St Benet's Lidar Images

[grendel]

The £1 coin will be inferred as a tribute to the larval stage, to keep them docile when they are unchained from the pack, this is supposed to work, but on occasions you will find that the larval trolley stage gets restless, usually accompanied by wobbling of the wheels and the inability to steer the beast in the direction you wish to take.......

[BroadScot]

55 minutes ago, grendel said:

The £1 coin will be inferred as a tribute to the larval stage, to keep them docile when they are unchained from the pack, this is supposed to work, but on occasions you will find that the larval trolley stage gets restless, usually accompanied by wobbling of the wheels and the inability to steer the beast in the direction you wish to take.......

Ah, in that case you get a Trolley App for that, don't you......

[Vaughan]

Excuse my absence, Timbo, but I have been doing some entertaining at home. A chance to talk of model railways instead of boats!

Your last "thesis" is most interesting and poses a lot of questions. I have been thinking of the religious history of this area as well as the geographical as this may explain a few things. Prior to the Viking invasion of 865, there was continuous internal strife between the Angles and the Saxons, which may have been the reason for the defensive earthworks (if they were defensive) and agrees with Timbo's feeling that they are a lot older than the abbey. The Holme was inhabited then but it is believed, probably as a hermitage.

The Danes created the "Danelaw" and also made a martyr of St Edmund (of St Edmundsbury), to whom the church in Thurne is dedicated. By the time Canute (Cnut) was made king the Danes had accepted Christianity and he founded the Benedictine abbey of St Benet at Holme in 1016. He also granted it the lands of the manors of Ludham, Horning and Neatishead. He also became a large benefactor of the church at Ludham, although the present church was built much later. So there are strong religious connections between the abbey and the surrounding villages.

This is why I think the earthworks were earlier than the abbey as it would not have needed to build defences across the middle of its own land. And defence against whom, at that time? At the dissolution of the monasteries, Henry VIII kept St Benets open (for some reason) and when Bishop Nyx of Norwich died, Henry appointed the Abbot as his successor, which strengthened even more, the ties between the abbey and the surrounding churches.

The marshes were reclaimed in the 12th century and one of the main revenues of the abbey was peat. This was dug from the land to the south of the river in the S Walsham to Ranworth area and would have to be transported north to the abbey and then north and west to Ludham and Horning. Hence the need for several roads, causeways and perhaps ferries, in the area.

Now as to the geography of the abbey itself :

The Norfolk Archaeological Trust have a dedicated website at www.stbenetsabbey.org

Click on the history page and this leads you to an animated film of what the abbey would have looked like in its heyday. I found it enlightening and I recommend a look at it.

 

On 15 Sep 2016 at 1:33 AM, Timbo said:

 

What immediately struck me was that the ditch leading around Cowholme to the north is shown as an important wide waterway, which the causeway crosses by way of a substantial footbridge. I have read that this was a defensive moat, which later became part of the drainage of St Benets Level, hence the building of two wind pumps - the existing remains and another at the other end of the ditch where it re-joins the Bure. Apparently the boundary walls around the abbey were not built until later, in the 13th century, but historians don't seem to know why!

Another important point is that the film, and all other drawings of the period I have seen, clearly shows a made-up road leading off the causeway at the bridge and going south along the west bank of what is now fleet dyke. So to me, it is likely that this road crossed the river where your yellow line joins Fleet Dyke from the south, by a ferry and maybe also a cattle swim. Meantime your yellow track goes on up to the bank opposite the abbey where there was almost certainly a ferry across to the landing quays shown in the film and where your red cross marks the finds.

With all the peat being dug and other farming, it is probable that more than one road would have been needed. In this respect I know that there was a ferry across the Thurne at St Benets Level Mill between the wars and this could well have existed in the old days.

I don't know whether this all helps or not! My eye still doesn't like the look of the course of that river. I can't see why it should meander gently round the bend up to the top of Fleet Dyke and then suddenly take a 90 degree kick to the east? Unless as Timbo says "It was the monks what done it". Cowholme being raised ground, the river would not have meandered further north, unless its original course was round the north of Cowholme anyway?

Perhaps we shall never know. . . .

[Timbo]

Hi Vaughan...toy trains? I'd better not tell you I've just skipped three carrier bags full of Hornby then?

I'm up to the eyeballs at the minute so will make a lengthier reply later but in the meantime I've set you some homework! 

