BEAR FACTS

In terms of overall or even specialist knowledge, it is hardly at an Einsteinian level. I acknowledge that. I also acknowledge that it is not the sort of general information most people might want to garner, anyway. But I do believe I know - roughly speaking - the Norfolk locations of two graves in which are interred the remains of bears.
Now, Norfolk is not your average sort of bear country. Deer, yes, in surprising abundance. And rabbits. And in the past any number of famous escapees, including coypu and mink. But not bears, because by and large they are too big and there is nowhere for them to live. Nevertheless, bears the county has had, thanks either to private enterprise, or zoos.
The first bear grave is in the grounds of Bessingham Manor, not far from Cromer, a large and previously derelict building now in the process of being re-built and restored.
The original manor house, complete with thatched roof, was built by John Spurrell (1779-1837). On his death it came into the possession of the Lord of the Manor David Spurrell, who married in 1848 and had seven children in ten years. He built the present Bessingham Manor in 1870, and when he died in 1906 the estate was left to his youngest son, Edmund Denham Spurrell (1858-1952). And he was the bear man.
In 1906 Denham returned from India with a brown bear which was kept in a stable near to the house and brought out occasionally to entertain guests. Indeed, I have seen a photograph of a group of ladies and gentlemen relaxing beside the orangery at the back of the house with the bear, being regarded with great suspicion by a little dog, rearing on its hind legs in the background.
It was an eccentric atmosphere which was not to last, alas, for one day the bear escaped from its cage, injured a housemaid, and was shot and buried in the grounds. Denham, however, was not entirely finished with 'doing different,' as they say in Norfolk, because he learned to fly an aeroplane at the age of 91.
The second bear grave is slightly more problematical, for the tale is largely based on heresay. Anyway, several decades ago I was told that when a bear died in some zoo or other, the carcase was delivered to Norwich Castle Museum and duly and quietly buried in the Castle gardens not far from the footbridge. Apparently it was all part of some research progrgamme into the effects of prolonged burial on animal bones. At least, that is what I was told. Meanwhile, I have never heard that it has ever been dug up, so it may still be there.
Graves are not normally my thing, but I did once become interested in Pigg's Grave, near Melton Constable, wondering why (a) it was often put forward as a candidate for the highest place in Norfolk (it isn't), and (b) why on earth a pig might have been buried there in the first place. Wrong again, I think. Pigg was evidently the name of a man, and the place was once the site of a gibbet.
Best stick to bears.