough today, with the seemingly endless array of stone figures on the cathedral walls and towers. In the 1300s and 1400s, the view would have been even more overwhelming due to the fact that most of the figures would have been painted. Because paints were quite primitive, most of the colours used would have been the primary ones – red, blue, green and also white. As any visitor knows, the west front displays its full glory at the end of a summer afternoon when the sun is shining on the magnificent sandstone decoration.

Imagine the impact of this scene on people who had never seen floodlighting, seeing the west front of the cathedral bathed in sunlight and all the figures on the walls picked out in bright colours. It has been likened to people in the 20th and 21st century seeing an epic light show on a massive scale.

Above: Part of the west front by night, showing the eight holes in the stonework above the great west windows of the cathedral.

One feature of the west front that many visitors miss is the row or round holes high up on the masonry, over the front door. There are eight holes, just above the great west windows. On special occasions – probably religious festivals related to the church calendar – eight trumpeters would climb up the many stairs leading to the balcony behind the holes, point their trumpets through the holes and sound a fanfare across the open churchyard. It would have been a ‘Son et Lumiere’ experience like no other. Everything would, of course, have been without the aid of sound amplification.

Above: A view the visitors in earlier centuries never saw – the west front of the cathedral floodlit. The lighting is all the more dramatic when seen at dusk as in this view.

Whether trumpeters have ever sounded a fanfare in recent times is not known. Even without the sound, the cathedral still wows the 21st century visitor. If you are fortunate enough to see it on a sunny evening or stroll around Cathedral Green once the floodlighting has been turned on, you will know what a spectacular sight this old cathedral still presents.

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Wells Cathedral Clock

Above: The clock at Wells Cathedral – set in the north transept. Above the large dial are wooden models of knights on horseback that rotate every hour.

Did you grow up in a house that only had a black-and-white television? If so, perhaps you marvelled at the technology of seeing colour television for the first time. Moving to a different time period, were you impressed to be able to carry all your music around with you – in an iPod or similar device? If you are old enough to have spent your early life with a house-phone, were you amazed at being able to own your first mobile phone?

These stages in the development of amazing electronic gadgets are now almost something we take for granted. Centuries before electronics came on the scene, it was mechanical devices that proved to be impressive. In the 16th century, few churches had a clock mounted on an outside wall. In the 17th century, many churches in the City of London had a clock that was supported by a beam which hung out from the side of the tower. It was mechanical and driven by weights. Because the cords, to which the weights were attached, were carefully concealed within the supporting bracket, people marvelled at how the clock was powered. Some of those clocks remain to be seen even today. Such talk of church clocks might seem rather tame today but, in their day, clocks were just as much a technological marvel as our 21st century electronic devices.

This preamble brings us to consider the remarkable clock mounted on an interior wall of the north transept in Wells Cathedral. It dates from the 14th century and, at that time, it must have been one of the wonders of the West of England. In 1388, Bishop Ralph Erghum, who had been Bishop of Salisbury, moved to become Bishop of Bath and Wells. While at Salisbury – from 1375 to 1388 – he had installed a clock there in 1386. When he moved to Wells, he may have brought his clockmakers with him, because he had a clock made for the cathedral which is almost identical in construction to that of Salisbury. The Wells clock shows some improvements and additions to the Salisbury design which suggests that some valuable lessons had been learned from the earlier clock.

The surviving mechanism at Wells, dating from about 1386 to 1392, was replaced in the 19th century and was eventually moved to the Science Museum in London, where it continues to operate. The dial represents a geocentric view of the universe, with sun and moon revolving around a central, fixed earth. It may be unique in showing a philosophical model of the pre-Copernican universe. In the 14th century, the fact that a clock could be made to tell the time of day was remarkable. The fact that it could also show the phases of the moon as well was nothing short of miraculous.

Visitors still gaze on the clock and marvel at its mechanism but they look at it knowing what the 21st century has to offer. For the visitors to the cathedral who saw the clock in the 14th and 15th centuries, they could only dream of what wonders might follow the clockwork technology that they saw before them.

For another six centuries, the clock’s mechanism was wound by hand. In August 2010, the current Keeper of the Great Clock of Wells, Paul Fisher, announced his retirement. With the Cathedral authorities planning to fit an electric motor to wind the clock, his retirement will end the practice of winding the clock manually.

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Gravesend

Above: Looking down the attractive High Street, towards the Thames.

The first documented mention of the place-name was in the Domesday Book (1086) as ‘Gravesham’ which accounts for the name of the surrounding Gravesham Borough today which was given the name using the original spelling. The name probably derives from ‘graaf ham’ meaning the home of the reeve or bailiff of the lord of the manor. Some sources say that ‘graaf ham’ could mean a place ‘at the end of a grove, ditch or trench’.