 

[jillR]

cowholme cows ...

http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/maps/series?xCenter=3448429.16983&yCenter=2905620.81867&scale=63360&viewScale=22677.1776&mapLayer=land&subLayer=lus_stamp&title=Land Utilisation Survey of Britain&download=true

[Timbo]

 Dylan the Boats Beagle is normally a 'cool' boater. He parades up and down the deck wearing his lifejacket...of course only when he knows we are reaching areas tourists will be on hand for him to pose for photographs, no tourists and he goes back to bed. I say normally a cool customer. One very very early morning I was cruising single handed from Ludham to Wayford, Dylan in his usual spot...fat bum right in front of the windscreen when he belted from the top of the boat, onto the deck and into the cockpit where he frantically searched the galley before bursting through the doors from the cockpit into the forward cabins. The whites of his eyes showing with fear he burst through the forward single cabin and out again before battering the door down to my cabin, ripping the duvet off the bed, burrowing into the middle of it pulling it clean over his head and lay there shaking. The cause of his distress? One of those long horned big coo beasties on the upper stretch of the Ant had 'moo'd' at him. To this day he cowers between Wayford and Hunset!

[BroadScot]

A fearsome beastie , indeed,Tim ! 

Iain

[Vaughan]

Well Timbo, I have done my homework. You didn't tell me there were 5 parts!

I don't know how I missed that programme when it was televised, but it is fascinating, and it certainly "disses" the Romans! "I came, I saw and I buggered off again".

Great explanation of how swords were a badge of rank, given to lords by the king, and had to be returned when they died, or laid in the water. As Arthur, the king, had no lord, his sword Excalibur had to be returned to the Lady of the Lake. Have I got that right? And later on in history, I wonder where Hereward the Wake fits in?

Meantime I think you are suggesting that the earthworks near Horning are actually a prehistoric "drove-way" for the moving of livestock across the marshes.

I look forward to reading your next "take" on this!

[Timbo]

Ooh check you inbox Vaughan....but no King Arthur, just read numerous different local bully boy protection racketeers! 

[TheQ]

I've always thought that  the upper set of Blue dots should extend to just tot the right of the red X and the original course of the river was the white dots, how long ago this was I don't know, but it seems a much more likely case to me.

 The possible trackway would not then need a river crossing.

The section above and to the right of the red X  could be a much older canalisation  to make Cowholm much more defensible. Is there any sign of a bridge for the causeway to cross the Ant?, if not then this indicates that, that canalisation is a much later date..

[MauriceMynah]

Just to clarify one or rather two small points, King Arthur wasn't in Norfolk or indeed Suffolk,and certainly not Cornwall or Devon as is so often implied.. He was in Surrey for most of his time, further there was no "Round table" There was of course a table but it was of the standard rectangular shape being made of a wooden frame covered in pig skin.

Yes it is true that he and his knights (who were, as Tim so rightly states, a bunch of bully boys and thugs,) would meet 'round' this table to discuss where to go next to raise monies for the various campaigns that were to be embarked upon. In the event of disagreement between the knights, Arthur would slam his fist down on this table causing the pig skin so sound off like a large bass drum. It was the constrution of this table that caused this often misquoted legend when the good people of Surrey would talk about King Arthur and the Knights of the rind table.

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My turn to get my coat!

[Vaughan]

Of course I know there was no King Arthur (and for any Americans reading this, God didn't make little green apples either) but I was referring to the status of a sword in those days, and why they are nowadays found near ancient waters. The programme's point (for those who have watched it) was that there were no "dark ages" after the Romans. The British already had a sophisticated way of life, which continued more or less unchanged after the Romans departed - without clearing up all their broken pottery before-hand.

 

[Timbo]

42 minutes ago, MauriceMynah said:

Just to clarify one or rather two small points, King Arthur wasn't in Norfolk or indeed Suffolk,and certainly not Cornwall or Devon as is so often implied.. He was in Surrey for most of his time, further there was no "Round table" There was of course a table but it was of the standard rectangular shape being made of a wooden frame covered in pig skin.

Yes it is true that he and his knights (who were, as Tim so rightly states, a bunch of bully boys and thugs,) would meet 'round' this table to discuss where to go next to raise monies for the various campaigns that were to be embarked upon. In the event of disagreement between the knights, Arthur would slam his fist down on this table causing the pig skin so sound off like a large bass drum. It was the constrution of this table that caused this often misquoted legend when the good people of Surrey would talk about King Arthur and the Knights of the rind table.

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My turn to get my coat!

Could this explain the 'risen king' myth? That Arthur is just sleeping and when we need him he will return? Could it be that Arthur did bang so hard on the rind table small pieces of the hide flaked off, and we have a mistranslation with Arthur saying 'I will return' when he really said 'bacony bits'?

[grendel]

or maybe he left his grapes too long and they wrinkled up - thus discovering a new preserved food- so he was the raisin king.