Journey 10: Great Yarmouth to London (Great British Railway Journeys, Book 10) by Farrington Karen

Author:Farrington, Karen [Farrington, Karen]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2013-01-03T00:00:00+00:00

© Paul Heinrich/Alamy

A steam train approaching Weybourne Station on the North Norfolk Railway.

Felixstowe finally got a town-centre railway station in 1898, courtesy of the Great Eastern Railway.

Midway between Ipswich and Colchester, Suffolk gives way to Essex, although the slow pace of rural life remained the same. When the Great Eastern main line crossed the River Stour on the Essex and Suffolk border it bisected an area known today as Constable Country. It contains, of course, the vistas that inspired artist John Constable. Some of his most famous works, including The Haywain and Flatford Mill, were painted here near his boyhood home of East Bergholt in Suffolk.

Constable died in 1837, the year Victoria came to the throne. During his lifetime his paintings were more popular in France than ever they were in England. Both he and fellow artist J. M. W. Turner were lambasted by critics of the day for being safe and unadventurous in their work. But Constable insisted he would rather be a poor man in England than a rich one overseas and stayed to forge a living in the only way he knew how.

His inspiration was nature, and his pictures often betrayed the first intrusions of the Industrial Age into rural life. Although he didn’t always live there, it was Suffolk scenes he was perpetually drawn to paint. ‘I should paint my own places best,’ he wrote. ‘Painting is but another word for feeling.’ An indisputably Romantic painter, his rich use of colour arguably laid the foundations for future trends in art.

The tallest Tudor gatehouse ever built lies further down the line, marking the half-way point between Colchester and Chelmsford. Aside from its architectural glory, Layer Marney Tower has two striking claims to fame. The first is that it was owned from 1835 by Quintin Dick, an MP made notorious by his practice of buying votes. Indeed, there’s some speculation that he spent more money bribing his constituents than any other MP of the era. The son of an Irish linen merchant, Dick spent a total of 43 years as an MP, representing five different constituencies.

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