Hidden East Anglia:

Landscape Legends of Norfolk & Suffolk

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Garboldisham:

Soldier's Hill & Devil's Ditch

Garboldisham Heath is covered with earth works from the Bronze Age, plus Roman and Saxon. Several Bronze Age round barrows are said to be the graves of soldiers "killed in the wars".¹ Nearby is the two mile long Devil's Ditch, a Dark Age dyke flanked by low banks, little of which can now be seen. "Soldiers used to lie in it when they fought in the wars", said W. G. Clarke.² One of the barrows, called Soldier's Hill, is said to be Boudicca's grave ( TL992821).

Sources:

1. L.V.Grinsell: 'Folklore of Prehistoric Sites in Britain' (David & Charles, 1976), p.133.
2. W. G. Clarke: 'In Breckland Wilds' (Robert Scott, 1925), p.190.

Geldeston:

The Geld Stone

In the garden of Geldeston Lodge (TM397921) is a small sandstone rock 18 inches x 2 feet x 18 inches high, known to some as the Geld Stone (though it's likely this was invented by an antiquarian to account for the name of the village). It once stood at a threeways junction called The Clumps (TM399919), and led the way to Dunburgh Hill. Legend says that it was where the local populace paid the 10th century Danegeld.

Around 1900, children of the Thornhill family, who then owned the Lodge, uprooted the stone for fun and loaded it onto a cart. After setting it up in their own garden, they garlanded it with flowers and did 'pagan' dances around it. My informant told me that "we were told the story [of the Danegeld] when we came to the village in 1921, and my mother probably helped to perpetuate it by writing a play for us and the village children about the Danes coming upriver and demanding 'gelt', which we acted in our own grove with a makeshift stone not long after".¹ (In fact the Danegeld was a tax levied by the Normans to 'buy off' the Vikings - the Danes never collected it themselves).

Some confusion exists though, since both the Geld Stone and Stockton Stone have been claimed for the site of paying the Danegeld. To add to this, one local man stated that the Geld Stone had been removed from the rear of the Wherry Inn in the 1970s, but I was never able to confirm this.² Also, the gardener at the Lodge told me that it had always been at The Clumps before being taken straight to the garden.³

Sources:

1. Letter to me from Miss Elisabeth Crowfoot of Geldeston.
2. Keith Payne of Stockton, in the 'Waveney Clarion', Vol.1, No.6, p.3.
3. Information given to me by Mr. Garland of Geldeston Lodge.

Gillingham:

Deadman's Lane

Deadman's Lane runs between Geldeston Road and Folly Corner, and is said to be named after a man who allegedly starved himself to death in a ditch there.

Source:

The South Norfolk Council website: www.eastspace.net/gillingham/

The haunted gate

"There is a haunted gate which will not stay shut on the meadows near the old Tithe Barn, sometimes called the Old Chapel because it has a window rather like a church window".

Source:

The South Norfolk Council website: www.eastspace.net/gillingham/

Secret Tunnel

The parish contains the site of a 'lost village' known as Wyndale or Windle. In the angle between the roads leading from Gillingham to Haddiscoe and Aldeby is a gravel pit, known locally as Church Hole (TM426931), that is said to be the site of Wyndale's church of St. Andrew. A little distance away is Windlehill Farm (TM424934) which, according to Emma Thornhill, "is supposed to have a secret passage to the river which can be traced by the hollow sounds when a horse is ridden over it". A bricked-up doorway in the cellar is pointed to as the tunnel entrance, while the farm itself is said to be haunted, possibly by the ghosts of smugglers.

Source:

Emma Thornhill: 'Historical Rambles in East Anglia' (Sydney Lee Ltd, 1924), p.59.

Gorleston:

The Gull Stones

At approximately TM524035 is said to have once stood a stone circle, the only one known in East Anglia. These "ten huge stones, like unto those of Stonehenge", were situated in a field called either 'Stone-close' or 'Stone-piece', a site now covered by a housing estate. They were known as the 'Gull Stones', but this is probably a piece of folk-etymology. Here the Druids supposedly gathered to watch the midsummer sun rise out of the eastern sea. The stones were "removed by vandalistic bands" in 1768, the remains being used to form an early harbour pier.

 
C. J. Palmer in 1875 said "there is a tradition that the Druids had a temple at Gorleston, some remains of which existed down to a comparatively recent period. It is supposed to have stood on a field next the road to Lowestoft, upon what is called Great Stone Close; and it has been asserted that some huge stones remained standing until 1768, when they were destroyed by digging round their base and dragging them down by ropes. There are also two fields called Further Stone Close and Middle Stone Close, so that it is possible the Druidical circle, if it ever existed, may have had a wide extent". (A modern road still exists nearby by the name of Middlestone Close, but the rest of the area has been obliterated by the A12 Inner Relief Road).

