After all the snow and freezing weather, it was great to travel up to Cambridge and King’s Lynn.
Kettle’s Yard in Cambridge re-opened in early February after completely reconfiguring the modern art display areas.
Though west of the centre of Cambridge this complex of buildings is very accessible and, with a busy Coffee Shop, is clearly popular even on a chilly March day. The centre of the attraction for casual visitors is the original home of Jim & Helen Ede.
Jim Ede was an artist and curator of British art in what eventually morphed into the Tate Modern. After the Tate he was based for 20 years in Morocco then the Edes established themselves in Cambridge, setting up what might be termed a ‘salon’ and eventually donated their home to Cambridge University.
From entry into the reception for a free, but timed, visit to the home and a very helpful introduction by Ms L Hindmarsh to the home itself, it’s clear that the staff are very engaged in their role. The home is simple, with a serene atmosphere backed up with a relaxing aroma of age and wood.
The home, which is on 3 floors and itself was a repurposed row of 4 terraced houses, offers a curated vision of the house left by the Edes in the mid-20thc.
Adjacent to Kettle’s Yard is St Peters Church, still an Anglican establishment but which was given over to an imaginative art installation by Rana Begum.
In King’s Lynn, a grander church is the Minster. This has had a remarkable history from its foundation almost 1,000 years ago.
Subsidence seems to have been a continual problem along with the destruction during the Reformation, so little remains of its early years. Remarkably this now sleepy town of King’s Lynn was England’s principal port in the early Middle Ages, a result of the international trade federation the Hanseatic League around the Baltic and North seas.
The switch in Britain’s focus to the wider world lead to the rise of Britain’s west and south coast ports such as Liverpool and Bristol and the slow slump of importance for King’s Lynn. We travelled to Walsingham from King’s Lynn.
