Panel Two of Threads of Time. (© Sprowston Heritage Embroideries Group.)
These images are taken from Threads of Time, a community tapestry comprised of four panels created by Sprowston residents depicting the history of the area.
PANEL TWO
The landscape continues in its old patterns of fields and paths, and the population nearly halves as the Black Death arrives. People leave the old village around the church for healthier ground. Notice the 'Thorp' shield has been replaced by 'Aslake'. Gradual improvements come as monks prop up failing church life, new church arches are built, and commerce with Norwich goes on with some rivalry. The great spinning wheel makes faster work, and landowners follow the fashion of disrupting old ways to make money, putting labourers out of work. The trees each side are the silver birch of heathland on the left, and on the right, beeches turning to autumn colours.
Like many Norfolk villages, our old church, St Mary and St Margaret, now became isolated. The living left the 'tainted' ground and settled further away. Now it still stands in the middle of fields, on the edge of the parish. Life goes on, and with half or a third dead, the living still had to be fed so the old round of reaping, sowing and milking had to be done.
Detail of Panel Two of Threads of Time depicting the Black Death. (© Sprowston Heritage Embroideries Group.)
The angel roundel in the old parish church is the only medieval glass left.
Detail of Panel Two of threads of Time depicting medieval stained glass in St Mary and St Margaret's Church, Sprowston. (© Sprowston Heritage Embroideries Group.)
The tapestry also features a
Bronze Age cemetery,
St Cuthbert's Church,
Sprowston Mill,
the legend of White Woman Lane,
Sprowston Hall and
Mousehold Heath aerodrome.
For more details of this project or to purchase Threads Of Time a booklet that accompanies the tapestry please contact:
thelmamacfarlene@ntlworld.com
St Mary and St Margaret's Church, NHER 8138