Lost in a Landscape: Little Ryburgh

Lost in a Landscape: Little Ryburgh

A bit of a late addenda to a trip to Pudding Norton last year that ended up with a chase around the countryside near Fakenham looking at Deserted Medieval Villages, shrunken settlements and ruins. The whole area is haunted by the Flockmasters and full of such sites....
Lost in a Landscape: St Theobald, Hautbois

Lost in a Landscape: St Theobald, Hautbois

St Theobald, Hautbois In 1982 we were starting sixth form, it’s an odd piece of territory that whole mid-teen bit of the timeline. One chunk of life you are used to, the uniformity and structure of school lessons ends, then there’s a summer of free fall....
Lost in a Landscape: Walsingham and the wolves

Lost in a Landscape: Walsingham and the wolves

I have amongst my detritus a book on Norfolk abbeys and friaries, it’s a junk shop find from years ago. It dates from the 1950s and is extraordinarily complete for a slim tome, just enough background on everything to get you started without too much confusing...
Lost in a Landscape: Pudding Norton

Lost in a Landscape: Pudding Norton

There’s a lot to be intrigued about in towns like Fakenham. Not unlike North Walsham, it sits on a small winding road that makes it’s a much less direct but more interesting journey than somewhere like Attleborough or Wymondham. The drive is less...
Lost in a Landscape: Oxnead

Lost in a Landscape: Oxnead

A pasture for the oxen, that’s what Oxnead means so say various sources. Others indicate that the Ox- may come from the word Ouse (Udso), which is an older form from our ginger forefathers possibly of Celt or proto-Celtic origin probably meaning River. It maybe...
Lost in a Landscape: Felbrigg

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...
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...
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...
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...
Lost in a landscape: East Somerton

Lost in a landscape: East Somerton

Norfolk is full of holes, little dells and corners, drives and pathways that sort of amble off in all directions vanishing over a rise or fading into a dark arch of trees. East Somerton is just one of those many little nooks that almost don’t exist, the past...
Lost in a Landscape: Shipden

Lost in a Landscape: Shipden

We are spoilt for lost villages in Norfolk and due to the nature of the coast have a huge number that weren’t down to the usual suspects, so not things like plague, pestilence or bad land for farming or landlords enclosing land or commons; moving sheep in to...