Medieval rope has been found in a number of locations across Norfolk including in a flint wall currently being restored in one of the Broads. The rope was found to be packed into a gap as if someone had stuffed it into the wall as if it were newspaper to block a draught. There was no indication that the rope had been placed there by accident or as part of the repair work being undertaken. It seems it was simply packed into the wall as part of its normal use.
In the first place the rope came from the land, a ‘Rope Belt’ ran from Hempnall through Wymondham in this country’s most productive area for growing hemp, a fibre used in rope making, other types of rope were also made from rush and marram grass which were found in abundance throughout the county. It was in Great Yarmouth that the ropewalks, long narrow buildings where the individual strands were wound together under tension to form cord, processed this fibre into coils of rope that would be used to rig up the herring fishing boats, many of these historic ropewalks recorded by Historic England ropewalks still exist today as listed buildings.
A good length of rope had been made at considerable cost and therefore had been used for as long as possible. Once no longer serviceable as a whole, individual ends were still put to use. Eel-trap weaving used the ends of rigging; the fraying cords of old rope were used as caulking in the joints of church roof timbers; thick coils of rope were used as insulators in the clay walls of ice-houses. Norfolk’s many Boat Graveyards can still yield up dense mats of old rope in the mud. In the past as with present-day plastic, rope was everywhere to be found – to be used up in some way – and to be disposed of when no longer of any use. If you want Waste Disposal Norfolk, www.mgaze.co.uk is a good place to start.
The same mindset pervades much of Norfolk’s culture – the ability to recognise something’s potential use before it becomes waste.
