Vancouver

George Vancouver Statue on Purfleet Quay, Kings Lynn, Norfolk, photographed by Graham Taylor

November, 2021

Sent by the Royal Navy, from 1757 to 1798, Captain George Vancouver commanded one of the greatest geographic surveys ever undertaken, exploring and charting the coastlines of North America from the vicinity of San Francisco northwards, and including what are now the American States of Alaska, Washington and Oregon as well as British Colombia, Canada. Those charts were so detailed and accurate that they served as the key reference for coastal navigation for generations. During his journeying, many place names were named after friends and acquaintances such as Mount Baker, Mount St Helens, Whidbey Island, Burrard Inlet and more. Perhaps what many people do not realise is that George Vancouver was born in Kings Lynn, Norfolk, England, the sixth and youngest child of his Dutch-born father John, Deputy Collector of Customs. A very responsible position in what was then a very important trading port.

At age 13, he entered the Royal Navy as a ‘young gentleman’ future candidate for midshipman, a role he took up aboard HMS Resolution on Captain James Cook's second voyage searching for Terra Australis. He was also on the third voyage aboard HMS Discovery. After 9 years service in the West Indies he was given command of the new ship Discovery named in honour of Captain Cook’s old vessel, and went on to complete the survey for which he is best known, sailing by way of the Cape of Good Hope and Australia, Tahiti and the Hawaiian Islands. As well as surveying coastlines, Vancouver also collected botanical samples.

HMS Discovery 1879

George Vancouver was 35 years old when he surveyed the Pacific Coast of Canada and spent only one day on the actual site of what would eventually be called Vancouver. He would surely have been proud to know that the growing port settlement would,100 years later carry his name. Unusually, there is also a second smaller but older Vancouver, lying only 300 miles away across the Colombia River in Washington, USA.

George Vancouver, outside City Hall, Vancouver BC.

Vancouver BC, lies between Burrard Inlet to the north and the Fraser River Delta to the south, opposite Vancouver Island, and is just north of the US state of Washington. It has a fine natural harbour, one of the best in the world, facing the sea and mountains. After serving 25 years in the Royal Navy, Captain Vancouver’s early retirement was not a happy one as he was involved in several legal disputes against powerful opponents which weakened his health. For a man so renowned, he died in obscurity at the age of 40, less than three years after completing his remarkable voyages. His grave is in the churchyard of St Peter's church, Petersham in the London Borough of Richmond-upon-Thames. Both cities of Vancouver have erected fine statues to the man who literally put them on the map so very far away from his birthplace of King’s Lynn.

Sculpture of Captain George Vancouver, Vancouver City, Washington USA by Jim Demetro

Captain George Vancouver, National Portrait Gallery

Pennoyers

The Pennoyer Centre, Pulham St. Mary, Norfolk after its transformation into a well-loved community space.

In the Middle Ages, East Anglia was a rich wool-producing area and hat-making was the principle line of work in villages known as The Pulhams, where tucked away, is a link back to a time in history when life, for most of the populace, was largely controlled by landlords and the Church.

Situated in Pulham St. Mary, present-day Pennoyer Centre is built around a unique little flint chapel which highlights the importance the wool trade and religion once held in all walks of life in East Anglia.

In 1401 a wealthy team of local 'hatters, cappers and hurers*' formed a guild and raised the Chapel in dedication to St. James, the patron saint of hatters. It supported a hermit priest, paid for by the contributions of the members. Here he conducted masses and prayed for their souls. This continued until the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII in 1547.

The chapel thereafter gradually fell out of use until in 1674 William Pennoyer a rich Puritan merchant who traded cloth, sugar and tobacco, established a trust in his will to pay for a master to teach his tenants’ sons, as well as fatherless boys from the surrounding villages. He extended the building when he opened Pennoyer’s Free School and it was further enlarged by the Victorians in 1870. This educational establishment remained operational until 1988. Thereafter the somewhat hap-hazard amalgamation of buildings that had served the community for more than 600 years, slipped into decline, and I well remember seeing the sad little site many years ago.

