Mark of Respect

"Junkies Go Home:" Waste Woods

Across the road from Norwich's 'secret garden,' the restored nineteenth century Plantation Gardens, lies a strange scrap of forgotten waste woodland I assume was once part of the same quarry. (The famous 1988 image of the double decker bus sinking into a collapsed hole in the road, courtesy of instabilities caused by medieval chalk mines beneath the surface, happened mere yards away). I don't know what this chunk of crumbling wall is, or how many years it has stood. I like this place as a weird grotty twin to the Plantation Gardens.

The Dying Angels: Broken Figures in Earlham Cemetery

Walking around Norwich's Victorian Earlham Cemetery. This Eastern, older section, much wilder, is effectively left to its own devices by the council: groundskeeping work is kept at a minimum to encourage wildlife in the area. As I wandered, I kept noticing the decaying graveside figures - mostly angels, occasionally children, with heads, wings, limbs broken off at some point over the years. These graves were all of children who died sometime between 1918 and the late 1930s. The decyaing of gravestones - edges of statues breaking off, as here, or the more usual weathering into an indecipherable smudge - seems almost a second, gentler death, a softer reminder of the inevitability of the erosion of all things - life, flesh, stone.

Cemetery Cat

A cat nonchalantly sitting on a grave in Earlham Cemetery, Norwich.

April Showers Day 28

Day Twenty Eight: Spaceinvader

Birdhouse

The Earlham Park dovecote, overlooking the River Yare, and only a minute or two away from Earlham Hall. In the warmer months this corner of the park is replete with picnickers and paddlers. The dog walkers remain present, whatever the weather.

"Home, James."

Grafitti at Earlham House Shopping Centre, Norwich.

Moss-Covered Suns and Crescent Moons

Adorning the fences on a small pathway behind St Marys Church, Earlham. Overlooking the traffic of Earlham Rd and the grey bleakness (on this particular grey bleak Sunday, at least) of Earlham Marsh, they at least catch the eye.

Police State

The police station at Earlham Road, Norwich, which is about to be demolished and replaced with a new updated building. The houses either side of the station are also empty and fenced off, presumably to be bulldozed too, so it looks like the new station - expected to be ready May 2011 - will be larger than its previous incarnation.

These were taken last Monday. By the Friday, actual demolition had started.