Things to look at and read

Black Dog Tales: Toby Gill

A fresh guest tale from Nicola Miller of The Millers Tale. A curious story woven by ghosts across the Shucklands of Blythburgh. Suffolk is home to many a curious tale, from the mysterious green children of Woolpit to a mansion which disappears and re-appears in the...

Mystery: Albert and the returning troops 1916

A mystery photo. Last week Bethan Holdridge who works for the Museums service in Norwich invited me to have a look through her Great Grandfather – Oliver Isaac Brown's collection of photos. He was a Suffolk man but lived in Great Yarmouth. A sapper in the Royal...

Lost in a Landscape: Wayland Wood

There is a darkness in woodland, hiding in the shade of the green canopy, something that retracts in the sunlight in the corner of your vision, beyond the growing and shrinking of the shadows, the greening, then yellowing, then bareness, with each revolution of the...

Coasting: Trimingham – On the beach

I wrote a bit about Trimingham a few weeks ago, it was canvas really, the backdrop, the beach is the deep history. Being what it is and how quiet it can be we went back. There was a bitter driving Northerly, ice bearing, even the hardy fishermen had all packed up and...

Through glass: Norwich 1960s – part 2, Pubs.

There are a fair selection of pubs in Norwich in this batch, some still exist, some don't, all are interesting in one way or another. These are in no particular order and are pretty much straight out of the box. Please note: If you are going to take this content and...

Magdalen Street 2: St Botolph the traveller

Magdalen Street's hidden history:The lost churches Part 2, St Botolph. St Botolph or St Botulph or even St Botwulf was a church named after a saint  that now only really lives on in an adapted street name. Ignominiously lost in a few street signs in the precincts...

Supporting Pulp

  We once supported Pulp. All local bands get to support someone half-decent if they keep at it and harass people for long enough, which is basically what we did. As experiences went it wasn't that special, but beat the hell out of playing in an empty bar on a...

Mapping the Grim

This project on Black Shuck was part of the original intent of the Public Archaeology project (for PA2015) and for me, because data is poetry and maps are fine prose. Due to the nature of my working life; the fact that I'm a bit of a butterfly/battering ram when it...

Through glass: North Norfolk, Herbert Thomas Cave

A second set of Philip's glass. These are 6 x 6 inch glass plates, mostly in rather nice condition, a few are de-laminating slightly and they're a bit dotty in places but basically all sound. These are believed to be by a photographer called Herbert Thomas Cave. The...

Lost in a Landscape: Warham Camp

Warham camp is the best known and best preserved iron age hill forts in Norfolk. Hills aren't that popular here, we like our sky to go right up to the edges of everything whenever possible, but that doesn't mean they don't exist, it's not the fens, those are flat....

Lost in a Landscape: Buckenham Carrs

Heading west of the city two days before Christmas, and it's all a bit of a bind. A glue of cars sticks the inner ring-road fast, the whole route backed up with shoppers, escapees, people leaving work early, the driving dead. The light is at a tangent – the winter...

Lost in a Landscape – Blickling Arborglyphs

Dogs lead sometimes, our is beige, stinks, is opinionated and prefers woods to beaches, muck and leaf mould to sand and pebbles. There's more to sniff and mark an roll in in woods and fox shit beats dead gull hands down in the scent masking stakes for some...

Vanishing Point: Rosebeke

A strange day. I've been working very loosely on an ongoing project called 'Vanishing Points' for a while. I'm a bit of a fan of VPs, lots of artists are as a way of leading the eye into compositions, focussing the viewers mind. Kubrick for instance is a master of the...

Black Dogs: The Wisht Hunt of Dartmoor

A guest post from Stephen on the nature of the Wild Hunts of Dartmoor. 'The spectre pack which hunts over Dartmoor is called the “wish hounds” and the black “master” who follows the chase is no doubt the same who has left his mark on Wistman’s Wood' – The Quarterly...

Ghosts: A Dog’s Life, the Catton Liberator

This was the scene in Catton at the corner of Church Street and Spixworth Road on the 13th February 1945 and the corner of the same Roads on 22nd December 2011. The Liberator 'A Dog's Life' was one of two that crashed in Catton on the outskirts of Norwich, The other...

