As the good king Josiah, being tender of age,
Purged the realm from all idolatry,
Even so our noble Queen, and counsel sage,
Set up the Gospel and banished Popery.
At twenty-four years she began her reign,
And about forty four did it maintain.
Glory be given to God.
There were formerly brass effigies of John Gilbert and his wife, with seventeen of their children.
St. Peter’s Hungate, or Hounds’ Gate, owes its name to the fact of the hounds belonging to the bishop being formerly kept close by. The old church was demolished in 1458, and the new one, commenced the same year, was finished in 1460, as appears by the date in a stone on the buttress of the north door, where there is an old trunk of an oak, represented without any leaves, to signify the decayed church; and from the root springs a fresh branch with acorns on it, to denote the new one raised where the old one stood.
St. Michael at Plea takes its name from the Archdeacon of Norwich holding his pleas or courts in the parish; it has some curious panel paintings of the Crucifixion, Resurrection, the Lady of Pity, Judas, John and the Virgin, St. Margaret and the Dragon, St. Benedict and St. Austin.
In the church of St. Simon and St. Jude, is a
curious monument of a knight in armour, with a number of other figures grouped around the altar on which he lies. In this parish is the bridge where the “cucking stool” was wont to be kept, an instrument of punishment for “scolding and unquiet women,” of as ancient origin as the time of the Anglo Saxons; the offender was seated in a kind of chair, fixed at the end of a plank, and then ducked in the water; a cheating brewer or baker subjected himself to a similar degradation.
St. George’s Tombland, so called from the burial ground upon which it stood, has also some curious monuments; near it is a house, commonly called Sampson and Hercules Court, from two figures that formerly supported the portico, but which now stand in the court. The house was formerly owned by Sir John Fastolf, afterwards by the Countess of Lincoln, and in the time of Henry VII., by the Duchess of Suffolk.
“St. Martin’s at the Plain” stands close by the scene of the memorable battle between the rebels under Kett, where Lord Sheffield fell, and many other gentlemen and soldiers: the conflict lasted from nine o’clock on Lammas morning until noon. The World’s End lane leads hence to the dwelling of Sir Thomas Erpingham, long since transformed from a sumptuous mansion into the abode of poverty, its chambers subdivided and parcelled out, defaced and
disguised by whitewash and plaster, and yet more by the accumulations of dirt and decay; until it needs the microscopic vision of an archæologist to trace even its outline, among such a mass of confusion and rubbish.
“St. Helen’s,” which belonged to the monks, is now cut up into three parts, the choir being turned into lodgings for poor women, part of the nave and aisles into the same for poor men, while the intermediate portion is used for divine services. A charity that owns an annual income of £10,000, might, we think, find some better arrangements possible to be made. Kirkpatrick, the celebrated antiquarian, lies buried here. Over the south entrance to the church are these lines—