Castle Aching

[Nearholmer]

Any clues as to the genre of this book?

 

To me, the title suggests the sort of historical romantic fiction that is nearly, but not quite, a “bodice ripper”, the sort of thing that the sisters and wives of chaps who read ‘Riddle of the Sands’ might enjoy.

 

Or, better still, proto-feminism hidden under a thin cloak of historical romance?

 

And, who is Grigsby? An American woman, who visited CA as a tourist, and was inspired?

Edited May 25, 2018 by Nearholmer

[DonB]

Quote:-In The Shadow of the Keep, a Poetic Adventure, set in Castle Aching and its environs, by G. G. Grigsby. 

 

​Seems to be a suitable challenge for that inventive Miss Tabatha for the summer holidays?? (She will hate me for the suggestion, I'm sure!)

Any putative author should however be wary of introducing railway journeys into the script, which would have readers rushing to their Bradshaw to check and challenge the possibility of getting from CA to any destination by the route and/or in the timing suggested by the author (cf Trollope's Barsetshire saga)

[RedGemAlchemist]

​Seems to be a suitable challenge for that inventive Miss Tabatha for the summer holidays?? (She will hate me for the suggestion, I'm sure!)

Any putative author should however be wary of introducing railway journeys into the script, which would have readers rushing to their Bradshaw to check and challenge the possibility of getting from CA to any destination by the route and/or in the timing suggested by the author (cf Trollope's Barsetshire saga)

Or it'd have the book sounding like a certain Monty Python sketch.

Edited May 25, 2018 by RedGemAlchemist

[Annie]

I would have thought with all the obvious literary talent and active imaginations I've seen at work here you could have such a novel knocked up over the course of a weekend.

[sem34090]

I'll see what I can perhaps muster... 

 

And I'll have a word with Alex...

[Hroth]

Or it'd have the book sounding like a certain Monty Python sketch.

More like a "Ripping Yarn" tale:

 

"Missendens Great Adventure"

 

And then there's the business with the Zombies in Wroxham...

Edited May 25, 2018 by Hroth

[sem34090]

Oh dear.

[Hroth]

Oh dear.

Yes, that was post 5475, back on page 219. The Wroxham Zombie Apocalypse of 1909. Completely hushed up, we never got the whole story!

 

Had to use Google to find it...

[Nearholmer]

I’ve only been to Wroxham once, but I think that when people talk of the place being full of the walking dead, they mean that figuratively, not literally ..... don’t they?

[Edwardian]

Yes, that was post 5475, back on page 219. The Wroxham Zombie Apocalypse of 1909. Completely hushed up, we never got the whole story!

 

Had to use Google to find it...

 

I’ve only been to Wroxham once, but I think that when people talk of the place being full of the walking dead, they mean that figuratively, not literally ..... don’t they?

 

http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/crime/it-s-like-a-zombie-apocalypse-readers-react-to-lockdown-in-north-norfolk-following-weekend-of-disturbances-1-5155866 !

[Hroth]

http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/crime/it-s-like-a-zombie-apocalypse-readers-react-to-lockdown-in-north-norfolk-following-weekend-of-disturbances-1-5155866 !

Disconcerting stuff!  I wonder if they mainly live underground and come out to feast off the living ao a cyclical basis?  Rather like a Cockchafer beetle?  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockchafer

 

I was also fascinated by two stories that popped up when I visited your link

 

http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/doggy-drama-as-pup-pulled-from-perilous-position-1-5504703

http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/environment/second-sheep-stuck-over-river-ouse-saved-1-5535103

 

The Eastern Daily Press really DO have their fingers on the pulse.......

[phil_sutters]

I’ve only been to Wroxham once, but I think that when people talk of the place being full of the walking dead, they mean that figuratively, not literally ..... don’t they?

I never saw them on the street - too busy working a few streets away - but New Cross suffered from zombies in day light - scenes from Shaun of the Dead were filmed in a disused pub there

[corneliuslundie]

I thought most of the summer visitors to Wroxham were Hullanaloos (also already referenced).

I see this book as the forerunner of the kind of thing produced by the GWR to publicise the holiday areas it served. Replete with hand coloured photographs and descriptions of places one can visit by the WNR. "On sale at W H Smith and all good bookshops, price 9d". The cover of course will have a reproduction of a drawing by a local artist.

And you will find it very hard to track down a biography of he author as he is an invention of the WNR "marketing department" (only the phrase had yet to be invented).

Jonathan

[Edwardian]

Good morning!

