Category: Norwich

This is a watercolour of Old Carrow Gardens painted in 1876 by John Joseph Cotman (1814-1878) and it presents me with a little bit of a challenge of trying to understand where it fits into the current urban environment. The tower in the background is the Black Tower which is accessible up a big hill, one I ascend as infrequently as possible. Anyone who thinks Norwich is flat hasn’t had to traipse up to pubs such as the Rose from King Street.

I think the the artwork was probably painted from here, on the north side of the River Wensum. That bridge isn’t there any more, they’ve shoved it down the road a bit nearer to the football ground, with Paper Mill Yard now being on the south side of the river where the bridge once met it. Until relatively recently, all the buildings on the south of the river were part of Colman’s Carrow Works Factory, a site that they only finally left in 2020.

I may well be wrong on this (that does happen frequently), but I know that sometimes the word ‘gardens’ more means an empty space with some bits of foliage as opposed to something more organised, which might be happening here. As a river scene, it has though entirely changed over the last 150 years or so.

Meandering around the collections of the Norwich Castle Museum, this display of dead stuffed animals is hard to miss and they’re from the Bostock and Wombwell Menagerie. This travelling circus was in operation between 1810 and 1931 and when their animals died on tour, they were often given to local museums. No doubt the menagerie was most exciting at the time, especially for children, as I can’t imagine many people had previously seen big cats, kangaroos, monkeys and even a rhino to name just a few.

The above animal doesn’t have a name, or at least not one that has been recorded, but it’s an ocelot which did in January 1893 before it was stuffed and brought to the museum. I hadn’t realised, but ocelots can be kept as pets, although I’m hoping that not too many people decide to do that in Norwich as it would feel sub-optimal for too many of these to be wandering around.

As evidence that these displays were educational, this is a binturong and I’ve never heard of them before so that’s something new to me. It’s an Asian bear cat and it looks very odd to me, they’re apparently noted for their strong tail which helps them climb trees. According to Plumpton Park Zoo they are “normally shy in the wild, but very aggressive when harassed and they may urinate or defecate on a threat”. They sound like just the thing you’d want to traipse around in your menagerie.

The museum notes that in 1812, George Wombwell bred the first lion in captivity in the UK, apparently now stuffed and on display at Saffron Walden museum. This lion cub was born on tour in 1887, dying at three months old when it reached Lowestoft. If he had lived longer, he is unlikely to have had a pleasant life, as Wombwell had used the lions to fight dogs, usually a battle which the lion would win but at some cost to its health and well-being. They were controversial even back in the early nineteenth century and Parliament banned them, which is one of the earlier pieces of animal rights legislation.

This male was caught in Australia and used by the menagerie as a boxing red kangaroo. I’m not sure that zoos or the like would get away with that little arrangement any more, he died in Somerset in March 1896. The museum doesn’t note whether he died in a fight or of natural causes. For anyone who wants to read more about this way of exhibiting animals before the establishment of zoos, there’s a Wikipedia page about them.

In the collections of Norwich Castle Museum, this is a pencil and watercolour by Joseph Stannard (1797-1830) from 1808. My first thought is that this shows just what a heap of dreadful buildings that had been shoved up in front of the historic Pull’s Ferry water gate. But, back to Stannard, who had his first painting exhibited at the Norwich Society of Artists when he was just 14. He suffered from poor health throughout most of his life, dying of tuberculosis at the age of 33, but despite that short life he became an important member of the Norwich School of Painters.

Here’s what it looks like today, with the River Wensum just visible in the left hand corner. I wonder whether the marks on the right-hand tower, looking like where a window or door once was, once led into the structure that Stannard drew. I rather like looking at how buildings have changed over the centuries during their repairs and reconstructions and this structure has gone through some periods when it was quite unloved.

By the late nineteenth century, the building had fallen into some state of disrepair and the roof had fallen in which was really all quite sub-optimal. On the bright side at least, the ramshackle arrangement of rickety buildings in front of the gate have been removed, although perhaps it was those that was holding them up.

In terms of when things improved for the building, George Plunkett, as ever, helps with this as he has a photo from 1949 showing a modernisation taking place and this was overseen by Cecil Upcher. Pull’s Ferry was for centuries used as a ferry house (the ferry operated until 1943), and the gate itself was built in the fourteenth century over the canal that had been used to take stone the short distance down to the cathedral during its construction. The canal was filled in during the late eighteenth century and for a while the building was used as a pub, which strikes me as a useful enterprise.

On display at Norwich Castle Museum, these gospels were carried by Private JP Benstead during the First World War, designed to instil confidence and peace into the soldiers who no doubt needed some considerable reassurance. There were nine million Bibles distributed to British troops throughout the war years and the National Army Museum has the full text of one.

The Gospel of Saint Mark has the following message from Field Marshal Roberts inside it, dated 25 August 1914:

“I ask you to put your trust in God. He will watch over you and strengthen you. You will find in this little book, guidance when you are in sickness, and strength when you are in adversity.”

On 14 November 1914, the elderly Roberts was dead, dying of pneumonia in France when visiting Indian troops fighting in the war. The religious texts were evidently important to soldiers though, it’s mentioned by the Bible Society that Professor Michael Snape from the Department of Theology at Durham University said:

‘This is a phenomenon that was recorded when soldiers who were killed on 1 July 1916 – the first day of the Battle of the Somme – were recovered and buried, many of them were found dead with the Bible, or New Testament in their hands.”

