Pennoyers

The Pennoyer Centre, Pulham St. Mary, Norfolk after its transformation into a well-loved community space.

In the Middle Ages, East Anglia was a rich wool-producing area and hat-making was the principle line of work in villages known as The Pulhams, where tucked away, is a link back to a time in history when life, for most of the populace, was largely controlled by landlords and the Church.

Situated in Pulham St. Mary, present-day Pennoyer Centre is built around a unique little flint chapel which highlights the importance the wool trade and religion once held in all walks of life in East Anglia.

In 1401 a wealthy team of local 'hatters, cappers and hurers*' formed a guild and raised the Chapel in dedication to St. James, the patron saint of hatters. It supported a hermit priest, paid for by the contributions of the members. Here he conducted masses and prayed for their souls. This continued until the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII in 1547.

The chapel thereafter gradually fell out of use until in 1674 William Pennoyer a rich Puritan merchant who traded cloth, sugar and tobacco, established a trust in his will to pay for a master to teach his tenants’ sons, as well as fatherless boys from the surrounding villages. He extended the building when he opened Pennoyer’s Free School and it was further enlarged by the Victorians in 1870. This educational establishment remained operational until 1988. Thereafter the somewhat hap-hazard amalgamation of buildings that had served the community for more than 600 years, slipped into decline, and I well remember seeing the sad little site many years ago.

Dilapidated buildings abutting the Medieval Guild Chapel of St. James the Less, Pulham St. Mary

Undaunted, a team of local volunteers set about saving the iconic chapel that lay within its heart, and in 2009, the newly restored Pennoyer Centre was opened to the public once more. And what a transformation it is! A skillful blend of ancient flintwork, Victorian brick and modern-day glass and steel, married successfully to carry it forth into the next few hundred years. It houses offices, a thriving café and in a nod to its educational

past, a super little museum, much of which is dedicated to another industry that took over the area in more recent times with the building of airships, known affectionately as 'The Pulham Pigs' and I will tell that fascinating story in a separate article.

St. James the Less, Patron Saint of Hatters, is usually depicted holding the fullers club with which he was beaten to death.

St. James the Less, son of Alphaeus was a disciple of Jesus, thought to be a cousin by the sister of the Virgin Mary. His feast day is 3rd May, and he is usually depicted holding a fullers club. Fullers cleansed and whitened raw wool and finished felted cloth, the malodorous early processes necessarily taking place away from general habitation as soiled wool was steeped in barrels of putrid urine, then trampled and beaten to release dirt and oil. Much rinsing in ponds and streams was required in order to leave the product either pure white, or ready for dyeing.

In the 1570’s to 1590’s a law was passed that all Englishmen except nobles had to wear a woollen cap to church on Sundays, part of a government plan to support the important wool industry which raised significant taxes, hence the significance of the Woolsack in the House of Commons.

* Hurers were makers and sellers of caps. It is suggested they made shaggy caps or worked with hair as well as wool..

www.pennoyers.org.uk]

Designing for the Internet

Sea, Land or Sky?

April, 2022

In the earlier part of the year, I visited a local artist's studio, open for the day, and was impressed by the array of neatly-presented photo books showing off her artwork. The upshot was that I decided to gather together all my works from across the years and tidy them up!

I really enjoyed searching them out and recording them, and then thought I would put them to better use, so hit upon the idea of sharing some of them for product design. Hence my opening a shop with Redbubble and hopefully one or two more avenues.

I have spent many happy hours recording, adapting and creating new work for your pleasure and it's thrilling to think someone somewhere, (maybe you), will be wearing or displaying a little bit of my unique artistic output either on clothing or in your home.

So, go ahead, check out UbiArt on Redbubble. Happy hunting!

Virgina Creeper by Granny Bonnet

https://www.redbubble.com/people/UbiArt/shop?asc=u

I have over a hundred different designs on my site, ranging from representational to abstract. Hopefully there will be something in the collection to please you.

Village Signs

A small selection of East Anglian Village signs

A lovely feature of the towns and villages of East Anglia are their village signs. By far the most are situated in Norfolk which has some 500, with Suffolk not far behind. The rest of the growing 4,000 are distributed countrywide.

It was King Edward VII who first remarked, early in the 20th century, that village signs would add to travellers’ interest as they made their way around villages of the sprawling Sandringham Estate, the North Norfolk country retreat of the royals. He subsequently commissioned four from the Princess Alexandra School of Carving, and another three were added later.

This charming idea was promoted more widely by Prince Albert, Duke of York (later George VI) in a 1920 speech to the Royal Academy. This in turn led to a popular newspaper, The Daily Mail, setting up a prize-winning competition for village sign designs.

Back in Norfolk, art teacher Harry Carter of Hamond's Grammar School was approached to carve a sign for his home town of Swaffham, little realising that with that first effort, he started a ball rolling that would not stop until he was an old man who had made in excess of 200 of them!

​Many of those first oak signs have a charming naivety about them, inspired and funded as they were by small and enthusiastic village committees. Today as well as individual makers, there are businesses dedicated to their production, utilising different materials besides wood, their signs bringing to life in stunning visual form stories that make each village unique.

The Women’s Institute movement, so much a part of rural English communities, was highly significant in promoting village signs which were often incorporated at times of national festivities. There was a surge to mark the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953 and subsequently her Silver, Gold and Diamond jubilees. Other more local events are also marked.

It has become a popular leisure occupation for photographers both amateur and professional to ‘collect’ village signs and the internet has many fine examples to peruse. Granny can proudly go one further than that, because in the 1980’s she actually carved two village signs. One for Burgh St. Margaret and the other for Hellesdon, as well as restoring others.

Swanton Abbot Village Sign repainted by Granny, image credit Evelyn Simak

Long may the tradition endure, I say, as they have certainly done what Edward VII foresaw, that is, brought added interest to our journeyings around the beautiful countryside of East Anglia and England.

Hellesdon Village Sign (ancient side) before re-siting outside Village Hall.

2010 - final touches to 2nd repaint of double-sided Hellesdon Village Sign, originally carved to be  left natural and sited on Bull roundabout 1985.