Dead cities: RAF Attlebridge

RAF Attlebridge ...the end of the South Eastern runway, Honingham Road, Western Longville. The most accessible publicly visible bit of the airfield left. The first station built in Norfolk for WW2 use. Originally RAF flying Blenheims and Bostons, it passed to USAAF as...

Magdalen Street 4: St Mary Unbrent

Magdalen Street's  hidden history: The lost churches Part 4, St Mary Unbrent Back in Norwich and back in Magdalen Street this time nearer the city centre a short walk up from St Botolph isn't; neither is St Mary Unbrent past the concrete, buses and bustle, amidst...

Lost in a Landscape: Blicking Mausoleum

Blickling is a rather lovely estate near Aylsham, open to the public, with a  few good trackways and walks across it to amble along. It also contains a couple of interesting buildings aside from the more obvious hall itself and the large Carp filled lake, so it's easy...

The Goodrum slides – found photos

Barrack street, Norwich, is a non-place. There's not much there to see, it's a place to pass through, a ring road asphalt necklace choking the medieval. Apart from some tasty post war council flats and a building I once was trained to explain Richard Branson's...

Dead cities: Langham Dome

Langham Dome A sort of anti-axis forces death star type thing. It looks a bit like one of those chocolate bombs or a steamed pudding, but about 18 feet high, made of reinforced concrete and painted black. Nestling on the edge of an abandoned airfield about 4 miles...

Magdalen Street 5: St Paul

Magdalen Streets' hidden history: The lost churches Part 5, St Paul It's not exactly on Magdalen Street; it was behind it on the East side, a lovely little round tower enclosed by Peacock Street, Willis Street and Barrack Street. Until the 1860s, half timbered tudor...

Lost in a landscape: Thompson – Below the glacier.

When I was at school we had a teacher called Peter 'Percy' Williams, he primarily taught geography. At first he hammered it into our small and stupid heads; over those first three years he gradually worked out which ones of us were holding the water and who was...

Coasting: Trimingham

Trimingham Stretches of Norfolk's curved coast get slightly brushed aside. Maybe they seem a bit inaccessible. Trimingham with its high cliffs, the highest in Norfolk and its all but hidden beach entrance off the coast road down a camouflaged dog-legged track is one...

Lost in a Landscape: Felbrigg

Plank Bridge. That's what it means, bit of Old Norse from Denmark 'Fjol', and a bit of Old English 'Brycg' itself a Friesian word which is almost the same as the Saxon which in itself shows how close the waves lap the shore when it comes to settlers, or invaders or...

New Prints

A new series of both old and new photographs of Anglia Square, from 2009 when the car park was closed, the most recent 2026.

Lost in a Landscape

and other places…

A series of essays

An unstructured collection of written pieces which are basically a long form series of intermittent work – mostly observational, written to accompany photographs shot over the last ten to fifteen years across Norfolk and East Anglia. These essays look both at what is seen as well as what isn’t; acknowledging the depth of the landscapes we briefly inhabit, and the lives lived that are disguised by geographical, environmental and human change.

The history of us is in our soil, mixed with the crag and flint, hidden in our place-names, and lines our fields and boundaries. The past is there, in the lines our rivers, roads, streets and buildings. The narrative we exist as part of is as deep as it is long.

Lost in a landscape: Antingham

Lost in a landscape: Antingham

You can see Antingham, and identify it from quite a distance which is why I ended up there, I saw it from Suffield, remembered the view from trips to the coast up the A140 or across country out towards Aylsham. It stands out because of the two church towers outlined...

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Lost in a landscape: Gunton

Lost in a landscape: Gunton

When I was at primary school in the 1970s one of my friends lived in one of a row of cottages in Suffield which backs on to Gunton Park. It backed onto a farmyard full of interlocking hay bales, knackered cars, and a grain store with an egg-timer mountain of grain...

