Hidden East Anglia:

Landscape Legends of Norfolk & Suffolk

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Secret tunnel

A tunnel is said to run from Caistor Camp (TG230035 area) to Arminghall church (TG252043). 'Golden gates' are also said to be buried deep down near the Roman camp, but whether or not these are connected to the tunnel, I don't know.

Source:

W. B. Gerish: 'Norfolk Folklore Collections' (unpublished, 1916-18), Vol.4, pp.57-8.

Caston:

Secret tunnel

An underground passage is believed to run from Holy Cross church (TL960976) to either the 15th century cross-base on the green, or to Church Farm TL958975), but no traces have ever been found. Both the cross and the farm (once a refectory, with signs of arcading still visible in the walls) were temporary stations for pilgrims on the route to Walsingham.

Source:

John S. Barnes: 'A History of Caston, Norfolk' (private, 1974.)

Cockley Cley:

The turning milestone

"I well remembered how frightened we children were of a certain milestone on the Gooderstone road which turned round....when Swaffham church bells chimed."

Source:

Letter in the 'East Anglian Magazine', Vol.8, No.8 (April 1949), p.427.

Costessey:

St. Walstan's Well

On its journey from Taverham to Bawburgh, an ox-cart bearing the body of the 10th century saint Walstan passed over the river Wensum by Taverham bridge, and into Costessey Wood. Soon it came to a little stream (the river Tud), where the cart rode on the surface of the water, then came to the crest of a hill in the wood. Here the oxen rested, and a stream of pure water welled up. St. Walstan's Well (TG153114) had dried up by the end of the 18th century, but the site is in Costessey Park in the Long Dale, beside a path at the edge of a wood. The 1832 OS map marks it as 'Walsam's Wells.'

Source:

Mark Knights: 'Peeps at the Past' (Jarrold & Son, 1892), p.68.

W. A. Dutt: 'Highways & Byways in East Anglia' (Macmillan & Co, 1923), pp.159, 161.

The ghost in the tree

A tall white figure was said to come out of a vanished old ash tree here, walk up and down the road towards Letton Hall, then vanish at midnight.

Source:

W. B. Gerish: 'Norfolk Folklore Notes' (unpublished, 1890-93), p.26.

Cromer:

Secret tunnels

I was told of a smuggler's tunnel from the church of St. Peter and St. Paul (TG220422) at Cromer, running ½ a mile south-west to Cromer Hall (TG215417), built in 1827 and once the seat of the famous Norfolk family, the Windhams.¹

Ivan Bunn was informed of a tunnel "which went underneath the Cromer church and came out in the yard (Butchers now I think) opposite where the cinema is now".²

Source:

1. Information from Phillip Visser.

2. Letter from Mr. J. H. Harrison of Spalding to Ivan Bunn, 4/5/1976.

Crostwick:

Thunderbolts and a queen

An oak of "remarkable age and size" once stood on the common not far from St. Peter's church (TG258159), which was "struck no less than 3 times by a thunderbolt", and attached to it was a vague tradition that "a Queen of England" once held her royal court beneath its branches.

Source:

James Grigor: 'The Eastern Arboretum' (Longman, Brown, Green & Longmans, 1841), p.336.

Croxton:

Fowlmere

Fowlmere (TL879895 area) straddles the boundary between Croxton and East Wretham, and was possibly one of the waterholes used by travellers on the old Drove Road that runs by it. W. G. Clarke quotes a tale collected by J. D. Salmon in 1834 from a man who had lived nearby 40 years before, and who "walked around the mere every Sunday. His grandfather remarked that when the mere is very high, wheat is dear, and on the contrary when the water is low". (See also Wicken Pond and  Barton Mere).

Source: