The idea to visit Wymondham Abbey stayed with us forever as we always kept it in mind while visiting Norwich and Cromer, but something had always prevented us from going there, and today we finally decided to do it—and didn’t regret it at all. While we were trying to find the Abbey, the weather was ghastly, with heavy rains and bleak clouds, but once we found it, everything suddenly lightened a bit, and the rest of our short trip was pleasant and serene.
The Abbey is old (going back as far as the first part of the 12th century): once it was a lavish Benedictine priory when the monks started fighting with the local congregation for the ultimate right to be there.
Nobody won as it was a fruitless battle, and then the Reformation swept the priory away and abolished monasticism. The Abbey fell into ruins and the largest part of it was completely destroyed, but the centrepiece, the church, remained intact, and it’s a gem, and I, who has seen many gorgeous English churches, mean it: it’s a true masterpiece of Norman architecture, with its roof and Norman nave, full of quite peculiar angels.
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