Millennia Trump
It’s a bucolic English scene: a church and a manor house sharing a lawn split by a brick wall sloping down to a river. The Norfolk coast may be a mere kilometre away, but Stiffkey (locals pronounce it “Stooky”) is an inland world of its own. Stiffkey Old Hall was started by Sir Nicholas Bacon in 1576. Later, when it was subsumed into the Raynham Hall Estate, half the house was demolished and it was downgraded to a tenant farm.
The current building rises from the remains of a sprawling three storey U plan house with six slim cylindrical towers: the three towers closest to the church are ruinous, the other three are still integrated into the house. The north and west ranges survive as an L shaped building. Single storey blocks stand to the south. Windows dating from the 16th to the 20th century reflect the house’s complex architectural history. Brick and flint walls with stone dressings and a pantile roof contribute to a variety of textures and colours. Stiffkey Old Hall is a beautiful patchwork quilt.
The church guide states, “Approaching from the north side through the gate one is confronted by a fine church, much of it built in the Perpendicular style. Looking downhill, one has a good view of the attractive mixture of flint work, dressed stone and red brick. In the porch and parapet, there has been liberal use of the white knapped flints which are so much a feature of churches in this part of Norfolk.” Its architecture has been altered from Doomsday till practically the present day. St John the Baptist Church is a beautiful chequerboard.
Just as we are about to publish, Denise Cook calls. We discuss our recent visit to Norfolk. The eminent artist and art restorer used to live on the Suffolk border with Norfolk. “I hope you’re going to mention the Rector of Stiffkey. Look him up.” What a shocker! Harold Davidson, all 1.6 metres of him, started working life on the stage and there the drama was only beginning. He swapped vaudeville for the cloth. While he was appointed Rector of Stiffkey, a post which came with a large rectory for the Davidson family, Harold spent midweeks in London ministering to showgirls.
Reverend Davidson was accused of immorality by Bertram Pollock, Bishop of Norwich. Despite a farcical court case and support from his parishioners, he was found guilty and defrocked. To raise funds for his reinstatement campaign the diminutive ex clergyman joined a fairground in Blackpool. He appeared in an open coffin packed with ice and later in a glass cage where he was prodded in the posterior by a mechanical imp holding a giant toasting fork.
Debts caught up with him and after shinning down a drainpipe with bailiffs in hot pursuit, he served nine days in the hospital wing of Liverpool’s Walton Jail. His final fairground stunt sharing a cage with a pair of lions in Skegness didn’t finish well. The former Reverend Harold Davidson accidentally stepped on the tail of the lioness Toto, and Freddie her mate wasn’t too impressed. And that is how the story ends. Farrow and Ball have a paint named Stiffkey Blue.
