July 4, 2012
Into Norfolk - Norwich, Great Yarmouth and Acle
a night at my aunt's house
Debbie and I pedal off late in the morning and the visit seems too short.
The sky is damp and we ride along a back lane, meandering slowly towards Norwich.
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The quiet route eventually ends up at the main road, which is nasty, with no shoulder to keep us far from the whizzing traffic.
We make a turn off when we see another back lane and try to make our way to the county’s main city as surreptitiously as possible. It’s early afternoon when we do get there and lunch is taken in a Subway.
Norwich seems a metropolis compared to where we’ve been during the previous few days. It’s a place I know a little as my friends used to live here.
We take a few snaps of the cathedral and a chatty woman shows us the nest birds of prey have built high up the spire - a wooden shelf having been constructed for their benefit. The sun then comes out for a short while.
Patterson sketched a couple of places in Norwich and we soon find them.
The cobbled street Elm Hill hasn’t changed and neither has Strangers’ Hall, a 700-year-old building where mayors and dignitaries once lived. It’s now a museum.
We make our way into the front yard and take a snap, the flagstones and oak front door enclosed with high brickwork.
We don't take too long as time isn't on our side and we opt to get a train from Norwich east to Great Yarmouth to save an hour or two.
Yarmouth is famed (or was) as a seaside town, but it was once an important port. There were hundreds of Rows – ancient alleys just a few feet wide – running towards the sea that traders used to wheel barrows. However, many have been lost due to redevelopment, and once off the train we ride to find some of those that remain - ones that Patterson sketched.
Up until around 1800, the Rows got named after local people - merchants, landlords of pubs etc - and then had numbers allocated. The highest Row number was 145.
We start our search near Yarmouth's sea front, which is vacant, but there are souvenir shops and places open selling plastic buckets and spades. The beach is a vast swath of nice sand, but there's not a sole to be seen on it. The weather doesn't help.
It's windy and cool and like many British resorts, it seems the crowds of holidaymakers that flocked here some 40 years ago are unlikely to ever return.
We dine on fish and ships and then search for the Rows that Patterson drew. A postman says he doesn't know if the ones I want to find still exist and we can’t trace them and know the train back towards Norwich leaves soon, so give up.
I've arranged to meet an aunt of mine and know it’ll be early evening by the time we get there. She lives in a village called Acle. Luckily, it has a small train station.
Today's ride: 30 km (19 miles)
Total: 3,850 km (2,391 miles)
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