Timpson's Norfolk Notebook

Overview

A wonderful collection of broadcaster John Timpson’s writings about Norfolk, its ancient and subtle landscape, legends and traditions.

Content

CHAPTER ONE – The Norfolk landscape: Mermaids, angels and a flamingo

• Beyond the Great Ouse
• And beyond the Waveney
• Trying to follow the Icknield Way
• Famous forays into the fens
• The blank space on the map
• Why twitchers love Titchwell
• The contrast in the crops
• West Dereham’s coprolite
• Medieval church treasures
• Methodist chapels in new guises
• Delving into dovecotes

CHAPTER TWO – Remarkable Norfolk people: Prizefighters, bodysnatchers and inventors…

• The Baronet and the bodysnatchers
• Genius, manic depressive, or just a wimp?
• The man behind the name on Erpingham Church
• Anna’s mum had best-sellers too
• World champion – in the 44th round!
• The MP who invented the horsebox
• He prosecuted Raleigh and the gunpower plotters
• Honoured in America, Canada – and now at home
• The original nosey parker
• Not only the Lincolns and Thomas Paine
• Battling women, with sword, pen and guile

CHAPTER THREE – Places with strange tales to tell: A bridge, a garden, an abbey…

• The four red hands of Homersfield
• Two towers which caused a towering row
• How Oulton acquired its chapel
• The hatters, the hermit and Mr Pennoyer
• The rector who moved Edgefield church
• Jacob and Billy, the images on the Image Barn
• A pub with a Bible in the bar
• High drama at Binham Priory
• The legacies of two eccentric Victorians

CHAPTER FOUR – Legends and traditions: Some are just memories, others still live on

• England’s only Episcopal wherry
• ‘Religious, grave and discreet’
• Pub games – an endangered species?
• The many fresh starts of the Lynn Mart
• The art of taking a knap
• When the saints come marching in
• The original Jack the giantkiller?
• How the salesman’s cross saved Bromholm
• Tie another legend round the old oak tree
• Weird wells – with a body thrown in
• The many legends of King Edmund

INDEX