900 years old is quite old

This weekend saw some birthday celebrations for Wymondham Abbey which has 900 years on the clock this year. On Saturday they held a fete as only small market towns can and it looked like the whole of the town turned out.

Despite being in our third year of living here, I've never been into the Abbey, but it's quite a treat. Above is the alter screen, tester and rood which is quite breath-taking. It's a recent addition in the grand scheme of things, completed in 1934.

Quick history if anyone's interested... founded as a priory in 1107 by William D'Albini, Chief Butler to King Henry I, who insisted the resident Benedictine monks let it be used as the local parish church, but foolishly forgot to say who could use which bits. Caused a ding dong that got so bad it had to be resolved in 1249 by the Pope.

Fat lot of good that did, because 162 years later, King Henry IV stepped in and dispatched the Archbishop of Canterbury to knock some heads together. Which he did in 1411, or eleven minutes past two as we know it today.

The Grand Designs team visited in 15th century to see how Sir John Clifton, of Buckenham Castle (near Banham Zoo) would get on with his West Tower project and whether his budget would run to a hammer-beam roof in the Nave with exquisite angel carvings. It did.

It became an Abbey in 1448 and was doing okay until Henry VIII got into a spot swapping Catherine of Aragon for Anne Boley. In 1529 (I think), he set up his own religion (CofE), stuck two fingers up at the Pope, and got married again... but not before shutting down all the catholic churches.

Much of the Abbey was demolished during this period including large sections funded by the townsfolk. Wealthy local tradesman, Robert Kett, took exception to, among other things, the King's heavy-handedness and lead his famous (well, round these parts at least) rebellion against social change in 1549 only to find himself hanging by neck of Norwich Castle by four o'clock. Probably.

The next 450 years or so was pretty quite in comparison. How could they not be?



Luke, hopefully, learned a very valuable lesson today. He had a bag of sweets and was happily muching away on his own when his little pal Daphne wandered up, feigned friendship (much to the excitement of her mum who thought it was genuine show of affection), scored a sweet and cleared off. All of life's relationships in one innocent moment. I hope he was paying attention.