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  • Streets of Norwich – Church Alley

    Streets of Norwich – Church Alley

    Part of my Streets of Norwich project….

    Church Alley is a small street, or well, alley, which is located off Redwell Street and is behind St. Michael-at-Plea Church.

    On the left is Boardman House, which I have some internal photos of somewhere as I toured this on a Heritage Open Days weekend a couple of years ago. On the far left, not really visible in the photo, is the rear of the United Reform Church. On the right is St. Michael-at-Plea Church and it’s possible in theory to walk down this alley and through another courtyard, coming out on Tombland (I resisted on this occasion given the Coronavirus situation).

    The road goes between the old Sunday School (now Boardman House) and the church, with the boot and shoe manufactory now demolished. On a side note, the word manufactory used to be a common word for a factory, but it’s pretty archaic now.

  • Streets of Norwich – Chalk Hill Road

    Streets of Norwich – Chalk Hill Road

    Part of my Streets of Norwich project….

    Chalk Hill Road is located roughly between the S and V of Wensum, going from the river and meeting Rosary Road in this 1830 map.

    By the 1880s, the street still didn’t exist, it is located just on the bend of Rosary Road, behind Aspland House.

    The street today, which was built at the end of the nineteenth century, looking towards the Wensum River.

    Looking back to 1939, the register of the street revealed:

    1 – Vacant

    2 – Bullock household

    3 – Anderson household

    4 – Morter household

    5 – Vacant

    6 – Vacant

    7 – Vacant

    8 – Nutt household

    9 – Ducker household

    10 – Holdstock household

    11 – Sadler household

    12 – Nickalls household

    13 – Lynes household

    14 – England household

    15 – Wilson household

    16 – Woodrow household

    17 – Sexton household

    18 – Hannant household

    19 – Knowles household

    20 – Westland household

    21 – Fisher household

    22 – Frostick household

    23 – Rudd household

    24 – Wright household

    25 – Bridgens household

    26 – Vacant

    27 – Jermy household

    28 – Norton household

    29 – Reeve household

    30 – Cooper household

    31 – Rumball household

    32 – Hill household

    33 – Howes household

    34 – White household

    35 – Benison household

    36 – Amers household

    37 – Coombs household

  • Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day Forty-One

    Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day Forty-One

    The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue was first published at the end of the eighteenth century, and given that the Coronavirus crisis is giving too much time to read books, I thought I’d pick a daily word from it until I got bored…..

    Break-Teeth Words

    This is a humorous little phrase, meaning “hard words, difficult to pronounce”. Unfortunately, I can’t find much evidence in books or papers that this was ever in common usage, but I still like it…..

  • Streets of Norwich – Clement Court

    Streets of Norwich – Clement Court

    Part of my Streets of Norwich project….

    There’s not much history left in Clement Court, but it does still exist behind the locked gates and the street name by its entrance remains.

    One of the most important pieces of history here is that Francis Burges published the first English provincial newspaper on 6 September 1701, the Norwich Post. The newspaper was published between 1701 and 1713, although unfortunately the earliest surviving copy is from 1707.

    This map from the 1880s shows that there was a Plymouth Brethren meeting room in the court, which could seat 260 people. The buildings around the court were mostly destroyed in 1957 when the Norfolk News Company extended their premises.

  • Florence – Uffizi Gallery (1470s Sculpture of an Evangelist)

    Florence – Uffizi Gallery (1470s Sculpture of an Evangelist)

    Another part of the legacy provided to the Uffizi by the controversial Count Alessandro Contini-Bonacossi, there’s not a vast amount known about this marble sculpture. However, experts have managed to pinpoint it to likely being from between 1475 and 1480 because of the style, they suspect it’s of St. John and it’s likely from the circle of artists linked to Giovanni Antonio Amadeo. Certainly an impressive piece of deduction by the curators to ascertain all of that. And, other than a dent to the nose, it’s in a pretty good state of repair given it’s over 500 years old.

  • Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day Forty

    Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day Forty

    The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue was first published at the end of the eighteenth century, and given that the Coronavirus crisis is giving too much time to read books, I thought I’d pick a daily word from it until I got bored…..

    Bray

    The dictionary defines this as “a vicar of Bray; one who frequently changes his principles, always siding with the strongest party: an allusion to a vicar of Bray, in Berkshire, commemorated in a well-known ballad for the pliability of his conscience”.

    I hadn’t heard of this phrase, although a film was made with the title of ‘Vicar of Bray’ in the 1930s, telling the story. Like most of these things, there are differing tales from other the centuries, it likely refers to Simon Aleyn who served as the Canon of Windsor between 1559 and 1563. He managed to shift from being a Catholic to a Protestant and then back to a Catholic, before finally changing back to Protestantism. I can think of some politicians like him….

    The text of the ballad is at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vicar_of_Bray_(song).

     

  • Florence – Uffizi Gallery (The Supper at Emmaus by Vincenzo Cateno)

    Florence – Uffizi Gallery (The Supper at Emmaus by Vincenzo Cateno)

    Painted at some point between 1515 and 1520 by Vincenzo Cateno, the artwork shows the two apostles meeting with Christ after He has risen. The information by the painting notes that the figure in black was likely the patron who funded the artwork.

    The information also notes that “the two apostles recognise their Master when Christ blesses and breaks the bread just as He had done at the Last Supper”. The artist was Venetian and lived between 1480 until around 1531, with this painting being part of the legacy provided by Count Alessandro Contini-Bonacossi (who appears to have been an enormously controversial figure) who died in Florence in 1955.

  • Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day Thirty-Nine

    Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day Thirty-Nine

    The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue was first published at the end of the eighteenth century, and given that the Coronavirus crisis is giving too much time to read books, I thought I’d pick a daily word from it until I got bored…..

    Bran-faced

    Not the most politically correct of terms, although to be fair, this dictionary is over 200 years old, this is defined as “freckled, he was Christened by a baker, he carries the bran in his face”. I can’t find much mention of this term being used in print, so I’m guessing that it wasn’t particularly widespread. Probably not one that needs to be brought back into usage…

  • Streets of Norwich – King Street (upper end between Rose Lane and Prince of Wales Road)

    Streets of Norwich – King Street (upper end between Rose Lane and Prince of Wales Road)

    Part of my Streets of Norwich project….

    King Street is one of the longer streets in the city centre, with this section running between Prince of Wales Road and Rose Lane.

    This is how the street looked like in the 1880s.

    The building on the left is, I think, the former Royal Oak public house, in operation between the 1850s and closed in 1921.

    The building which has what looks like a black frontage (behind the blue sign) was the Cock pub which was a licensed premises between the mid-eighteenth century and 1975 when it finally closed. It’s located at 32 King Street and the frontage is an original pub frontage from the nineteenth century.

    What is now the Last Pub Standing, which is a reference to it being the last public house on King Street, but was formerly known as Kings, Bar Rio, Tusk and the Nags Head. The building, which is at 27-29 King Street, was formerly two residential properties from the seventeenth century.

    The building on the left is the side of Hardwick House, which was built as a bank, before becoming the city’s main Post Office.

    The stretch of King Street was once the main road through, but this section has now been mostly pedestrianised.

  • Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day Thirty-Eight

    Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day Thirty-Eight

    The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue was first published at the end of the eighteenth century, and given that the Coronavirus crisis is giving too much time to read books, I thought I’d pick a daily word from it until I got bored…..

    Bragget

    The dictionary defines this as “mead and ale sweetened with honey”, which seems to have been a common word at the time, derived from the medieval word ‘brag’ meaning malt. The drink was sweet, and often had spices added to it, with the word also being spelt ‘braggot’ or ‘braket’.

    Chaucer used the word as early as the fourteenth century, but it has pretty much fallen out of use now.