 

Our car died, and we had to bunk off yesterday to travel to Newcastle in search of a replacement. I like Newcastle, so an opportunity to visit is always welcome. It took some time, but we were ultimately successful.

 

Zombies in the Eastern Daily Press.

 

I must confess, I only read the article this morning; last night I had merely googled "zombie apocalypse wroxham' in case any amusing strands might be thrown up.

 

Well, this organ certainly has tendency to make the mundane sensational. Whatever the truth of this invasion, the article seems short on fact and heavy on hyperbole. Whilst noting the 'zombie apocalypse' analogy with which the article led, my favourite insight was that provided by Mr Marco Norman, "anarchy is lawlessness".

 

Which was jolly, because I have just recently finished re-reading for the umpteenth time one of my favourite bits of Edwardiana, in conjunction with listening to a superb reading of it on Iplayer by Geoffrey Palmer, who really got the knack of Chesterton's nightmarish prose.

 

As for the 1909 Wroxham outbreak (zombies, not anarchists - do try to keep up there at the back!) I imagine that it was all covered up at the time, much like the earlier Martian invasion of the Home Counties. The latter is perhaps best summed up, albeit from a far future perspective, by the author Toby Frost:

 

H. G. Wells exaggerated terribly, but they landed all right.  The thing is, they're incredibly vulnerable to disease and they dropped dead as soon as they came into contact with Surrey.  One of them got as far as Egham before he keeled over, but then, nobody likes Egham very much.

 

... Jeff Wayne tried to blow the lid off it back in the twentieth century, but weakened his case by doing it through a rock opera. That's always a mistake.

 

Turning to more local matters, I made up a book title, and purloined a surname from a book I happened to be reading moments before, entirely off the top of my head without at all thinking it through.  It seems to have gained a life of its own, however, and I am humbled by the thought that several of you have devoted considerably more thought to In the Shadow of the Keep, than had I.

 

As I typed, I had in mind a sort of purple-prosed paean to the delights of the district, inspired by the chap who sort of invented and popularised 'poppy land' (the place in north Norfolk once served by the M&GN, not the place in Kingsman where Elton John is held captive by an insane heroin-queen, in case that was unclear), but it almost immediately struck me that In the Shadow of the Keep could also be the title of an historical novel, probably medieaval in setting, in the impenetrably turgid style of Sir Walter Scott.  If so, anyone who has actually read Scott, or tried to, would instantly sympathise with the modern reader of In the Shadow of the Keep.

 

In the end, I decided to leave it deliberately ambiguous.  Interestingly, several of you saw it as a novel, but one of you saw it as something much like my first idea.

 

Grigsby, is a novelist, and his surname, in any event, is not an invention of mine, but an expedient borrowing. 

 

If any parishioners seek information on the gentleman, he or she, might apply for particulars to:

 

P. G. Northover, B.A. C.Q.T.

Adventure and Romance Agency 

14 Tanner's Court,

Fleet Street.

[Donw]

I never saw them on the street - too busy working a few streets away - but New Cross suffered from zombies in day light - scenes from Shaun of the Dead were filmed in a disused pub there

Zombie warning 5.03 Monson Rd SE14.jpg

 

Ah one could suffer the worse indignity being mistaken for a an actor made up as a zombie  when just going about one's daily business.

 

Don

[Hroth]

It had passed my mind (quickly, as there's not much to pass on a Saturday morning) that "Shadow of the Keep" might be an English Civil War drama of families divided, dastardly deeds and derring do in general, but Sanity reminded me that Castle Aching must have been firmly in the grip of The Eastern Association (Prop. O. Cromwell, esq) and any Crypto-Royalists would have skedaddled off to Oxenford and the delights of the Royal Court in anticipation of forcible pudding-bowling and being forced to learn the Book of Psalms by Heart.

 

So yes, probably a Medieval Yarn, set in the times of the Barons Wars (whenever they were), forsooth!

 

 

And according to Mr Ransome, ill mannered Broadland visitors were Hullabaloos!

 

 

Given that he spent a considerable amouht of time in Russia before and during the 1917 Revolution, and was well in with the Revolutionaries (His second wife was Trotsky's personal secretary...), this may have been a piece of "Self Criticism"...

 

 

btw, the photo is not at all like the respectable old buffer pictured on the back of the Pelican editions of the Swallows and Amazons books, which is a pity as its got far more street cred!

Edited May 26, 2018 by Hroth

[Edwardian]

It had passed my mind (quickly, as there's not much to pass on a Saturday morning) that "Shadow of the Keep" might be an English Civil War drama of families divided, dastardly deeds and derring do in general, but Sanity reminded me that Castle Aching must have been firmly in the grip of The Eastern Association (Prop. O. Cromwell, esq) and any Crypto-Royalists would have skedaddled off to Oxenford and the delights of the Royal Court in anticipation of forcible pudding-bowling and being forced to learn the Book of Psalms by Heart.

