The County Flags of East Anglia

County Flags flying in Parliament Square, London, July 2019

Oooh, Granny does love a good flag! What a brilliant idea to hang 50 of the county flags of England, Scotland and Wales together in Parliament Square to mark Historic County Flags day. What a lovely sight! The display between 23 and 26th July, formed part of national festivities taking place across the country. Government has just made it easier for local authorities to mark its boundaries with road signs and to fly county flags whenever possible without having to apply for strict planning permissions and I for one, hope it generates much interest.

Here in East Anglia we have some lovely flags though I am a bit miffed that the lovely red heading (chief) on Norfolk County Council's arms has been left off the new county design. I think visually they've missed a trick though it seems according to the official information below that it was quite a late addition to the arms.

Among the fifty flags displayed there were some new designs but in the main, they are flags previously associated with their counties and often have links to prominent families that have helped shape a particular region such as Norfolk.

NORFOLK: This design is the banner of the arms attributed to Ralph (Ranulph) de Gael (de Guader), first Earl of Norfolk (1071-1075). The de Gael banner has been used to represent the county throughout the centuries and forms the basis of many county society emblems. In 1904 the de Gael arms formed the basis of the county council arms, however the red chief with royal emblems were added by request of King Edward VII.

The SUFFOLK flag features the crown and crossed arrows attributed to St Edmund. St Edmund was a King of East Anglia who was shot with arrows by vikings, thus explaining the elements of the emblem. At the time the East Anglian capital was in Suffolk and after his death his saintly cult was based in Bury St Edmunds within the county. Over time his emblem has served to become an emblem of the county itself.

The three gold crowns represent East Anglia, in which CAMBRIDGESHIRE is located. They are placed against a blue field which is the same shade used on the East Anglia flag. The wavy lines represent the River Cam and are in the colours of Cambridge University.

And finally, my own birth county of Essex, a very brief description but these are the arms that used to be displayed on my junior school and which impressed me even at that tender age.

The flag of ESSEX is ancient in origin and features three Saxon seaxes on a red field.

Heraldry is so colourful and so full of intrigue, power struggles, war and peace. A very complex subject run under the very strict rules of arms and overseen by the College of Arms in London, founded in 1484 and ever since then has created and maintained official registers of coats of arms, pedigrees and much, much more.

By the way, a vexillologist is a person who studies flags and the word is a synthesis of the Latin word vexillum (flag) and the Greek suffix-logia (study).One who designs flags is a vexillographer, and the art of flag-designing is called vexillography. One who is a hobbyist or general admirer of flags is a vexillophile. You should be able to dine out on that information!

Norfolk

Suffolk

Essex

Cambridgeshire

https://www.college-of-arms.gov.uk/

https://www.flaginstitute.org

Boghouses & Loo Rolls

April 2020

When I first moved to Norwich in the early 1960’s there were still blocks of terraced houses that had outside lavatories. Many in fact, that shared one privy between several properties. The home I live in now, built as recently as1938, has subsequently had an indoor bathroom added and the former outside toilet is now a gardening cupboard.

Which all leads me on to the subject of bog-houses...

In the past, low-lying parts of Norwich were stinking places where the slow-flowing rivers were fouled by discharge from countless bog-houses or outside privies. Sanitation beyond the privileged in society was so scant as to be almost non-existent. Taverns, for instance, had primitive indoor sanitation, (if that’s what it can be called), by way of a chamber-pot in each room. To quote a visitor who had moved to Norwich in the 1740s:

"There it stands stinking till it is full, and often till it run about the Room in a very Nasty manner."

This state of affairs was tolerated simply because many folk endured similar conditions at home, as shown in A Report of Visits to Handloom Weavers, 29 Jan 1850:

"Immediately facing the entrance to the house, and joining the little fence, was the privy, used by the whole of the inhabitants of the court; by the side of it was an open bin, into which all the refuse matter was thrown, and into the bottom of which the soil from the adjoining privy drained. Some rain had fallen on the night previous to my visit, and the contents of this open cesspool, oozing through the walls, were streaming sluggishly down the path to the house. A part of this filthy fluid was absorbed by the ground, but some parts of it not unfrequently found their way into the house, the floor of which, as if to invite its entrance, was nearly a foot lower than the ground outside."

While Norwich Castle high on its hill boasted a four-berth Norman toilet tucked within its walls, (whose contents dropped conveniently into the ditch below), things had not improved much since, as it was also reported that women would run across Fye Bridge with wraps over their noses to avoid the stench.

