“Moab is my Washpot” (1999) is a autobiographical novel written by Stephen Fry (1957) who once attended Cawston primary school.  In this novel he recalls Cawston school.  His eloquence in describing his early life at Cawston school in Ms. Medlar’s class is beautifully written and a joy to read.

Church expert and clerical mystery writer Kate Charles (b 1950) sets her “Evil Angels Among Them (1995) in the fictional village of “Walston”.  This word is based on two of her favourite churches, Salle and Cawston.  Her story, a clerical mystery is set around the church of ‘St. Michael and All Angels’ which in fact is Cawston church.  In her book she describes the spectacular angel roof and the medieval painting over the chancel arch.  Not far from the church is ‘Walston Manor’ and the ‘Queens Head’ pub which features Anne Boleyn on its sign. 

Kate Charles writes in her book, “this is not the sort of church one might expect to find in a small rather undistinguished Norfolk village like Walston; its size bespoke past glories of which scarcely a trace remained.  Built in the Perpendicular style, its exterior, crowned by a massive square tower, was a marvel of flushwork in Norfolk flint, and the interior, with its vast expanses of clear glass in the side aisles and the deep clerestory, was irradiated with the sort of light that is only found in East Anglia, as the sky had somehow found a way to invade the church.”

Brian Cooper’s Norfolk novels all have something special about them.  He created “Salleston” (Salle and Cawston) in his novel “Covenat with Death” (1994).  The mystery is about the legendary theft of a parapet and pinnacles of Cawston church tower.

Michael Yaxley, Bonn, July 2006            Related Link:- Books Containing Cawston History
                                                                                     Stephen Fry