Although it wasn’t that short a visit, as we enjoyed a leisurely five night break at the National Trust Coach House Lodge, all organised by Mrs. No Name. The lodge proved to be a lovely base and, as it was a National Trust property and adjacent to Peckover House, had the additional benefit of ‘out of hours’ access to the house gardens.
Peckover House was the driver for the short vacation and we duly booked and took the guided tour on Saturday afternoon, having left the morning free to visit the Wisbech and Fenland Museum, a perfect surviving example of the Victorian museum, an exemplar of the taxonomy systems and learning styles of the period. It’s variously described as the earliest or one of the earliest purpose built museums in the UK, having first opened its doors in 1847. Small but perfectly formed.
Back to Peckover House, a classic Georgian merchant’s town house, it was lived in by the Peckover family for 150 years. The Peckovers were staunch Quakers, which meant they had a very simple lifestyle – yet at the same time they ran a successful private bank. Both facets of their life can be seen through the guided tour of the house and as you wander the gardens. There were only three couples on the tour but the guide was both pleasant and knowledgeable. Originally built in 1722, it was, by NT standards, not a particularly large home, but the visit was a lovely surprise and the building itself was both imposing and homely, as befits a sombre and simple family life. Having a bank at one wing of the house was a little disconcerting however, although not that uncommon for the period.
The gardens were quite large for a town and riverside location, built as a Victorian-style walled garden, known for its varieties of roses and a beautiful orangery housing ancient orange trees. It also housed a croquet lawn, complete with all associated equipment, which was utilised by us on a number of occasions throughout the stay. Thanks to the U3A, Mrs. No Name is now a seasoned player but I had never so much as touched a croquet mallet before, so I’d like to think I at least held my own.
Wisbech itself was a little worse for wear. It had a number of very fine buildings, especially along the North and South Brinks, which no doubt are reflections of its long dissipated importance as a major port (the River Nene splits the two Brinks) before its decline after 1852 when major river works impeded navigation. If you take the town trail(s), you realise the extent of the Georgian infrastructure but, like so many market towns, the familiar world weary tiredness has created an all too familiar scene of local deprivation. Typical of this malaise is the Rose & Crown, once a pleasant Grade II listed hotel which accommodated the homeless during lockdown and one of the oldest buildings in town, but closed as of November 2022.
There are of course still things to see and our visits included the following:-
- The Octavia Hill Birthplace Museum – built in about 1740 on the South Brink, we enjoyed a wander around the childhood home of an English social reformer, whose main concern was the welfare of the inhabitants of cities, especially London, in the second half of the nineteenth century. Born into a family of radical thinkers and reformers with a strong commitment to alleviating poverty, she herself grew up in straitened circumstances owing to the financial failure of her father’s businesses. Home educated by her mother, she worked from the age of 14 for the welfare of working people. I knew little or nothing about her, so it was a fine way to explore some of her pioneering work and idealistic inconsistencies (no support for the Women’s vote, for example). Slightly perturbed to note we were the only visitors and hope that was just a one-off.
- The Castle – a Regency Period villa (1816) built on the site of a Norman castle.
- Elgood’s Brewery – The brewery was founded in 1795 and bought soon afterwards by the Elgood family. Thid had the advantage of hosting a beer festival when we arrived, so we had the added pleasure of sampling two or three of the guest beers (all gluten free) as we wandered the quite extensive and finally laid out gardens
- The Parish Church of St Peter and St Paul or St Peter’s Church – an Anglican church in the market town and Port of Wisbech, the Isle of Ely, Cambridgeshire, England. It is an active parish church in the Diocese of Ely. The church was founded in the 12th century. Apparently Betjeman described St Peter and St Paul’s church as “a typical town church with four-aisled nave, rather dark and dusty“, although I would have thought the two naves and the free-standing bell tower were quite unusual.
So, Wisbech, a town of contrasts where one has to dig a little to discover its prosperous and architecturally fine past. It was worth doing so and of course Peckover House, the visit rationale, was indeed a long overdue pleasure!