A Pilgrimage to Burnham Thorpe 2005

Written by Godfrey Dykes

© RN Communications Branch Museum/Library

  Burnham Thorpe is a Norfolk village in which Nelson was born and baptised and in whose church his parent are buried.

Me, taken in the Lord Nelson Inn at Burnham Thorpe sitting in the corner bench seat used by Nelson on his visits to the village. A bit windswept and caught off guard, awed by my experience. August 2004. The Inn is only one of two buildings existing which Nelson would have known in the village, the other being All Saints Church.	These two plaques are screwed onto the brickwork of a rough wall alongside which runs the main road to Burnham Thorpe [three quarters of a mile from the church], and running parallel with it, the river BURN after which many nearby villages are named viz Burnham Thorpe, Burnham Ulph, Burnham Sutton etc. The river is but a mere stream, even after abnormally heavy rain [August 2004 wettest on record] at this point in its course. The second brass plaque from HMS TYNE was put there in 1959 when the wall and the birthplace plaque were first mounted.	In this picture, three of us [me in red shirt plus friends] are looking at the plaques. Over to the right is a sign post pointing to Nelson's birthplace, or where the place had once stood two hundred and one years ago. The river Burn can be seen ahead and over to the right. The new rectory at Burnham Thorpe is close to the Church, but poor old Nelson's Dad had a long way to walk in the 17th century. As though by design [my wife is a good photographer] you can see the modern driveway reflected in the roadside mirror by the sign post which leads down to a new house built close to the actual spot on which the rectory stood.
Self evident. I served in the TYNE when she was the Flagship during the Suez War in 1956. I was pleased to see this HMS TYNE plaque, placed there just three short years after I left her in Portsmouth after our return from the Mediterraean in January 1957.	Self evident.	Taken on the same day as our visit to Burnham Thorpe. This is my "FRANCES" [Fanny] - why would I want a Lady H?
Taken in the doorway of All Saints Church Burnham Thorpe in which the Nelson family had a vested interest. Nelson would have visited this same church many times and according to history, fully expected to be buried here as indeed his dear parents are - Edmund and Catherine. The church was built in the 14th century, was fully restored after Trafalgar and again in 1987. Inside are draped two huge white ensigns from the second world war battleship HMS Nelson. The church is a place of pilgrimage for people from all over the world.

Notes:

  Lord Mountbatten was a signal school [Portsmouth Barracks] instructor and not only helped in the design of some of the 1920-30 equipment but also had a hand in Procedures and Organisation [P&O]. He and his team laid down the and modified the early rules for W/T operators which included prosigns not originally attached to the original Morse Code which were signs like full stops, commas etc, to include signs for naval procedures. These included the prosigns BT, HMx 3 for emergency radio silence, AR, AS,8 x letter ‘E’ for erase, inter alia, and it is wondered whether BT was chosen as a long break [a short break also introduced by Mountbatten was a double letter india] e.g. .. ..T.. ..O.. ..122300 FEB .. ..FM etc. Mountbatten thinking of something arbitrary i,e, on that occasion Burnham Thorpe, for there can be no doubt that Mountbatten would have idolised him and everything about him.

  Fortunately for us Norfolk, with its vast land spaces and open skies has enough space for preservation, if not of buildings then certainly of specific dedicated land spaces where building once stood, so the environment remains the same more or less for successive building on a dedicated plot almost ad infi nitum. The old Rectory in which lived Nelson with his siblings and his parents until his mothers brother Captain Suckling agreed to take him to sea when aged 12. It was demolished in 1803 after Nelsons fathers death [April 1802] and by that time Nelson was famous for his many battles [St Vincent 1797, Nile 1798, Copenhagen 1801] and had no time to say goodbye to his father nor even to attend his funeral [though his wife Fanny did, travelling a long distance from London. The Rev Edmund Nelson didn’t live to witness Horatio’s greatest battle Trafalgar 1805. The site of the Nelson Rectory laid fallow until on the same footprint,a farming construction was built and the current owners converted the huge barn in that complex which is now a luxurious rented holiday accommodation offering 2 double bedrooms, and 4 single rooms one of which has a child’s cot as well as a bed, and as you might imagine very very expensive.The creek in front of the house is where Nelson as a boy designed and sailed modern [to him] sailing vessels. For the new vicar a new Rectory was build which still stands in a different place in the village.

This is a picture of the open plan family area.

If you are interested see Nelson's Barn

  However Lord Nelson famous house at Merton called Merton Place in which he lived with Emma Hamilton and his daughter Horatia at the height of his fame was in the South West London Borough of Merton, at that time in Surrey. It was a Mansion sitting in 160 acres of grounds befitting his wordly status. What a jewel in the crown had that survived. The final story of Merton Place is sad for not too long after Nelson’s death, Emma’s debts, and the estate’s neglect, finally led to demolition enabling the inevitable Victorian urban sprawl to remove all traces of Nelson’s life in Merton. This is what Merton Place looked like