Medieval Graffiti at Norwich Cathedral

Into the magical surroundings of towering Caen stone piers, lit beautifully in the darkness we slipped through the heavy wooden west doors of Norwich Cathedral to meet Colin Howey. With a cohort of just 12, it was an enormous and special privilege to have the Cathedral to ourselves, after dark.

Colin is part of the Norfolk Medieval Grafitti Survey who are slowly gathering visual data and piecing together fragments of stories about how and why real people used our church spaces so many years ago. The wonderful thing about graffiti is that it was, in the most part, left by regular people like you and I. Standing in front of these little carvings you can get a real insight in to the thoughts and actions of people just like us, from the past. But they also encourage a very personal, imagined relationship between the viewer and the maker and can be very powerful as a result, once you know how to notice them of course.


Lucky for us, Colin knew just where to look and his knowledge, not just about this very specific topic but about the wider medieval church and the goings on in medieval Norwich painted us a very colourful and useful picture for the grafittos that came gleaming out of the hand-crafted stone as he shone his torch to illuminate them. One of the first grafittos we came across, and there is a definite element of precious discovery in graffiti hunting, was a daisy wheel. The making of daisy wheels, Colin believes, was a sacred act of prayer, a bit like the rosary. They appear, he told us, all over East Anglia and their regular occurrence at kneeling height persuades him that they have something to do with personal prayer. They are also very precise, appearing to have been made with some form of compass, not just doodles done quickly in the stone. This careful and thoughtful act only supports his supposition, he said, and we agreed.

We crept around the nave and in to the east end of the church, noting all sorts of script and images on the way, including a short name or word scribed upside down and what looked like musical notation. In the east end, just before we all unwittingly walked past it, Colin pointed out his most important find; the figure of someone resembling a clergyman or saint, a very unusual and unique grafitto he told us. Before we knew it an hour had passed and it was time to leave the enchantment we had all encountered and retreat for a glass of wine and an insight in to some of Colin's other findings around the county at Farmer Browns in Tombland.

It was an amazing evening all round and a great end to 2012 for Secret Norwich. With thanks to the Cathedral Verger for letting us in and to Farmer Browns for having us, and of course to the wonderful Colin Howey for his ragged rambling around so many sights to bring us these findings and his inexhaustible enthusiasm and charm when sharing them.

And thanks to all of you who have supported us since we began in June this year. Your presence helps us survive and support the other projects we do. Secret Norwich will be back in full swing in January for more special and exclusive adventures of the city's fascinating past, after dark. Why not buy our first quarter for Christmas presents!