North Walsham
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North Walsham is a large market town situated in north east Norfolk -
approximately five miles from the coast.

St. Nicholas Church
Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) In Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes story The Dancing
Men - Holmes and Watson take the train from North
Walsham to Riding Thorpe. (The fictional village of
Riding Thorpe is probably a composite of Ridlington and
Edingthorpe.) Here is
Watson's description of the landscape they see from the
train window:
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'...yet there was much to interest us, for we were
passing through as singular a countryside as any in
England...on every hand enormous square-towered churches
bristled up from the flat green landscape and told of
the glory and prosperity of old East Anglia. At last the
violet rim of the German ocean appeared over the
green edge of the Norfolk coast...' |
In the story Holmes cracks a code composed of dancing,
pin men - an idea which Conan Doyle picked up while
staying at the Hill House pub in
Happisburgh in 1903.
George Borrow (1803-81)
In Lavengro (1851) George Borrow records a boxing
match which takes place in North Walsham on 17th July
1820. Borrow's father was a pugilist.
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'I think I now see them upon the bowling-green, the men
of renown, amidst hundreds of people with no renown at
all, who gaze upon them with timid wonder. Fame, after
all, is a glorious thing, though it lasts only for a
day. There's Cribb, the champion of England, and perhaps
the best man in England; there he is, with his huge,
massive figure, and face wonderfully like that of a
lion. There is Belcher, the younger, not the mighty one,
who is gone to his place, but the Teucer Belcher, the
most scientific pugilist that ever entered a ring, only
wanting strength to be, I won't say what. He appears to
walk before me now, as he did that evening, with his
white hat, white greatcoat, thin, genteel figure,
springy step, and keen determined eye.' |
The Paston SchoolThe town is also home to The Paston (Grammar) School - which was
founded in 1606 by Sir William Paston. Distinguished
'Old Pastonians' include Lord Nelson (and his brother), Stephen Fry, Allan Smethurst - The
Singing Postman and Keith Skipper. Today, it is still an educational
establishment - namely Paston College.

Paston School Gate
Sir William Paston and the Rev Michael Tilles (the
school's first teacher) are both remembered in the
school song:
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Sir William Paston, he up and said
The Norfolk lads, I am sore afraid,
Have overmuch liberty
Come hither Rev Michael Tylles,
and into their heads we'll hammer
Godly learning to guide their wills
Arithmetic, writing and grammar. |
Sir William
Paston - a descendant of the letter-writing Pastons -
has a magnificent tomb inside St. Nicholas' Church.

Sir William Paston, St. Nicholas Church
Stephen Fry
In his autobiography Moab Is My Washpot Stephen
Fry describes how he hated being at Paston School and
how he played truant. (He was sent here by his parents
after being expelled from Uppingham.)
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'Paston School lived up to all my prejudices, as things
always will to the prejudiced. I did not take to the
place one bit. I can remember barely anything about it,
except that it was there that I started to smoke and
there that I learned to play pinball: not within the
school grounds, but within the town of North Walsham.
For within a very short space of time I started to cut
the school dead. I would get on the Cawston bus and
dismount at either Aylsham or North Walsham and then
head straight for a cafe and spend the day pinballing,
listening to records by Slade, the Sweet, Wizzard, Suzi
Quatro and smoking interminable Carlton Premiums, Number
Sixes and Embassy Regals.' |
Links:
Paston College
St. Nicholas' Church
More Paston Family Photographs
Read a Paston
Letter
Paston
Heritage Society |
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