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The walled city 2: Berstrete gate

The walled city 2: Berstrete gate

Ber Street Gate or Berstrete Gate, sits just on the edge of Foulgers opening off Ber Street and Bracondale. Another Norwich city wall fragment, not the gate itself. The gate no longer exists, largely a result mainly of progress – progress sometimes has to embrace such...

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Walled city 1: Black Tower and Bracondale

Walled city 1: Black Tower and Bracondale

I'll start at Black Tower or Boteliers or Butlers tower in Bracondale and continue in no particular order. This was also known as Snuff Tower because it contained a snuff mill, and later a cotton mill which were still in evidence at the beginning of nineteenth century...

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Lost in a landscape: Worstead

Lost in a landscape: Worstead

  I was looking for something else, I didn't actually find what I was after, because of gates and no access signs and the sound of people murdering wildlife in Westwick woods, but as I pootled down another dead end this vista was there, so I hopped along the lane...

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Coasting: Morston and Blakeney

Coasting: Morston and Blakeney

This isn't really my home Coast, I grew up with The stretch from Mundesley in the middle, awareness stretching from Sheringham to Winterton, the bits beyond were different, Great Yarmouth to the South was the stuff of fevered dreams and slot machines, impossible hoop...

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Lost in a landscape: Burying kings – Sutton Hoo

Lost in a landscape: Burying kings – Sutton Hoo

There is probably no finer Anglo-Saxon timescape in East Anglia,  you are so directly in touch with a hauntingly beautiful landscape and can feel the significance of what you can see in front of you with only the most basic of knowledge. It is probably one of the most...

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Lost in a landscape: Thompson – Below the glacier.

Lost in a landscape: Thompson – Below the glacier.

When I was at school we had a teacher called Peter 'Percy' Williams, he primarily taught geography. At first he hammered it into our small and stupid heads; over those first three years he gradually worked out which ones of us were holding the water and who was...

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Lost in a Landscape: Wolterton

Lost in a Landscape: Wolterton

A bit of a beauty, this was nearer the start of our circuit quite obviously positioned in Wolterton Park next to the main drive; It's another life remnant a piece of the past which has gained purchase in the now by becoming a folly for the gentry. It is very pretty...

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Lost in a landscape: Mannington

Lost in a landscape: Mannington

Sunday seemed like it was the last blast of summer weather, that final sigh of heat and sun and as it goes some drifting was the perfect way to absorb those last few rays before the decent into the washes of winter Atlantic lows bear down across us. So we did a...

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Coasting: Winterton

Coasting: Winterton

Yet more lumps of concrete, I doubt a the vast majority of people even give them a thought apart from trying not to scratch the car. Bit strange though, 13 ton blocks of concrete in a car park, and on the beach in one of those lovely little Norfolk corners. Winterton,...

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Vanishing Points

The Great War series

Vanishing Points is a long-form photographic series with accompanying interpretation consisting of stories relating to the landscapes of the Western Front, memorials and some of the figures that peopled them.

A selection of 36 final images was made from over 120 photographs which formed the core of the 2018 exhibition and collection at St Peter Hungate in Norwich, The exhibition was timed to coincide with the centenary of the Armistice and ran for two weeks.

The response was truly staggering.

The original articles can be found on the links below and images can be purchased from the collection in the shop.

Articles

Shot at Dawn: John Abigail

Shot at Dawn: John Abigail

John Abigail; A local lad, local to anyone in Norwich It's a longer story than I can write, and a sad tale too. Born in Thorpe Hamlet, they moved to Oak Street shortly before the outbreak of The Great War. John was one of eight children, the family were poor one with...

Vanishing Point: The Somme still flows – Schwaben redoubt

Vanishing Point: The Somme still flows – Schwaben redoubt

I've been distracted enough not to put fingers to keyboard for the last week or so. Mainly because I had an upcoming trip to France, my first on my own due to some fairly uncontrolled sets of human circumstance and how time plays its stupid games. Travelling isn't an...

Vanishing Point: Vladslo – Mother and son

Vanishing Point: Vladslo – Mother and son

Deutscher Soldatenfreidhof Vladslo. The Cemetery is about a mile and half north east of Vladslo which sounds like it should be on the steppe somewhere but isn't, it's in Western Flanders towards Diksmuide, Belgium, itself about 20 miles North of Ypres. It is somewhat...

