Dereham and Withburga

Visited Dereham today. We’d passed through it (in fact, we’d stopped and had a cup of coffee there the other day) but hadn’t really looked at it. So a return trip was necessary.
It turned out not to be overly exciting, because many of the old buildings that might have made it interesting were demolished in the 60s, when it was fashionable to do such a thing and the historic places hadn’t got their teeth into preservation. Now Dereham consists mostly of newish buildings, and more to come. The main shopping area isn’t large - we covered it in about twenty minutes - and so the major sight to see was the church, which, surprise, surprise, is called St Nicholas’ Church, as are most of the churches in Norfolk, it seems.
But this church has some interesting features. Firstly instead of having a tower attached to the church, it has a ‘detached’ tower, and quite a substantial one too. The bells are lodged there.
Secondly, William Cowper, the poet, is buried in the church, and there’s a large memorial stained-glass window above his burial place. Two other people he was closely associated with are also buried there.
And thirdly, the Christian presence in this town goes back to the 7th century, when Withburga, the daughter of the then king of East Anglia, came to the place along with other women, and began to minister to people. She was greatly revered, and there are several interesting stories about her. At one point she had nothing to give the workers building the convent but dry bread. After praying about this, she was directed to send her maids to a certain place each day, and each day two does came and provided milk. Unfortunately this eventually aroused the ire of the local land overseer, and he drove off the does with his dogs. It didn’t do him much good: his horse threw him and he broke his neck!
After Withburga died, her body was buried in the cemetery belonging to the Abbey of Dereham. 55 years later, her body was found to be uncorrupted, and was moved into the church itself. However, the Abbot of Ely wanted to bury the body beside those of Withburga’s two sisters. So he took a group of armed men with him to Dereham, invited the townsmen to a feast and made them drunk. He then carried off the body. There was great distress when the Dereham people discovered the loss of the body, and they pursued the Abbot and his men. According to one story the body was placed in a barge just before the Dereham men arrived; in another a battle took place. Whatever the case, Withburga’s remains wound up at Ely - but not for long. The Vikings turned up (as they had done for decades) and destroyed much of the church at Ely, including the place where the women’s bodies were buried. No one now knows where they lie.
However, in a kind of compensation for the loss of their saint, a spring appeared at the site of Withburga’s tomb, and continues to run to this day. It’s become a place many pilgrims over the centuries have come to.
The photograph is of the well.