Forthcoming Events

September 24th – Paston country – talk to Southrepps history soc. Lucy and Lin with Jo?

October 3rd – Paston drama:  “It was foully done” by Clive Wilkins Jenkins – performance at Paston church, 7.30 pm

Christmas time – Concert and workshop with Minstrels gallery – details to be announced later.

THE PASTON HERITAGE SOCIETY

Paston Heritage Society was founded in 1993 after the successful Paston Festival of that year.  At the Festival we staged a community play, ‘The Inheritance’ by Nick McIvor, especially commissioned for the occasion and involving a cast of 20 adults and almost 100 children from local schools.  There were also re-enactors encouraging people to try archery, traditional games and food and a special festival service in the church. Since then the Heritage society has worked persistently and quietly to preserve the heritage of the village and the area.

The Society was formed in response to the realization locally that both the church and barn were in danger of irreparable damage if money could not be found to repair them and that Paston village itself is too small to support such an inheritance from the past by itself.

The Paston family are famous because their letters and other papers have survived, one of only two collections of family letters from the 15th Century.  The Paston inheritance once consisted of many large manor houses and stately homes and the letters track how this small family from a remote area of Norfolk managed to gain such wealth and influence in the turbulent period known as the ‘Wars of the Roses’. 

They travelled widely and were much concerned in affairs of the time so the letters cover fashion, politics, warfare and marriage and are a great source of information for historians.

However, it is remarkable that so little of their buildings and those associated with them remain.  It seemed vital to the members of the society that we act to preserve what little is still there and to bring the letters, which make delightful and interesting reading, to a wider audience – and one firmly connected to the Norfolk roots of the Paston society.

We had some success and were able to run educational projects for schools and the public, hold concerts and run art projects as well as re-enactment and historical research on the site.  English Heritage agreed to re-thatch the church and the North Norfolk Historic Buildings Trust bought the barn and began the mammoth task of restoring that.  We had plans for opening a visitor’s centre in a wing of the barn to continue our work.

Then an exciting discovery was made and the barn was recognized as a unique site, a habitat for rare bats.  This has caused the Heritage society to re-shape plans and to hold only a few open days in recent years as the site of the church without the barn was not suitable for larger events.

However, we have been working closely with English Nature and the North Norfolk Historic buildings trust and are making progress towards achieving our original aims with the new addition of the status of the barn as

We have also been helped recently by the encouragement of the Griffon Area Partnership who launched their new name at the church last year and who take their name from the paston crest.

If you would like to become a member of the society or can offer support in any way, please contact Jack Earl or Lucy Care of the Paston Heritage Society at lucyecare@aol.com, or write for our leaflet and booking forms to Mrs L Care, Dayspring, Mundesley Road, Paston, Norfolk, NR28 9TE.

Annette Rolston showing the book,
photo by Tim Lenton.

InPrint were proud to be part of the project, which owed much of its sucess to Annette's determination to master the innovative non-toxic intaglio process and produce excellent prints. Lucy Care, from the Paston Heritage Society, had the vision for the whole thing and worked closely with Annette to bring it to fruition. Part of the exhibition will now go on show at Nottingham, and at the North Norfolk District Council offices in Cromer. The book itself will be on display in the Millennium Library in Norwich in December, and more exhibitions are lined up for the New Year. The Eastern Daily Press recognised the importance of the project by devoting two full page threes to it – one on the Friday and one on the Monday.