Road of Skulls: Little Melton's School Lane

Okay, a ridiculously overblown post title (though I did find two rabbit skulls...), but I was desperately trying to avoid the obvious 'Road to Nowhere.' Which would have admittedly been more appropriate: School Lane originally linked the B1108 (one of the main arteries into Norwich) to the small village of Little Melton. The opening of the Norwich Southern Bypass section of the A47 in the early 1990s cut straight through this lane, severing it in half, leading it to...well, nowhere, unless you count a set of steps leading up to the A47.

Not the most photogenic of sites, but its interest lies in its 'lack:' of direction, of its original purpose. A dried artery, an obsolete direction.

Traffic Overhead: Underneath the Postwick Viaduct

Beneath the Postwick Viaduct, which sees the A47 pass over the Rive Yare. As with Tuesday's entry ('I Wanna Be a Punk (Beneath the A11)') this sees my continuing curiosity with the undersides of bridges and flyovers. Always good for graffiti, for starters.

Apparently, the grounds beneath the Viaduct have been used sporadically as a traveller's site, although it was deserted when I was wandering round. The shrieking clattering noise caused by the traffic passing overhead was suitably dramatic and unsettling.

Paradoxical Loneliness: The Ruins of St. Andrew, Whitlingham

The ruins of the medieval church of St Andrew, at Whitlingham, close to Norwich. Located on the top of a ridge overlooking the Yare, most of the church has collapsed over the years (such as the round tower, in 1940), or has been pulled down for building materials.

Despite the fact that the church has not been in use since the Reformation, some features remaining are Victorian: sites such as The Norfolk Churches Site ( http://www.norfolkchurches.co.uk/whitlingham/whitlingham.htm )suggest that for many years the church was preserved for aesthetic considerations. Little concern now: nowadays, the A47 noisily screams past only a few yards away.

In obvious ways, this has dragged the site away from its picturesque beginnings and towards something far more grey and ugly. The easiest way to approach the church, for instance, is on an old cracked access road for workers used during the A47's construction. Yet it does provide the ruins with a new, stranger atmosphere. It is difficult to actually make out the A47 or its traffic through the roadside trees, and the incessant sounds of passing traffic provides visitors with the feeling of seperation, of invisibility in the face of the mundane and the harsh. The fact that there is no official access to the site (visiting involves clambering over fencing and tramping through nettles), and it is situated at the 'wrong end' of Whitlingham Lane (all traffic for the ski-slopes and the Broad stops much farther up), maintains this place's paradoxical feeling of isolation and loneliness.