Blo Norton

In the summer of 1906 Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) came to stay at Blo' Norton Hall. The hall, a moated Elizabethan manor, lies at the end of a long avenue of lime trees immediately before Blo' Norton Church.

The hall provided the setting for her short story The Journal of Miss Joan Martyn. In the story the main character, Rosamund Merridew, is a historian researching England's land-tenure system.

This part of Norfolk is particularly isolated and Woolf records in her diary the journey from Diss railway station:

'...every mile seemed to draw a thicker curtain than the last between you and the world. So that finally, when you are set down at the Hall, no sound whatever reaches your ear; the very light seems to filter through deep layers; and the air circulates slowly, as though it had but to make the circuit of the Hall, and its duties were complete.'

Virginia Woolf

In 1906 Prince Frederick Duleep Singh bought the hall and lived there for the last 20 years of his life. (He had previously lived at Breckles and Old Buckenham Hall.) Although not a writer, the Prince bequeathed a unique collection of Norfolk manuscripts to the county when he died - including papers belonging to the Yarmouth shoemaker poet David Service. The collection is now housed by the Norfolk Record Office.

Prince Frederick was the son of the Maharajah Duleep Singh who lived at nearby Elveden Hall. Frederick died in 1926 and is buried in the churchyard at Blo' Norton. There is also a memorial to him inside the church.

Both Elveden Hall and Blo' Norton are now on the Anglo-Sikh Heritage Trail.

Links:

Virginia Woolf Society

Anglo-Sikh Heritage Trail

The Little Ouse Headwaters Project

Search the Site

Supported by Norfolk Tourism

About Us | Poems by Cameron Self | Advertise on Literary Norfolk