The Hovercraft Inventor, Christopher Cockerell

We spent last night moored on the River Waveney next to the attractive village of Somerleyton. When we went for a walk this morning, we came across this column with a sculpture of a hovercraft on the top. Being intrigued, we read the inscription on the column:
 
"This column was raised in 2010 to commemorate the invention of the hovercraft in 1955 on the River Waveney at Somerleyton by Christopher Cockerell, Engineer, 1910-1999."
 
We were actually on our way to St Mary's Church, especially to see the 16th Century painted screen about which we'd read in our guidebook. The church itself is beautiful but the screen is exquisite. It separates the congregation from the choir, and is divided into 2 parts by a central aisle. The first extra shows the right side of the screen; the pictures are said to depict the following (from left to right):
 
St John the Evangelist
St Mary Magdalene
A bishop - ??St Felix of Burgundy
St Petronella - legendary daughter of St Peter
St Stephen
St Dorothea
St Edward the Confessor
St George
 
On the walk back to our boat we passed the lovely village duck pond, shown in the second extra. We were told by an old lady resident of the village that until very recently Twiggy owned the elegant white house seen in the photo behind the pond, although she only stayed there occasionally.