East Anglia 2

Here are a few drawings from the trip to East Anglia.  The plans (mentioned last week) changed somewhat:  the Beccles / Saxmundham / Aldeburgh day became Cambridge; the Winterton / Cromer day became Bury St. Edmunds.  Both were my first visit, and there was more to see in Great Yarmouth.

A group of us visited Eltham Palace, outside London, for its odd mixture of Tudor and Art Deco.  I hadn't noticed Gilbert Ledward's 1930s stone carvings set above the porch, representing mountain climbing, sports, gardening and seafaring.

Drawings from Cambridge, Bury St. Edmunds, Great Yarmouth and London.

In Cambridge the exams were ending.  We saw students soaking each other with champagne and later heading out to dinners in matching jackets.  I was sitting on a shaded bank, drawing King's College Chapel and the tops of punting poles, when I heard a soft American voice saying "Don't move an inch...":  she wanted to photograph the artist for her daughter's "Anglophile scrapbook".

Cambridge:  one of the rooms in the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

Great Yarmouth's characteristic layout, scores of long, narrow, parallel alleyways ("rows") leading away from the quay, is still partially intact.  In the aftermath of heavy wartime bombing, many features dating back to the 17th Century were found hidden behind later walls.  A lot of the material was gathered together in a few semi-restored Row Houses.  It's a surprisingly large collection with a lot to enjoy, from elaborate plaster ceilings to hard-hat cellars.  The attendant dashed through after us to hang out the authentic washing on the line in the yard.

Great Yarmouth Row Houses:  the inside is all like this.

Sadly, the Olympia Cafeteria is no more.  It was a palace of pink and yellow plastic on Marine Parade with every kind of lowbrow seaside food.  Its navy-and-brown replacement might be just the same but I just don't want to find out.  We went to Las Palmas Cafeteria instead.