Much as reassurance must have been a real comfort, I wonder how many young servicemen pondered how on earth God had let them get into this situation and what exactly He was doing to protect them. Anyway, I don’t digress to much, I just rather liked the exhibit as it would have been a hugely important thing for a serviceman to take into war and that it has survived is likely a testament (no pun intended) to that.

On display in Norwich Castle Museum, this scene isn’t easily recognisable today as the bridge has been replaced and the railway station shifted a little bit. It’s a print by John Newman dating from the middle of the nineteenth century and shows what was then Norwich Thorpe railway station, now just Norwich as they’ve shut all the others.

A wooden bridge was constructed to cross the River Wensum in 1810, with the lattice iron arch bridge which is visible in the above print added in 1844 to serve the new railway station. A more substantial replacement was constructed in the yard of the station and in 1886 it was rolled over to use the same abutments as the previous structure. That 1886 structure is still there today and there are people still merrily canoeing and boating under the bridge.

The railway station was first constructed in 1844 and the adjoining current railway station opened in 1886 when a larger building was needed. Which is when they also needed a bigger bridge…. I think it’s quite an attractive railway station and it must have been exciting as it was the first in the city, as Norwich Victoria didn’t open until 1849 and Norwich City didn’t open until 1882.

The older railway station was initially used as a goods station, but was then faffed about with and a new brick structure added in 1921 which is still standing today.

And there’s the larger building on the left, which is still the city’s main railway station. The building on the right is the 1921 structure which I think is used by train crew now. Vehicles once entered the railway station on this corner, but that was sub-optimal from a safety point of view, so cars now come through on a road between the two buildings.

I walk by this pub most days of the week, but I can’t recall the last time that I actually went into it. It’s a Craft Union pub, meaning that it’s sports led and has cheap drinks prices. There’s one particular Craft Union pub in Norwich, which is the Garden House, where the customer service is impeccable and the real ale selection one of the widest in the city. The excellent management at that pub has certainly improved my general image of the Craft Union brand.

In terms of its history, this is one of the few city centre pubs and it’s had an array of names over recent years, including Imagine, Chandlers, Wig & Pistle, Three Tuns, Mustard and Westlegate. As more people start to move into the new residential developments in the city centre I can imagine that trade will look up for venues such as this, it’s got a prime position. The pub was built in around 1937 and there’s an excellent photo of it on George Plunkett’s web-site which was taken in 1938. Then there’s a photo taken in 1936, which is of the previous building.

The only real ale available was Doom Bar, which doesn’t excite and delight me, so I went for John Smith’s instead. The service was polite and efficient, with the pricing being so low that I felt the need to get some crisps to go with it. The pub had something of a vibrant feel, but there was international football on the televisions and it all felt sufficiently safe and well managed (the pub, I have no idea about the football). I’m pleased to note that the drink and food pairing of John Smith’s and prawn cocktail crisps met my expectations.

Some of the pub’s decor and it does have a warm atmosphere, with everything feeling clean and well presented. There was only staff member, but she pro-actively and seem to spend her entire time serving, collecting glasses or cleaning.

The chain promotes their venues to be community pubs and I think that’s evident here. Some on-line reviews say that it’s an intimidating venue and there’s an inevitability that low drinks prices can engender that at times, but I thought matters seemed entirely in hand. I’d come here again, it might not offer the most exciting choice of real ales or craft beers, but it feels genuine and authentic.

Given that this building was formerly an architect’s office, it was decided to rename the Birdcage as the Drawing Rooms in 2022. It’s not the first time the pub has been renamed, it’s been the Pottergate Tavern, Brown Derby and Morning Star.

There was one real ale available and just generic keg beers. I don’t think the pub is too much engaged with drawing in (excuse the pun) beer drinkers, although it’s Greene King and so that’s hardly a surprise. They are pushing cocktails and I think that’s their main emphasis.

Being entirely honest I thought that there was a general absence of welcome with regards to the service, which is all a little unfortunate, but there we go. The pub was shortlisted for the Greene King Night of Excellence Awards 2023 a few months ago, so perhaps things are normally different.

They don’t appear to do food as that section of their web-site has every food menu item described as “I’m a dish description. Click Edit Menu to open the Restaurant Menu editor and change my text.”, which seems an odd thing for the management to have published. Currently all their food is listed at £9.99 including the onion rings, so I assume that’s a work in progress.

The pub was clean and tidy, although it all feels rather formulaic and as if it’s been rolled out by a restaurant chain. One recent reviewer has said that “it now looks like a strip club” and I do feel that it’s lost the charm and atmosphere that it had when it was the Birdcage. They have made an effort to put power points in for customers to use, which is very positive. The music was also too loud for my liking, given that we the only customers in this part of the pub, it hardly added much to the atmosphere. However, I get that I’m not the target audience here and I’ve run a pub where I wasn’t the target audience on some nights, so that’s fair enough, it’s about ensuring the core customers feel welcome.

The sole real ale choice was Pave the Way from Greene King and Big Hug Brewing. It was well kept, but it was bland and lacking in any depth of taste or flavour. This was a disappointing element, I would have expected two real ales to be available and preferably at least one not linked to Greene King.

In terms of the reviews, they’re mixed, a variety of people finding the music too loud and the service either being rude or indifferent. However, some customers love the cocktails and they do seem to have found their niche there and the owners are experienced given that they’re currently also operating the Wild Man and the Ten Bells.

As is likely evident, this pub isn’t really for me, but I don’t think it’s supposed to be. They seem to be after the 18-25 year old market and I can imagine that might be reasonably profitable for them, although it might take another refurbishment in a couple of years to keep it current and up-to-date. In positive terms though, the pub was clean and they’ve got power points.