This one featured Cley Next The Sea. We have had a debate in the past about whether this should be called Clay or Cly. Well throughout the programme it's referred to as Cly. That's how I always refer to it as well. But strangely it's named after clay as in building materials. Mind you I also call Cley car park land. I may have mentioned this before.
But wait. The programme shows Cley as an historic and quaint village with very few cars. Yes it's idyllic but it isn't like it's being depicted on television. There are a couple of cars in the main street. In reality they are parked all over the place and driving through Cley is a nightmare.
Am I being cynical by suggesting that on the day of filming cars were prevented from parking in the main street? If so it gives the wrong impression of the place.
It was an interesting programme though and homed in on Strangers - a subject that I find very interesting. These were the Flemish and Dutch weavers and merchants who brought their skills to Norfolk (and Norwich in particular). They also brought their architecture which can be seen in the gables in Cley.
They also brought beer brewed with hops rather than the weak ale that English people previously drank and for that we should be eternally grateful. The Strangers were also fleeing from religious persecution on the Continent where Catholicism was the overriding religion.
They felt they would be safer under the protestant monarch Elizabeth I. And so it proved as they were integrated into local communities. In Norwich they became mayors and sheriffs and we still have a Strangers' Club and Strangers' Hall.
Next time I'm up in North Norfolk it will be time to have another poke around Cley where they are trying to get rid of all the mud and muck and open up the channels again to connect the village to the sea because at the moment the name Cley Next The Sea is a touch incorrect.
Many of my ancestors came from the likes of Wells, Blakeney, Cley and Salthouse and the area has an incredible pull for me. There's nothing better than a walk along the coast with those broad open and wild Norfolk skies.
The programme pointed out the importance of places like Cley for maritime trade and the importance of Norwich as England's second city after London. And that gives me a fascination with my surname - STEWARD.
My thoughts here are that if Norwich was the second city of the land and my ancestors on the Steward side come almost exclusively from the city, somewhere along the line they must have been rich and powerful. Stewards of the household, keepers of the faith.