This part of the River Wensum is not far from New Mills Yard, so called since 1430, when land was cleared at the highest navigable part and a new corn-mill built. Mills of all sorts from tanning to sawing concentrated and flourished around the basin, much to the detriment of water quality.

New Mills Yard has always been the site of the city’s waterworks and between 1790 – 1800 was rebuilt (again) to transport cleaner water drawn from a canal a quarter a mile above the turgid basin. A water wheel l5’ broad by 18’ in diameter raised the water to a reservoir in Chapel Field. Three hundred yards in circumference, it was banked with its excavated earth to a height of 120’ while water was forced up into a pipe tower 145’ above its source.

By 1850 however, matters had deteriorated and a Government Inspector reported "bubbles of gas seen rising in the reservoir, and the water became a dark colour when a supply was let in by the pipes." Elsewhere, "...slugs were drawn in the water."

New Mills, c. 1895

Once the second wealthiest City outside of London, Norwich’s population had grown fast and by 1893 a population of 104,000, living in 23,111 houses, shared only 4,100 water closets between them. The City Engineer reported disgustedly: "...thus the remainder were provided with that filthy abomination known as a midden closet or with privy pans."

Clearly it was time for another rebuilding programme!

So, in 1897, New Mills became part of the City Corporation’s new sewerage scheme. Five air compressors, three powered by electric motors, two driven by steam turbines worked by the river. Totalling 100 bhp, these pumped effluent out beyond the city limits to Trowse, finally closing in 1972 with the opening of new works at Whitlingham.

Turbines inside New Mills Pumping Station, image credit Chris Allen

New Mills Yard, out of commission since 1972

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Perhaps now is the time for us all to rethink our casual acceptance of clean, running water and flushing toilets in houses which often sport multiple outlets! Time to question the relevance of using pure water for flushing purposes, particularly in this drier side of England.

Why not install storage tanks for grey/bath/shower water instead? Earth closets and purifying reed beds could be introduced in camping sites and outdoor recreation areas. And surely there must be an alternative to every Briton flushing 17.6 kilos of loo roll down the lavatory every year...?

Amber

January 2020

Granny's Earrings

Now, as the storms of winter are in the process of lashing at our east coast, is a very good time to hunt for Amber on the foreshore. Mark you, it's not easy to find!

For those of you familiar with Amber jewellery, it would be a mistake to look for gleaming gems amongst the pebbles, as before processing, the raw material can resemble a piece of battered bone, or a dull and unremarkable stone. Most finds in the UK are small but in 2013, a lady beachcomber who knew what amber in the raw looked like, picked up a 700g piece near to Cromer pier that is probably the largest ever found along our coast.

It is possible to find other semi-precious gemstones such as agate, carnelian and serpentine if you look hard enough too, but amber is not a stone at all. It is in fact the fossilised resin of long-dead and buried pine trees from sunken Baltic forests that now lie deep beneath the North Sea. These trees stood around 50 million years ago and when they fell became layered over with silt and afterwards subjected to immense pressure. The woody parts long ago vanished but the gooey resin survived and within it, many insects, flies and even small lizards were trapped. These tiny creatures are often revealed in the final polished products and can throw light on the inhabitants of our earth around the time of the dinosaurs.

Crude jewellery was originally made of irregular pieces strung together then beads were polished and graduated while others were mounted in silver or gold for added enhancement and sophistication.

Amber beads. Image credit: Evelyn Simak

There are over 250 shades of Amber ranging from palest cream and lemon through gold to dark brown and in some regions of the world ruby-red, blue and black. Those items with an insect trapped within often command a higher price for novelty value and interest. In Russia, Amber is mined from a layer of 'blue soil' and large pieces command the same prices as gold, but that is a different matter from the relatively small pieces found along our coast, and is a subject to which I will return in another article.

For centuries Amber has been used for healing since it contains Succinic acid that occurs naturally in plants and animals, (the Romans called Amber sūcinum).

The chemical known as 'Spirit of Amber' was extracted by pulverising and distilling, and was primarily used for rheumatic aches and pains. Worn against against the body Amber warms, and it is believed by many that the acid can be absorbed through the skin for pain relief for a variety of ailments from teething to arthritis.

On another level, Amber is supposed to absorb negative energy, helping to alleviate stress, clear depression and stimulate the intellect. It supposedly encourages decision-making, and spontaneity, promotes self-confidence, creative self-expression and with it wisdom, balance and patience.

Wow! Really? Best I dig out my Amber earrings bought long ago in Southwold and wear them on a more regular basis. Might help stimulate my ageing brain-cells eh...?

—Granny Bonnet