The years between Wren's visitation in 1636 and the summoning of the Long Parliament in 1640 are seen as a dark time for East Anglian puritanism. From the perspective of later dissent, Wren's harrowing of Norwich's celebrated preaching fraternity has been viewed as defining moment in the history of nonconformity, so much so that it proved fertile grounds for a mediocre Victorian pot-boiler – Andrew Reed's Alice Bridge of Norwich: a Tale of the Time of Charles the First – published in 1879. Reed came from a Congregationalist background. Son of his famous namesake Andrew senior – a hymnodist and energetic philanthropist, as well as founder of several orphanages including Reedham Asylum near Croydon – the younger Reed followed his father's vocation to become the Congregationalist minister at St Leonards-on-Sea. But he also spent time in Norfolk. There he acquired an ‘interest in the romance of Puritan times’ and duly proceeded to write about them with gushing sentimentality – and with his target audience of children in mind – through the eyes of Alice, an entirely fictitious daughter of the Reverend William Bridge, forced to flee Norwich where