Roaming the Roman Ruins, then – Religion!

A piece of the Wall.

Today, Thursday, was a reasonable day of sun and cloud, so good for a bit of touristy stuff. Off to the north, to Carlisle, and then east to find the remains of the Roman ruins, Hadrian's Wall. There are only a few sections left partly standing, having been torn down over the last 1700 years for abbeys, churches, farmhouses, and fences. But still an interesting site/sight to see. We chose two of the old Roman Forts, of Birdoswald, and Housesteads, both very close to the centre of the country – in fact, we passed by the middle of the UK by only 1 mile. We walked around the forts and along portions of the wall. Others we met were walking the entire length of the wall – 77 miles! Our driving took us over some nice hilly, twisty roads - very popular with bikes roaring around the hairpin turns, and obviously enjoying the drive. Back by early evening, we cooked up some lamb chops for dinner and packed up our stuff for leaving the next morning.

Friday morning we left early (0700 is early for me), driving south to the town of Preston, on the outskirts of Manchester. The countryside became less hilly and more industrial and busy as we approached our destination. Here we hoped to track down some other ancestors at the Preston Records Office. We found the office thanks to the (almost) never-failing directions from Thomasina, the GPS, and were logged in researching the Parish Records by 0930. The entire day (until 1600, anyway) was spent looking at microfiche and microfilm documents, and copying the pertinent ones. We did find a few clues about my forebears here, but a day wasn't quite enough to be finished. A second day in Manchester probably would have helped. But....no such time! Back to check in to our hotel for the evening, which we'd located online for £29.00 per night (very reasonable). So far we've stayed in two Premier Inns, at this price, and find them extremely good value for the money. They also have a pub, with pub meals, also reasonably priced.

Saturday is not a good day for researching in archives, so we drove east and south across the country, bound for Norfolk County, where the Jarrell roots are to be found. This area has been a brick wall/dead end for my genealogical study so far, so hopefully we can make some progress here. Driving north/south in England is pretty straightforward, and most of the motorways and highways are set up for this, but east/west entails a lot of weaving and secondary roads. As we proceeded east, the hills disappeared, and by the time we were approaching Norfolk, it was flat agricultural country. We arrived at the small market town of Swaffham and found a nice little bed and breakfast, the “Horse and Groom”.

Our B&B - the "Horse and Groom"

It was only 2 so we had a chance to wander around the town and take in the old-country ambience of the town, and walk through the farmers market, as well as visit an eclectic local museum. Apparently the famous Carter of Egyptology, and his family, hail from here, so there is a large section devoted to him and Egypt, as well as to the local area. We had dinner at our B&B and then walked around town for a nightcap at a pub, before retiring.

A Typical pub (King's Arms)

Sunday found us well-rested, and following a huge English breakfast we took to the car to explore the area where my gt-grandparents and family lived before travelling to Canada in 1841. Most of our Jarrell, Tooke, and Burton lines were all baptised, married, and buried in two churches near Swaffham, so we set out to find them. 3 miles away we found the village of North Pickenham, and the church we were looking for.

Typical roadway - more of a lane- with not much room to pass! Speed limit here is 60 Miles per Hour!!

St Andrew's Church here was still having a service, so we walked around the graveyard surrounding the church, looking for familiar names – to no avail. Then I introduced myself to the Vicar, who turned me over to a couple of the church Wardens, and was given a list of the known graves at the church.

There are Ancestors here somewhere!

The other records have been sent to the records office in Norwich, where we hope to research further on Monday. The list was only of recent burials, however, and they had no idea of any of the older locations of graves (1824 and older, which is what I needed). Ah well....it was a photogenic church, at any rate. I got directions to the other church of interest, only 1.5 miles away, at Houghton-on-the-Hill. The church is all that is left of the community, and it is being restored from several decades of disuse and decay. The church dates back 1000 years, and has murals dating that far back, inside. We again examined the gravestones carefully, but still no luck on finding our people.

A doorway into the 1000-yr-old church.....I'm not tall, but I would have been, then!

That pretty well covered the family I knew about, but there is one other Jarrell group in Canada, who settled in Kingston at the same time as our line was arriving. They also come from Norfolk, so it behooves me to investigate this line as well, to try to prove, or disprove, a connection between the family lines. They come from Shelfanger, about 20 miles further east – so off we headed. Same story, different church. So we've drawn a blank from the Religion – at least the churches.....perhaps Monday's researching of records will change that.

It was still early afternoon, so we continued our scenic drive of Norfolk by heading for the main seaport – Greater Yarmouth. Here we discovered that the seaport has mostly now become a holiday resort town, modelled on Blackpool, or Atlantic City. We strolled along the beachfront promenade, but although the weather had dried up and warmed a bit, no-one was partaking of the water or beaches. Miles of touristy come-ons assailed us along the walk, but I just wasn't up for Bingo, Miniature Golf, or a ferris wheel at the moment. So back to the car, and on into Norwich, the county town capital, to find our hotel. Another great internet bargain, and very nice and clean. So now we're all set to go into town on Monday morning, and research the records.

Monday dawned bright and warm, and off we went into Norwich (again – the “W” isn't pronounced.....it's Norrich) to search the records. It was a full day of microfiche and film, but we made no great discoveries, mostly confirmation of the data we “sort” of had. At any rate – Praise God for Religion – without it, there likely wouldn't have been any of these records, and if there had, they may not have been readable!

By 4pm we were as done as could be, so left for the hotel, having a beer at the bar before a roast dinner at the Carvery across the street. We hope to find a bit more data at the genealogical society in town, tomorrow morning, before starting our trek northbound again, touring a bit of northern England before we re-enter Scotland in a few days.