Palmer seemed to infer that the 10 foot high stones may have existed solely in the imagination of W. E. Randall, who was editor of the short-lived 'Gorleston and Southtown Magazine' in 1831, and died in 1855. But at a meeting of the Yarmouth branch of the Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological Society in 1888, a painting of the 'Gull Stones' was displayed, then in the possession of Fred Danby Palmer.

Sources:

C. J. Palmer: 'Perlustration of Gt. Yarmouth' (George Nall, 1875), Vol.3, p.307.

R. H. Teasdel: 'A History of Gorleston' (Powell & Co, 1933), pp.6-7.

A. W. Ecclestone: 'A Yarmouth Miscellany' (private, 1974), pp.17, 31.

The Lily Pit

By the side of the main Gorleston to Beccles road (now the A143) used to be a deep pond, near the former Ottey's Farm, known as the Lily Pit (approx.TG518049). A cottage of the same name still stands, but the actual farm site is now occupied by residential houses. At midnight a phantom pony and trap used to thunder along the road and disappear into the water. 

Three legends have been told to account for the apparition: 

1) A mail-coach missed the road one night and careered into the pit, vanishing forever. 

2) A young farm-hand eloped with his master's daughter, but she fell into the pool and drowned. In remorse, the lad hanged himself on a nearby tree. 

3) The Lily Pit was the well of 'Old Canoba', an ancient chieftain who traditionally had a castle close by.

Each of these legends seems to have had some basis in fact. In 1888 a man named James Keable blundered into the pit one night when riding home in the fog and his body was never recovered. A Gorleston man went mad after his only daughter was lost in the pool, hanging himself from an oak tree which stood there till the 1930s. Plus, in 1892, a skeleton was unearthed there which rested on paved flints, and was said to have all the appearances of an 'early British burial'.

Sources:

W. B. Gerish: 'Norfolk Folklore & Miscellaneous Notes on General Folklore' (unpublished, 1898), p.171.

The 'Yarmouth Mercury', May 26th 1950.

N. I. Shelton: 'Gt. Yarmouth Ghost Walk' (private, 1983), p.16.

Information gratefully received from Mark Dyball.

Secret tunnel

The Rev. Forbes Phillips, referring to the vicarage in the High Street, wrote in 1909: "I live on a part of the coast that is nearest to Holland, and therefore conveniently situated for running the 'stuff', and I live in a house that was constructed with a view not only of the Yarmouth Roads and the North sea, but a further one of plundering the Revenue, and with the definite object of conveniences for this particular work. Beneath my feet as I write are large and roomy cellars, once used for the storage of imported goods, and until a few years ago a subterranean passage connected these with a landing-stage by the waterside; and let full truth be told, the designer of all was the vicar of the parish, and this house was, and is still, the vicarage".

Source:

Athol Forbes: 'The Romance of Smuggling' (1909).

Great Bircham:

The Bircham Common mounds

A group of four Bronze Age Barrows (TF775310 area) on the common are said to have been "thrown up by soldiers". Two of these bell barrows were opened by W. C. Lukis in 1842, revealing that one held an inverted urn with cremation, while the other had probably been robbed, yielding only a fragment of pottery. One of these mounds was also where the Court for Smethdon Hundred met.

Source:

L. V. Grinsell: 'Folklore of Prehistoric Sites in Britain' (David & Charles, 1976), p. 133.

Great Melton:

The Blow Hill pit

At Coldblow or Blow (now Bow) Hill, in a field divided from the river Yare by a carr alongside which the old Norwich Road ran, there was once a water-filled pit, said to be bottomless. Each midnight and noon a coach with four horses, headless coachman and carrying four headless women in white, would rise from the pond, travel round a nearby field and silently go back into the pit. 

Tradition says that long ago a wedding party going along the old Norwich Road accidentally careered into the pond and vanished. (A similar tale is told of an unlocated pit in a field near Bury St. Edmunds).

This was said to be not far from the Great Melton Beech, once at the end of Bow Hill Lane, under which the ghost of a woman would sit at midnight, in great distress and rocking a child back and forth.

Sources:

W. B. Gerish: 'Norfolk Folklore' (unpublished, 1892), pp.48-9.

The 'East Anglian Handbook' (1885), p.80.

Great Yarmouth:

The Devil's Seat

In 1582 a huge 'northern sperm whale' was washed up on the beach at Caister-on-Sea. The skull and part of the vertebra were made into a chair, originally known as the Whalebone Seat, and moved to outside St. Nicholas' church (TG524081) at Yarmouth. "When the old Guildhall occupied the site of the present church gates", says C. J. Palmer, "this bone was placed beside it, and acquired the name of the 'Devil's Seat'." He adds that, "in 1606, the churchwardens expended eight shillings in painting it".