Vanishing Point: Sint Juliaan – Under a green sea

Vanishing Point: Sint Juliaan – Under a green sea

The Brooding soldier sits on a corner at Sint Juliaan, or St Julian, or Vancouver Corner, take your pick from Flemish, English or Canadian. It is just to the North East of Ypres or Ieper on the way to Langemark/Poellcappelle not far from Passchendaele, but most sites...

The long walk

The long walk

Not the most thrilling set of photographs, but the one above shows how a field with some lumps in it, tells a story or doesn't. And of course it also tells how history is there, I'm just the princess who knows where that particular pea is under this particular...

Vanishing points: The Sad Angel of Kemmel

Vanishing points: The Sad Angel of Kemmel

The French Memorial at Kemmel. She sits next to a steep road in a cup in the trees, standing a fair way up the slopes of the mount on a clutch burning incline. Known as Mont Kemmel, Mount Kemmel or Kemmelburg depending on your nationality, all of them held it a one...

Vanishing Points series prints

If you would like to buy a Limited or Open Edition Print from the Vanishing Points series some are still available in the shop

Like what I do?

If you like what I do you can support the site running costs here by sending me a few quid using Kofi. Always much appreciated.

Blitz ghosts, bomb maps and more…

Ten years ago I did a thing, the echo is still rattling about in my head, occasionally it slides noisily back into my consciousness so I add to it, it’s mostly here.

Blitz Ghost – St Andrews

Blitz Ghost – St Andrews

This is Harmer's Factory on St Andrews Broad Street in Norwich on the 18th March 1943 and the 2nd March 2012, almost seventy years., it's also a weird bit of land with not much on it, sort of an entrance to a car park of sorts. Harmer's was hit several times, firstly...

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Tom Brittan’s Blitz

Tom Brittan’s Blitz

In 2012, I received a few emails from a chap called Tom Brittan who now lives in France. I''ll let him recount his story pretty much unedited; he lived just off the Unthank road and vividly remembers the bombs falling and the aftermath. My most vivid recollection of...

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Norwich in flames

Norwich in flames

Norwich in Flames: Here are a selection of George Swain's camera melting exploits. Originally photographed in Black and White. I colourised these, based on looking at modern colour photos of fires and then painting them in, very simply to be honest. They depict the...

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Imagined futures past: ’45 Plan

Imagined futures past: ’45 Plan

After the bombs had fallen wrecking a large area of the city centre and indeed laid waste to a huge amount of the city's housing stock around the fringes of the city and out into the Norfolk Countryside, The Corporation started to explore some brave new ideas; these...

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Live tweeting: Norwich Blitz 2

Live tweeting: Norwich Blitz 2

  29th and 30th April 1942. Again a live tweet of the Norwich Blitz, the second Baedeker Raid.   [View the story "Norwich Blitz - Raid 2, live tweets" on Storify]

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Live tweeting: Norwich Blitz 1

Live tweeting: Norwich Blitz 1

I've been left slightly speechless by the response to a something I did last night on the spur of a moment relating to The Norwich Blitz. I have a head full of stuff relating to lots of things, the inner nerd has lots of strange habits, and whilst mulling over whether...

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Through glass

Found slides, glass plates, photographs and archive material.

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Persistence of memory

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Black Dog Tales

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Georeferencing

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Buy stuff

New Prints

A new series of both old and new photographs of Anglia Square, from 2009 when the car park was closed, the most recent 2026.

Lost in a landscape

Various prints from the East, Lost in Landscape and Coasting series.

New Forms – edge

Photos of Great Yarmouth between 2000 and 2021.

Colour

Landscapes, prints from various series and some one-offs by request.

Coasting

Photography from along the coast of East Anglia

Vanishing Points

Western Front prints from 2012 to 2018, from the 2018 exhibition.

Posters

A selection of posters based on various buildings, objects and projects.

Flatland

Small publishing co-operative, slowly growing our book list.

New Forms – City

Photographs of Norwich North taken from forever to 2023