Dilapidated buildings abutting the Medieval Guild Chapel of St. James the Less, Pulham St. Mary

Undaunted, a team of local volunteers set about saving the iconic chapel that lay within its heart, and in 2009, the newly restored Pennoyer Centre was opened to the public once more. And what a transformation it is! A skillful blend of ancient flintwork, Victorian brick and modern-day glass and steel, married successfully to carry it forth into the next few hundred years. It houses offices, a thriving café and in a nod to its educational

past, a super little museum, much of which is dedicated to another industry that took over the area in more recent times with the building of airships, known affectionately as 'The Pulham Pigs' and I will tell that fascinating story in a separate article.

St. James the Less, Patron Saint of Hatters, is usually depicted holding the fullers club with which he was beaten to death.

St. James the Less, son of Alphaeus was a disciple of Jesus, thought to be a cousin by the sister of the Virgin Mary. His feast day is 3rd May, and he is usually depicted holding a fullers club. Fullers cleansed and whitened raw wool and finished felted cloth, the malodorous early processes necessarily taking place away from general habitation as soiled wool was steeped in barrels of putrid urine, then trampled and beaten to release dirt and oil. Much rinsing in ponds and streams was required in order to leave the product either pure white, or ready for dyeing.

In the 1570’s to 1590’s a law was passed that all Englishmen except nobles had to wear a woollen cap to church on Sundays, part of a government plan to support the important wool industry which raised significant taxes, hence the significance of the Woolsack in the House of Commons.

* Hurers were makers and sellers of caps. It is suggested they made shaggy caps or worked with hair as well as wool..

www.pennoyers.org.uk]

Black Shuck

There is a legend in Norfolk about Black Shuck, a vicious dog as large as a calf that roams the countryside ready to attack. Should you be stalked by him and by luck manage to avoid his slavering jaws but in so doing catch a glance of his flaming, ember-like eyes, you are sure to die within the year anyway. Tough luck that!

As befits a hound of his size, his territory is wide and his most infamous deeds are recorded as happening on the same day over 400 years go. First at St Mary’s Church, Bungay on the edge of the Norfolk/Suffolk border and then at Blythburgh church a dozen or so miles away.

The story goes that in the summer of 1577, during a violent storm on the 4th August, an apparition of the devil disguised as a black dog raced through a fearful congregation already quailing under the effects of the violent weather beating upon the church. The Devil in the form of a dog (it is said), tore through the building, killed a man and child and caused the steeple to fall through the roof. The animal then raced off to Blythburgh church, killed more people and, branded the door with scorch marks known locally as 'the Devil's finger-prints' and which are still visible today.

Now, Granny, being a logical sort of person tried to put all this into perspective and with her 21st Century head, thought a good explanation might be lightening-strikes and thunderbolts in candle-lit churches redolent with fear of God and the Devil as taught in those far-off superstitious times. Even a large rabid dog or one driven mad with terror might possibly be capable of such attacks. The storm itself seems real enough as on that night, St. Mary's Church roof was indeed so badly damaged that full restoration only took place some two hundred years later.

Now we may dismiss these tales as lot of old hooey but often there is an element of truth in such matters and a recent archaeological discovery may (or may not) yet shed more light on the ghastly goings-on. Recently, the bones of a large animal were uncovered in the ruins of Leiston Abbey, Suffolk which lies less than seven miles from Blythburgh and were first discovered by archaeological group Dig Ventures in a project blazoned in the Daily Mail, 2014.

According to the report the dig revealed the skeleton of an extremely large male dog estimated to have weighed more than 14 stone, standing 7ft tall on its hind legs. The unmarked grave was less than 20 inches deep and pottery fragments found at the same level date from the time of Black Shuck’s alleged reign of terror.

We are told that radio carbon dating tests will give an exact age for the bones which will enable us to decide if the whole thing fits in with a medieval shaggy dog story or is in fact the skeleton of a rather large hunting dog used by a 16th century Abbot...

What do you think?

Granny Bonnet

Addendum: Oh dear, Granny has done further research and has found the newspaper report to be a teeny bit of an exaggeration... In setting the record straight, DigVenture's Projects Director Brendon Wilkins said on 28 October, 2014 - 'Far from being the final resting place of a bloodthirsty hell-hound, it was clear that our dog skeleton had been laid to rest with care and consideration... Armed with this historical background, combined with the biographical analysis of the dog’s skeleton, a picture emerges of a working dog that lived long into ‘retirement’.'

So folks, the truth is that this skeleton is not that of the terrible Black Shuck but just for a moment there it had me going...

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