Two of the populist derivations will also be given: (1) At the time of the Great Plague (1663-65) so many bodies from those who died of the plague floated downriver that they ended up at Gravesend and had to buried there. Apparently, due to the geography of the river at this point, a body floating in the Thames was more likely to be beached here than at other places. (2) Another idea to be given – and also one of the most unlikely – is that ‘Gravesend’ was the town where the ‘graves ended’. The idea behind it was that, on the side of Gravesend that was towards London, a body found in the Thames was buried on land but, if a body was found in the river below Gravesend, it was buried at sea. There is, needless to say, no evidence for either of these explanations whatsoever.

Gravesend has one of the oldest surviving markets in England, dating from 1268. Its town status and the right to elect a mayor of Gravesend was also granted in that year by Henry III in its Charter of Incorporation. The town of Gravesend is about 25 miles downstream of London Bridge at a point on the Thames where the banks are about 732 metres (2,400 feet) apart – a width of nearly half a mile.

Above: Town Pier with the parish church of St George in the background.

Having developed beside the Thames, the town has always had close associations with it. Today there is the quite short and stumpy Town Pier, which the public can still visit. It was designed by William Tierney Clark and built in 1834 and it is now the oldest surviving cast-iron pier in the world. The pier also has a coffee shop which is open over the lunch-time period.

A short distance downstream is a working pier for pilots escorting large ships delivering cargo on the Thames. The pilots purchased Terrace Pier in 1893 and fitted it out as offices for the pilot service. It should be mentioned that Tilbury Docks are situated almost opposite Gravesend – on the north side of the Thames.

An additional service, for foot-passengers, is the Gravesend-Tilbury Ferry which plies between Town Pier, on the south side of the Thames, and Tilbury Pier to the north. A ferry is known to have operated since as early as 1571, maybe earlier. Car ferries were introduced in 1927 but they were discontinued in 1964, following the opening in 1963 of the first Dartford Tunnel.

Pocahontas

One name that will always be associated with Gravesend is that of Pocahontas. In the year 2017, the town celebrated the 400th anniversary of the death of Pocahontas who died, aged just 22, on 21 March 1617.

The story of Pocahontas starts back in 1606 when Captain John Smith became involved with the Virginia Company of London’s plan to colonise Virginia, in America, for profit. It had been granted a charter by James I. The expedition set sail in three small ships – the ‘Discovery’, the ‘Susan Constant’, and the ‘Godspeed’ – on 20 December 1606 and they arrived at Jamestown in April 1607.

Life in America for the settlers was tough, to say the least. Some of them were taken prisoner by the native Indians. Pocahontas is said to have saved the life of the colony leader, Captain John Smith, by pleading with her people to spare him. Different theories of this event exist and many historians argue whether it happened at all. Pocahontas would have been only about 10 at the time. The settlers discovered the tribes that were ruled by her father, Powhatan.

In 1613 relations had worsened and an English captain decided to hold Pocahontas for ransom. It is possible that she was raped while in captivity. She never returned to her village – either deciding she would prefer to stay with the English or possibly co-operating with the settlers as a means of survival. She was instructed in the Christian faith, converted to Christianity and was baptised Rebecca.

In 1614 she married one of the settlers – the Englishman John Rolfe, becoming Mrs Rebecca Rolfe. After two years of living with the settlers, the Virginia Company of London (a stockholding company which funded the Virginia settlement) brought Pocahontas to England as an example of a tamed ‘savage’ and the success of Jamestown. While in England, Pocahontas and her entourage of Indians was the subject of much curiosity. She was even presented at the court of James I.

Above: The parish church of St George, Gravesend.

In March 1617, the Rolfes prepared to leave London on a ship called the ‘George’. They were to return with Virginia’s Governor and his family at Jamestown. At this stage on the journey, the health of Pocahontas was deteriorating. She was suffering from tuberculosis, to which the Indians appeared rather prone. Pocahontas was brought ashore at Gravesend, either dead or dying.

Above: The statue of Pocahontas in the churchyard of St George.

It is believed that she was buried within the medieval church. Knowledge of the exact site of her grave was lost when that church was destroyed by fire in the 18th century. The statue in the gardens of the rebuilt church was erected in 1975 – being a copy of one made in her honour in Jamestown. A group of Americans from Virginia travelled to Gravesend to present the town with the bronze statue of the princess, which now stands in the old graveyard – to mark the final resting place of Pocahontas.

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