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St Julian, Norwich
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St
Julian, Norwich The Canon of
Saints gives us two St Julians, one of whom was St Julian
of Le Mans, a martyred bishop who gives his name as the
dedication of that beautiful French city's cathedral. A
modern image of him is set on the wall inside this
church. But the other, St Julian Hospitaller, although
almost forgotten today, was a popular figure in medieval
legend. He was a nobleman who, out hunting one day,
spared the life of a deer which had admonished him. It
then went on to make the rather startling prediction that
he would kill his parents. By roundabout means, this
accidentally happened. Julian resolved to pay penance by
establishing a riverside inn for travellers, and a
hospital for the poor. So, he was an entirely appropriate
choice of patron for the medieval Priory established here
in the medieval suburb of Conesford on the banks of the
Wensum. It seems likely therefore that he was also the St
Julian to whom this little church is dedicated. Incidentally, Dame
Julian did not actually receive her visions in this
church. Some people are disappointed when they discover
this. In fact, we don't know who she really was at all.
She was a woman, of course, and probably of noble birth.
She fell ill in the 1370s, probably in one of the
outbreaks of the Black Death which carried off half
Norfolk's population between the late 1340s and the end
of the century. In her deathbed delirium she claimed she
received mystical visions, which she termed Revelations
of Divine Love. On her unexpected recovery, she was
received into holy orders, taking the name Julian, and
becoming an Anchoress. Thanks perhaps to the significance
of its most famous resident, it was the only one to be
rebuilt, and this was done in the 1950s according to its
original plan, except that the presumed site of Mother
Julian's cell was added as a transept, accessed through a
massive Norman doorway brought here from the bombed out
church of St Michael at Thorn. The steeply pitched roof
gives it an attractively rustic feel, and the Saxon
windows exposed by the bombing have been left as features
on the north side. The tower was left at a lower level,
and is now less-convincingly Norman than it was before
the bombing. The twelve-storey council block of Normandie Tower looms over the church, and in this challenging area it was fitting that a group of Anglican nuns from the Community of All Hallows at Ditchingham on the outskirts of Bungay should have set up a community beside the church in the 1950s. In the reorganisation of Norwich parishes, this is one of two churches in the new Parmentergate parish to survive as a working church - the other is St John Timberhill. You step into a clear, bright interior, crisp in its execution but already with the patina of ageing that half a century has brought. The view east is to the 1962 chancel, devotional and pleasing, full of light despite the lack of an east window. The Norman doorway on the south side of the nave came from St Michael at Thorn, a few hundred yard to the north-east, destroyed by the bombs and not replaced. George Plunkett photographed it in its original home in 1937. Today, it leads through into Mother Julian's cell, a quiet, surprisingly simple space with an altar and a small shrine on the north side. It is a lovely place to sit for a while. I remember one of my first visits
to St Julian some quarter of a century ago. I had just
arrived inside to hear whispered voices coming from the
south transept, when all of a sudden a nun came flying
out through the Norman doorway into the body of the
church. Not literally flying, of course, but she was
certainly fleet of foot. "Hello sister, is it all
right to have a look around?", I said, because it
seemed only polite to ask. The font I was photographing came from All Saints in the city centre, another example of the way in which surviving Norwich churches have been enriched by those that fell to redundancy. It is similar to one that was in St James, but which has now been moved to a church in Norwich's northern suburbs. There is another in the series at Stalham. It was brought here to replace a 15th century font with shields that was destroyed by the bombs. The beautiful vine work under the bowl echoes that on the seven sacrament font at Walsoken and on the Trunch font canopy. You can see both fonts below, the earlier one photographed in 1937 by George Plunkett. I do admire Anglican nuns. Over in
the Catholic Church there are thousands and thousands of
nuns, mostly now in plain clothes, all over the world.
They bestride the globe with their sleeves rolled up,
teaching, running hospitals, contemplating, suing for
peace in war zones, standing up to Bishops. One critic
described them as the shock troops of Vatican II. But at
least they know they are at the heart of their Church. Simon Knott, September 2019 Follow these journeys as they happen at Last Of England Twitter. You can see thousands of George Plunkett's other old photographs of Norwich on the Plunkett website |
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