Some more recent travel adventures for you, this time to Norfolk. We left home slightly later than we might have, as I began the day by chatting to the lovely Helen Tovey of Family Tree Magazine, making a recording that will be available on their website. Then the inevitable lengthy, cross-country drive. We arrived at our caravan site in Thetford Forest about 5pm and had time for a quick walk in the forest.

A holiday isn’t a holiday without some family history so, the following day, we set off westwards across the county to Aylsham, the birthplace of my great great grandmother. The landscape was what you would expect from Norfolk, flat, large fields and the vernacular brick and flint cottages; there seem to be plenty of new housing developments on the edge of settlements. Having parked somewhere that probably wasn’t a parking space we looked at Aylsham church, then investigated the marketplace, where my ancestor had a grocer’s and draper’s shop in the 1830s.

Next to Felbrigg Hall, a National Trust property, built in the 1620s by John Wyndham, on the site of an earlier house. It was subsequently added to by later generations. The house passed to a step-son, who changed his name to Windham but the estate was lost by the profligate William Frederick Windham, who married a woman of dubious reputation and then lavished thousands of pounds worth of jewellery on her. His uncle’s attempt to have him declared a lunatic failed. The property was sold, complete with contents, in 1863 and coincidentally found its way back to a Wyndham descendant through marriage.

Our first port of call was the church, to try to identify John’s memorial trees that were planted nearly thirty years ago. At the time, it was easy to spot them, as they were the only young oaks in the vicinity. Now it is a little more tricky. Just how large should a thirty year old oak tree be?

We walked round the extensive walled garden. I thought it was a shame that there were so many more recently introduced non-native plants on show but it was impressive. In order to sit down, we forced ourselves to eat cake (me) and a bacon butty (my comrade in arms). There was a handy undercover outside space for this purpose. It had been drizzling all day and it seemed that everyone wanted to be undercover, so there were large queues, both for the café and the house itself. Although we had avoided indoor public spaces up until now, we decided we would go round the house, especially as almost everyone was wearing masks. As a glasses wearer, this does actually mean I can’t see where I am going, as despite purchasing masks described as ‘anti-fog’, I still steam up. I did discover that I could alleviate this by walking round holding my nose. Holding my breath also works but clearly this is not sustainable for more than a few seconds. Holding my nose not only makes me looks slightly ridiculous but comes with its own issues. I am contemplating purchasing one of those nose clips, as worn by synchronised swimmers.

The highlights of the house for me were, of course, the library, with thousands of volumes, including many travel books, brought back by a Windham after an extended Grand Tour. I did wonder how many had ever been read.  The ‘enlightened’ family provided a library of twenty five books for their servants. This did seem a bit underwhelming, given the size of their own library. The eighteenth century Chinese wallpaper was also interesting. Apparently it was peeled off the walls and sent to Cambridge for cleaning, before being reapplied. There was also some floor-covering on a bathroom, that had what appeared to be a nursery rhyme theme. As usual, the servants’ quarters had their appeal. A quick look round the second-hand book shop led to the obligatory purchases, including a book by a friend of mine.

With a months’ rainfall forecast for the late afternoon, we decided walking round Cromer might be best left for another day. We did drive in to see where the sea would have been if it wasn’t masked by heavy cloud. Cromer was gridlocked with those who had taken to their cars to escape the rain, so we resolved to return later in the week if we have time. The evening saw the first of a series of planned, how easy is it to Zoom using pretty ropey caravan site wifi? experiments. Possible it seems, as long as you don’t want to say anything or be seen.