NEW Norwich and North Norfolk: Medieval Art & Architecture
Dr Tom Nickson
Wednesday 3 – Friday 5 July 2024
£495
NB. All of our 2024 Study Tours have now taken place. Our new programmes for 2025 will be online in mid December this year. If you are not already on our mailing list, do contact short.courses@courtauld.ac.uk to join, so that you do not miss out when we launch the programmes.
Course description
The wool trade made Norfolk one of the richest regions in medieval England, with some of the country’s most spectacular parish churches and monasteries. Strong Catholic traditions, regional independence, and economic decline after the Middle Ages ensured that these medieval churches and their furnishings have survived to a degree unparalleled elsewhere in the country, making for rewarding study.
This trip begins with Norwich cathedral, whose Romanesque fabric essentially received a Gothic facelift in the fourteenth century through the addition of an extraordinary decorated vault. Once a powerful Benedictine abbey, the cathedral also preserves important wall and panel paintings from the Middle Ages, while the cloister presents a dazzling array of carved keystones.
From the cathedral we move on to the city’s great churches, many built on a scale that rivals the cathedral. From the city we move out to consider some of the region’s most impressive parish churches, such as Salle, standing in splendid isolation after the surrounding village was abandoned, or Worstead, one of several East Anglian churches that preserves its late medieval painted screen.
Lecturer's biography
Dr Tom Nickson studied at Cambridge and The Courtauld and taught at the University of York before returning in 2012 to The Courtauld where he is now Reader in Medieval art and architecture. While studying for his PhD at The Courtauld Tom earned money as a tour guide, and it is still his favourite way to teach. He is editor of the Journal of the British Archaeological Association and has led several trips for the Courtauld, including to Westminster Abbey and Ely Cathedral; Salisbury, Wells and Glastonbury; and Bristol, Gloucester, and Tewkesbury. He also publishes widely on aspects of medieval Iberia and is currently completing a book on architecture in medieval Spain and Portugal.