I recently passed the St. Nicholas Chapel in King’s Lynn and noticed that it was open to the public again. It is one of the towns collection of lovely old churches and has undergone some major restorations in recent years. It is one of those places that is no longer used for regular services, but reserved for special occasions, ceremonial and cultural events, and I had not been inside for many years, and as I had my camera with me, I decided to go and have a look around.

Those who are regular visitors and followers of this blog will know of my fondness (or obsession) with lettering, and old churches never disappoint in this regard.

Many of these images are from the floor stones and show a fantastic array of styles over the years. I love the latin, the antiquated language and spelling, and those odd turns of phrase like the one below – Samuel Clayton (Gentleman) – I’d like something like that carved upon my stone, maybe ‘weird gentleman’ or ‘work shy fop’ or something?

Rumour has it that these stones inspired Daniel Defoe, or at least gave him his characters  name (Defoe did indeed visit the town), but given that ‘Robinson Crusoe’ was published in 1719, I’m not convinced. It must be quite nice for the Cruso family who still live in the town though!

The oak beam roof is adorned with large carved angels, all different, many with musical instruments, and local trade tools. The stained glass windows demanded a colour shot which doesn’t quite fit in here, but it seemed churlish to show it in black and white…

So I’ll leave you with a skull – another subject I am rather partial to. This one is particularly elegant and just a little but on the grim side…