For nearly 200 years it stood there, earning its name by the dark prophecy that it would bring deadly disaster to whoever sat in it. When the Guildhall was demolished, the seat was moved to a spot in the church, a niche by the west door. Its powers of doom had gone by then, because a superstition had arisen among the fisherfolk that, after a wedding, whichever of the newly-married couple was first to sit in it, he or she was destined to rule the home.¹

During World War Two the church was virtually destroyed by bombing, and it was thought the seat had gone with it. But I came across a note written in November 1942 saying that although burnt and thrown out with the rubbish, the parish clerk had rescued the seat.²

Sources:

1. C. J. Palmer: 'The Perlustration of Gt. Yarmouth' (G. Nall, 1872-5), p.48.
2. P. E. Rumbelow, in the 'Transactions of the Suffolk Natural History Society', Vol.5 (1942-5), pp.131-2.

The crock of gold

The British Archaeological Association held their 36th annual meeting at Yarmouth in 1879, and on page 84 of their report speak of a lost treasure there. The vicar gave them a lecture in St. Nicholas' church (TG524081) on its history, and the report ends that "most of all he (the vicar) would be glad to know where to find that crock of gold, whose value was not less than 30 or 40,000 pounds, to be laid out in the completion of the church; and of all of which he would like to have the fingering!"

The crooked spire

A former oddity of St. Nicholas' church (TG524081) was the crooked steeple: 'Whichever way you turned your eye, it always seemed to be awry', was the popular rhyme. The spire was taken down at the beginning of the 19th century, but not before two tales had grown up about it. 'When an old maid dies, the steeple nods', they said, and backed it up by reference to the burial registers of the 1600s, where is written "Jayne Hart, a mayde", and "Elizabeth Austen, an old mayde", and that was when the spire became bent, they claimed. Others said with a sly wink that it became crooked "through a virgin having once been married there". The spire was actually hit and twisted by lightning in 1683, taken down in 1803, and a new one finally built in 1807.

Sources:

E. R. Suffling: 'History and Legends of the Broad District' (Jarrold & Sons, 1891), p.162.

Walton Dew: 'A Dyshe of Norfolke Dumplings' (Jarrold & Sons, 1898), p.90.

Bloody Queen Mary

For reasons unknown, there used to be a legend that, if you ran round the 18th century St. George's churchyard three times without stopping and shouted 'Bloody Queen Mary!', then the face of Mary Tudor would appear at the nearest window. This tradition was apparently current in the late 1800's.

Source:

W. B. Gerish: 'Norfolk Legends' (unpublished notes, c. 1914.)

Secret tunnel

It's common local knowledge that an underground passage runs from St. Nicholas' church (TG524081) to 'the priory' - but which one I don't know, as there were once four in the town.

The vanishing treasure

Only a few are left of the 145 narrow alleyways called 'rows' that once scored the old town of Great Yarmouth. In one of these, Money Office Row, a chest of treasure was said to be buried, that had the habit of disappearing every time anyone came near to dig it up.

Source:

W. B. Gerish: 'Norfolk Folklore Collections' (unpublished, 1916-18).

Gresham:

Secret tunnels

Gresham Cross (TG181388) is a tall wayside cross on the parish boundary with Aylmerton, that was said to be a guide to Walsingham. Three roads meet here, and a rough track heading westwards is said to have been part of the pilgrim's way heading to the holy shrines to be found there.

A tunnel is rumoured to lead from the cross to the ruins of the 13th century priory at Beeston Regis, and within it is said to be hidden a 'Golden Calf'. J. Cox however, writing in 1885, adds an extra dimension to the legend. After saying that the cross "is spoken of as marking the place, where religious meetings were held in times gone by", he goes on to claim that the tunnel really runs "from the ruined Castle at Gresham, underneath the Cross, to Beeston Abbey. In this passage, a golden image, shaped like a calf, is said to be lost."

Cox goes on to relate how "sixty years ago, a 'cunning man' was engaged by an old lady to search underneath her property in the parish of Gresham, for this calf. A pit was sunk in the old lady's parlour, about a quarter of a mile from the cross, and hundreds of loads of soil excavated, without any result. As the excavators began to undermine the adjoining property, belonging at that time to Admiral Luken, of Felbrigg Hall, a stop was put to further proceedings, and the golden calf still remains to be found".

The 'castle' at Gresham is often called Chaucer's Castle (TG166381), but it was actually a manor house fortified in 1319 by its owners, the Bacon family. They sold it to Thomas Chaucer, son of the famous writer, who in turn handed it over to the well-known Norfolk family, the Pastons. Its tumbled remains lie overgrown in a heavy coppice just off the road, near the Chequers pub. (See also Baconsthorpe).

In 1844 though, the moat was cleaned out, leading to the disclosure of the remains of a timbered draw-bridge, and the alleged entrance to a tunnel. Walton Dew describes another tunnel from the castle, so which entrance this would be I don't know. This one is supposed to leave by way of the moat for the round-towered parish church of All Saints (TG167385), and then virtually double-back on itself to head for St. Andrew's church (TG167371) in nearby Bessingham parish.

Sources:

'The East Anglian, or Notes & Queries', Vol.1 (1885-6), p.60.

Walton Dew: 'A Dyshe of Norfolke Dumplings' (Jarrold & Sons, 1898), p.109.