St. Benedict, the patron of monks, has his monument in the form of a little ancient church with a little tower, round at the bottom and octagonal at the top, where three little jingling bells give notice of the hours of prayer.
St. Swithin, that famous prophet of wet weather,
has his memorial, too, not far distant. More have heard the old adage, “If it rain on St. Swithin’s day, there will be rain more or less for forty succeeding days,” than may have cared to trace its origin, which seems involved in some mystery. One authority tells us that St. Swithin was Bishop of Winchester, to which rank he was raised by Ethelwulf, the Dane; and when he died in 865, he was canonized by the pope. He had expressed a desire to be buried in the open church-yard, and not, as was usual with bishops, within the walls of the church: his request was complied with; but upon his being canonized, the monks took it into their heads that it was disgraceful for a saint to lie in the open church-yard, and resolved to remove his body into the choir, which was to be done in solemn procession on the 15th of July. It rained, however, so violently on that day, and for forty days succeeding, as “had hardly ever been seen,” which made them set aside their design as heretical and blasphemous; and instead, they erected a chapel over his grave, at which many miracles are said to have been wrought.
Another writer tells us that “St. Swithin, a holy bishop of Winchester, about the year 860, was called the weeping St. Swithin, for that, about his feast, Præsepe and Aselli, rainy constellations, arise cosmically, and commonly cause rain.” The legend attached
to its name is perhaps almost the only particular attraction of this little church.
The church of the holy St. Lawrence stands upon the spot of ground that in ancient days, when Norwich was a fishing town, was the quay or landing-place for all the herrings brought hither, the tithe of which was so considerable when it belonged to the bishops of the East Angles, that when Alfric, the bishop, granted the key staithe, with the adjoining mansion, to Bury Abbey, about 1038, the abbey, upon building the church, had a last of herrings reserved to it, to be paid them yearly. This last of herrings was compounded for by the celerer of the convent, about the time of Henry the Third, for a pension of forty shillings, which was annually paid until the time of Henry the Seventh, and then done away with, on account of the meanness of its profits.
On the sides of the arch of the door in the west are two carvings, one representing the martyrdom of St. Lawrence, the other that of St. Edmund, who is seen in a rather mutilated condition, (in more senses than one) his head lying at some distance in a parcel of bushes, while the Danes are shooting arrows into his body, alluding to that portion of the legend which says that when they could not kill him with arrows, Hunguar the Danish leader ordered them to smite off his head, and carry and throw it among the
thickest thorns of the adjacent wood, which they did; but a wolf finding it, instead of devouring it, kept it from all beasts and birds of prey, till it was found by the Christians and buried with his body, and that in a surprising manner.
In the fifteenth century, three “Sisters of Charity,” called the Sisters of St. Lawrence, dwelt in a tenement by the churchyard. In 1593, the copes were turned into pall cloths, and in 1643 the painted glass of the windows was smashed, and other considerable damage done to the ornamental fittings up of the building.
Near to the church is the well of St. Lawrence, the water of which is now conveyed to a pump; bearing this inscription upon it:—