 

So yes, probably a Medieval Yarn, set in the times of the Barons Wars (whenever they were), forsooth!

 

 

And according to Mr Ransome, ill mannered Broadland visitors were Hullabaloos!

 

arfa ransome.jpg

 

Given that he spent a considerable amouht of time in Russia before and during the 1917 Revolution, and was well in with the Revolutionaries (His second wife was Trotsky's personal secretary...), this may have been a piece of "Self Criticism"...

 

 

btw, the photo is not at all like the respectable old buffer pictured on the back of the Pelican editions of the Swallows and Amazons books, which is a pity as its got far more street cred!

 

Yes, Ransome certainly lived life on the edge for a time.  A fascinating life and a figure worthy of respect.

[Compound2632]

On 26/05/2018 at 11:10, Edwardian said:

 in the impenetrably turgid style of Sir Walter Scott. 

 

Scott's not so bad and was immensely popular throughout the 19th century and into the 20th, as connoisseurs of LNWR, North British and even LNER locomotive names know well:

 

 

His poetry, though less read now, is better than his prose and is what first made his fame.

 

I did once try Bulwer-Lytton. That is dire. I had to stop as I started catching myself thinking in his prose style... 

 

"Merry was the month of May in the year of our Lord 1052. Few were the boys, and few the lasses, who overslept themselves on the first of that buxom month. Long ere the dawn, the crowds had sought mead and woodland... " and so on.

 

I imagined In the Shadow of the Keep to be by some Victorian lady novelist of pre-Raphaelite and Anglo-Catholic tendencies, in the school of Charlotte M. Younge.

 

[Please forgive the gratuitous picture of a compound. Any excuse...]

Edited October 12, 2022 by Compound2632
image re-inserted

[Edwardian]

Re: 9962

 

What a relief. I had a horrible feeling that things might be on a steady downward path financially.

 

I think, BTW, that the hotel was promoted and built by a nominally separate company, with newly subscribed capital, so it’s failure will have hurt shareholders, but not, directly, the WNR.

 

I have to tread carefully here, because, on the one hand, I have to understand all parts of the WN and how they affect traffic at CA and, on the other hand, you know much more about this part of the line than do I.

 

I had not intended to suggest that the hotel itself was anything to do with the WN, but that the WN built/extended/refurbished and upgraded the line as part of the effort to promote a resort at Shepherd's Port.  I may be wrong in that, of course. My suggestion is that the expense to which the WN went in relation to providing for the expected increase in passenger traffic was never justified by the receipts.

 

Quite what facilities the WN would have provided, and the degree to which they might have been to an unmerited opulence, is, for me, a matter for further research and consultation.

 

Perhaps a reminder of the track plan for Wolfringham, the staithe and Shepherd's Port might not be amiss here?

 

Apropos the track plans, I do not believe we have yet shown the connection to the Norfolk Minerals Railway line from the staithe, which ran down the coast towards Lynn, off which numerous branches led to carstone extraction sites and (now abandoned) coprolite workings.  Unless I have been misinformed, of course. 

 

I do, however, have Views on the Wolfringham branch passenger service, as this runs to CA.

 

The service reflects the down at heel nature of the branch. The locomotive, purchased second-hand from the M&GN in 1900, is a Fox Walker 0-6-0ST:

 

No. 2, 0-6-0ST, Fox Walker works no. 333 of 1877

Wolfringham Branch Locomotive

Coupled wheels: 3’6”

Locomotive based upon Ormesby, one of a pair supplied to the Great Yarmouth & Stalham Light Railway.  While her sister, Stalham, went on to enjoy a long career as Melton Constable works shunter, Ormesby was sold to South Hetton Colliery, or, as a matter of alternative history, to the WNR in 1900.

 

The locomotive will be vacuum fitted for passenger work, but, I imagine, would be used for goods or mixed trains as required. 

 

The Wolfringham branch set will comprise two ex-GER 4-wheel Brake Thirds of 1867 vintage, sandwiched between which will be an ex-Eastern Counties 1850s First, running as a First-Second composite.

 

Old, spartan and dilapidated as these coaches are, passengers on the Wolfringham branch are further discriminated against by the maintenance of oil-lighting for this set.  Whilst the WN does not run to anything like Stones electric lighting for its passenger stock, I should think that, by 1905, the vast majority of its coaches are lit by Pintsch gas. 

