Norwich by Train (Part 1)

05.07.12 (recap: Norwich, UK) - A Day Trip by Train

Norwich is sixty-two point eight miles from Cambridge on the A11, one hour and eighteen minutes via the Greater Anglia Express. Stepping out into a new city from the train station is the sensation of waking, The brain, left some sixty-two point eight miles back, catches suddenly up with the body. A cheap pasty, lamb and mint. No time; eat fast, then through the turnstile. A pound for a pamphlet. Tap a nicker into the dispenser and the challenged machine spits out two maps. Pocketing the one and unfurling the other, a walking path imprints in the mind. Away we go!

A view from a footbridge over the Wensum

 I follow a sign to City Centre, walk through an outdoor mall area called Riverside Retail, make a turn and cross a footbridge over the Wensum into a quiet residential area. It is nearly noon and the chance of sunshine remains high. The weatherpeople suggest getting outside while you can: a month's record of rain in 24 hours is queued up for East Anglia while the West, Midlands, and Wales are drowning. Like those of Cambridge, Norwich's neighborhoods near the City Centre, are quiet cul de sacs with private driveways that open to courtyards, red brick roads of eighteenth century England marked up by twentieth century no vehicle signs.


Outlying the city are wetlands known as the Fens, but these wetlands have slowly disappeared over the last five centuries. Modern Norwich is built up along the Wensum (one result of the diminishing wetlands) which flows through its northern and westernmost extremities and alongside one may find greens with branching paths and beyond which lies neighborhoods that to the naked eye disappear into woodlands concealing bustling international restaurants and cafes. The city is laid out like spokes on a wheel with Norwich Castle at its most identifiable center. 

The first church I run into is, I believe, St Julian's, although I cannot seem to locate its entrance from where I was walking.

I arrive at Norwich Castle through the Castle Mall, a multi-tiered shopping area built, it would seem, in a hill. I take the escalators to the top and arrive in the Castle Mall Gardens. From the outside, looking in at the food court, the mall resembles a greenhouse.

Top of the Castle Mall

I'm living it...

 Without any time-schedule or particular plans for the day, I decide to start my tour of Norwich at its center, at Norwich Castle. I arrive and pay a pound for the last hour of the day (the Castle closes at 1pm during the weekdays) and go through double-doors into a cafe area at the center of the castle's museum. The exhibits
range from relics of the Anglo-Saxons and Anglo-Normans (the Snettisham Hoard is on display in the Anglo-Saxon exhibit) to art from the late 18th century Romantics to displays of contemporary watercolorists... I wander through a gallery of taxidermied wildlife: rooms of rodents and an entire aviary of still-life birds. I've never seen so many displays of taxidermy - I'm somewhat disturbed when the gallery keeps going and opens into another room filled with owls and eagles and doves.


The history portion of the museum seems geared toward children, which is reinforced because there are several tours going through with what appear to be groups of second or third graders.

The castle keep and that newer addition to the right is where the history museum is.

Inside the keep, which has become a museum with some modern
restorative efforts keeping the roof up.

Norwich Castle was founded sometime between 1066 and 1075, when it was ordered by William the Conqueror to be constructed. The Keep (which is the only part of the castle still standing) was built between 1095 and 1110. During the revolt against Henry II from 1173-74, Hugh Bigod, 1st Earl of Norwich, and about 900 Flemish and Norman men captured the castle from Henry.

The castle closes soon, so I hurry through the keep and snap photos. I go up to the balcony, squeeze through passageways leading to other exhibits, and try to avoid the gazes of museum guides dressed as LARPers as though ready to enact the battle of Hastings.

This diorama of medieval toilets is accompanied by some pretty horrific recorded noises.

Back outside, I walk the circumference of the Castle Keep and take a few photos of the surrounding area, noting where I came from and where I plan to visit. This trip is entirely ad hoc, a wandering, a getting lost on purpose. Diana and I love doing this in new cities we visit, but it's certainly more challenging without her around. I figure that heading to the market (right) and then doing a clockwise walk around the city is my best bet of not getting lost. There are several churches or cathedrals that tower over modern Norwich, and in need I can always use one of those as markers to find my way.

At the time that I'm writing this, just a day after my trip to Norwich, there is the usual noise of the house while the Federer v. Djokovic game is on (noise unrelated to the game, however). No wily teenager, neither my sister in her middle-school years nor the Barlas' daughter Berfin, receives as many phone calls as does the mother, Nurten. The phone rings for her constantly; its arpeggioed melody slowly having become dissonant and vile. It goes off and I wince slightly. Not just one, but two or three phones ring or vibrate at the same time. Perhaps they are friends, or maybe family, or just the neighbors calling to talk. Chatter, clatter, noise, noise, noise! This must be what it means to be Turkish, to be always locus of motion and community. In a day a friend of Nurten's is coming to visit. Later, a friend of Berfin's is coming to visit. Later still, five family members will descend upon the home at 23 Chestnut Drive. I am reminded of when V. Nabokov's character, Charles Kinbote, stops his description of the Pale Fire manuscript, stating "There is a loud amusement park right in front of my present lodgings." I feel that at the Barlas' home, the amusement park is actually indoors.

I walk through the market place, through an array of shops in the Royal Arcade.  The Royal Arcade is bedecked with tiles and azure designs. The shops are for the upper-crust, the truly posh, or the ignorant tourist. I quickly dash through it.

On the other end of the Royal Arcade, however, is City Hall, characterized by a somber clock tower extending from the north facing wall to the cloud-speckled sky. Surrounding the building, in the street, is bedlam. It's a Thursday and the market is full of cameras, bespoke suits, and hands idling through merchandise. Street performers are surrounded by cheap-skate onlookers looking on for some free entertainment. Vendors heckle with customers as you pass by.

The first church I stop at is St. Peter's.

The view of St. Peter's from Norwich Castle Keep.

From here I walk south, cross Rampant Horse Street, and then turn west toward Chapelfield Gardens. This park has some work being done on it, so I don't take any pictures of it. I turn north and head through the park, then go west, wander a ways down a street until I'm a bit out of town, then turn back and arrive at the Cathedral of St John the Baptist.

 This cathedral is gorgeous, but can you believe it's only about a hundred years old? As I get close to the altar, I am greeted by Father Peter, who asks if I've been here before. He shakes my hand when I tell him that I'm from the States, and welcomes me to visit the newest addition to the cathedral where I can learn about how the building was constructed.

After I'm through wandering around and taking pictures in the cathedral proper, I decide to take Father Peter's suggestion. As I approach the addition, it feels like something out of a science fiction movie: two glass doors hiss and part, giving to a modern looking annex with a cathedral store and cafe. Lining the hallway (leading to the right, below) are placards with information of how the cathedral was built (in the late 19th century), complete with black and white photos of those responsible and a diagram of how stained glass is made.