A Norfolk village (2)

Another village visited in the margins of Houghton was Castle Rising, a famous rotten borough, variously home to Nicholas L'Estrange, Samuel Pepys and Robert Walpole, the first mentioned of whom I manged to confuse with Lestrade - but I at least I am not the first so to do. See if you can spot the connection to http://www.bucpower.com/.

We went there to see the famous castle, built by one D'Albini who got rich by marrying the widow of Henry I - a widow who eventually got so fed up with his parvenu ways that she retired to a continental nunnery. His father had been butler to either the Conqueror or his son Rufus, a reminder of the days when personal service of this sort was regarded as honourable; a far cry from the sort of people who wind up as palace servants these days. A castle which we had last seen in 2009 - see August 26th of that year in the other place. A castle which was impressive in rather the same way as that at Rochester (see April 28th) but which, we were reminded, was actually based on the roughly contemporary Norwich castle. A castle, furthermore, which having fallen into the clutches of the Howard family, wealthy or entrepreneurial enough to hang on to their built heritage, has not fallen into the clutches of either the National Trust or English Heritage. Part of the Howard Heritage Family, along with Arundel Castle and Howard's End.

On to the noted hat shop to see what they could do against an uncoming wedding, part of the Unique Family (see http://www.uniquegiftsandinteriors.co.uk/), a place which not only had a fine selection of hats, but which also had staff who took time to show them off to you. With the result that, after a proper amount of toing & froing, we bought one. We decided against visiting the impressive looking tea rooms which were also part of the same Family.

From there to the church, apparently built at about the same time as the castle, but sympathetically restored in the 19th century. Interesting tower with a pitched roof over the crossing. Interesting stone detailing inside and out. Very impressive west front.

We had opened the day by a visit to Congham Hall Hotel, which, amongst other attractions had a tractor in a shed from before the days when Mr. Massey met Mr. Fergusson, very possibly of the kind known as little grey fergies. And we closed the day with a visit to a farm shop where, for once in a while, we purchased some double lamb chops to be grilled for tea. There were also some good looking pork pies which we turned up on this occasion and, sadly, never got back to.