Edited May 26, 2018 by Edwardian

[Caley Jim]

....... as connoisseurs of LNWR, North British and even LNER locomotive names know well:

 

And Clyde paddle steamers. 'Waverley' is still sailing!

 

Jim

[Nearholmer]

I think there might be a track plan of the statues (wolf ring ham harbour) about nine million posts ago. The rest .....needs thought, and the mineral railway? I must have missed that, so I shall have to consult geological surveys.

 

Right now, I’m supposed to be watching a footy tournament ........ but there seem to be as many matches as there are branches of the WNR, and I can’t maintain attention for that long!

[Hroth]

The GWR also had a class of "Waverly"-inspired engines, the Waverly class of Broad Gauge 4-4-0s

 

 

Designed by Daniel Gooch and built by Stephensons, they were introduced in 1855 and withdrawn in 1876.

[Donw]

And Clyde paddle steamers. 'Waverley' is still sailing!

 

 

And the wreck of PS Ryde is still rusting in the Medina. These are rather late for the WNR. PS Ryde was built for the Southern Railway. PS Waverley was built 1946 and had no railway connection to my knowledge and will be in the Bristol Channel end of Aug/ Start of Sept. 

 

For those with a layout with a Harbour a Paddle Steamer can make a delightful model sadly  I do not seem to have a clear photo of Peter Korrison's model built for his Fettleworth layout. 

 

 

Don

 

ps the bow of the PS can be seen on the right

Edited May 26, 2018 by Donw

[Edwardian]

Scott's not so bad and was immensely popular throughout the 19th century and into the 20th, as connoisseurs of LNWR, North British and even LNER locomotive names know well:

 

His poetry, though less read now, is better than his prose and is what first made his fame.

 

I imagined In the Shadow of the Keep to be by some Victorian lady novelist of pre-Raphaelite and Anglo-Catholic tendencies, in the school of Charlotte M. Younge.

 

 

 

I confess, despite the stories being crackingly good and having a full set of Scott's novel, I have found the prose impenetrable.  I must try them again.  I have not come across his poetry before, so thanks for that.

 

Apart from the futility of mentioning the Oxford Movement to a Cambridge man, that all makes sense, and I had not come across Charlotte M Young, so an interesting lead to follow.

 

 

 

Quite what facilities the WN would have provided, and the degree to which they might have been to an unmerited opulence, is, for me, a matter for further research and consultation.

 

Perhaps a reminder of the track plan for Wolfringham, the staithe and Shepherd's Port might not be amiss here?

 

Apropos the track plans, I do not believe we have yet shown the connection to the Norfolk Minerals Railway line from the staithe, which ran down the coast towards Lynn, off which numerous branches led to carstone extraction sites and (now abandoned) coprolite workings.  Unless I have been misinformed, of course. 

 

 

I think there might be a track plan of the statues (wolf ring ham harbour) about nine million posts ago. The rest .....needs thought, and the mineral railway? I must have missed that, so I shall have to consult geological surveys.

 

 

 

Some of Nearholmer's pioneering research, which has contributed so much to our understanding of the intricate history of the Wolfringham branch may be found here:

 

Coalyard Creek, identified as the location of the coal port at Wolfringham harbour, http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/107713-castle-aching/?p=2368092

 

On the branch "extending it beyond Wolfingham Harbour, to reach Shepherd's Port, location of the failed (possibly never-completed) resort hotel", see http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/107713-castle-aching/?p=2440122

 

That post also mentions the shingle pits, as does http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/107713-castle-aching/?p=2702192

 

My take on the Wolfringham coal staithes: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/107713-castle-aching/?p=2699085, and some further information courtesy of Kevin on the appearance of Wolfringham harbour and 'coal port': http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/107713-castle-aching/?p=2375535; http://http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/107713-castle-aching/?p=2375626; http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/107713-castle-aching/?p=2375862

 

Showing "part of the Wolfringham Branch, near to where it crosses the GER", http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/107713-castle-aching/?p=2490015.  

 

EDIT: PS: The Norfolk Minerals Railway should certainly exist.  I believe that it may have a couple of old Stephenson long-boilers at work, together with, assorted tank engines and some rather nice little dumb buffer mineral wagons, like the  Liskeard & Looe's.

 

Here is a reminder of how the Wolfringham branch connects with CA (though the NMR had not been 'discovered' at that point):

 

Edited May 26, 2018 by Edwardian

[wagonman]

re zombie apocalypse, it's said that if you venture across the bridge from Wroxham into Hoveton you'll find much of the population is as undead as ever...