King's Lynn

But a bit quiet now. I was there during a heat wave (“Oh, we never get heat waves…you must’ve brought it with you”), so it was difficult getting around and sleeping at night. It’s easy enough to get to on the train, with lots of charming little towns around it. The shopkeepers and hotel people are very charming, very interested in your comfort. And the biscuits (read: cookies) are marvelous!

Margery’s book (the first autobiography written in the English language) was my introduction to King’s Lynn. She was born there, married there, was a brewer there, and sometime after her thirteenth child was born, she had a religious experience after which she believed she was called to leave her husband and children and travel as a pilgrim. The church authorities of her own time thought she was a nut, and had it not been for the recognition of another medieval woman with a more socially-acceptable “call,” she might have ended in prison. Dame Julian of Norwich met her and approved of her, and so the frustrated priests and bishops had to put up with Margery.

Margery’s town in still there, a quiet little town with a much less quiet history. There is a Norman abbey church, built by one of William the Conqueror’s cronies, several very nice inns from medieval times and forward, a wonderful Shakespeare festival in the summer, and some fascinating buildings. To get there, take the train towards Cambridge, but don’t get off at Cambridge—just keep going until you run out of track.