Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Tag: Streets of Norwich

  • Streets of Norwich – Winecoopers Arms Yard

    Streets of Norwich – Winecoopers Arms Yard

    Part of my Streets of Norwich project….

    This yard is located off of St. Augustine’s Street, visible on the above 1880s map next to the pub from where it takes its name, the Winecoopers’ Arms. The pub traded between the 1830s and 1936, although nearly managed to get itself shut down in 1905 when the police didn’t like that the pub’s back yard opened into the yard where people lived. I suspect some residents would have preferred that for convenience, but, perhaps not all.

    The pub frontage hasn’t changed enormously, it’s the bit sticking out with glass, with George Plunkett having taken a photo of what it looked like in 1938.

    Now a modern building on the site of the yard’s entrance.

    Although the old style street name survives, with four households being registered here when the 1939 Register was completed.

  • Streets of Norwich – Rose Yard

    Streets of Norwich – Rose Yard

    Part of my Streets of Norwich project….

    Rose Yard is located off of St. Augustine’s Street and back in the 1880s, it was more than just a yard and was instead a sizeable street which led onto Edward Street.

    There’s a chunk of lost heritage here, the site is now pretty much just a car park, but George Plunkett has a photo of what it used to look like. It’s a real loss of an area which should still be housing, with the properties being demolished after the Second World War and then the site was just flogged off in bits.

    The building on the right was once the Rose Inn and there had been an inn on the site since the fourteenth century, with space for 100 horses being advertised in the nineteenth century. The window visible on the right is the original nineteenth century pub frontage and the pub carried on trading until 1981. With over 500 years of trading history, it’s sad to see the building in this state, it’d make a fine site for a pub….

  • Streets of Norwich – Nichols Yard

    Streets of Norwich – Nichols Yard

    Part of my Streets of Norwich project….

    This yard is located by the ‘T’ of Street and it used to lead into Barnes’s Yard, although that has now been closed off.

    The frontage of the yard, which is closed off from St. Augustine’s Street.

    As for why its called Nichols Yard, no-one seems quite sure….

  • Streets of Norwich – Hindes Yard

    Streets of Norwich – Hindes Yard

    Part of my Streets of Norwich project….

    Hindes Yard is located off of St. Augustine’s Street, just above where it says ‘free trade tavern’ on the above map from the 1880s.

    It’s one of many yards along this street, many of which have survived in some form, although some of them are closed off. The name of the yard likely comes from the early part of the nineteenth century, after the local Hinde family who ran a nearby manufacturing business.

    Back in 1939, there were three households in the yard, with six people living across the properties.

  • Streets of Norwich – Bakers Road

    Streets of Norwich – Bakers Road

    Part of my Streets of Norwich project….

    Baker’s Road, also known as Baker Road, connects Oak Street and St. Augustine Street, and it’s one that has changed substantially over the last century.

    This is Baker’s Road from the St. Augustine’s Street end, looking very different to 50 years ago as all of the terraced houses on the left hand-side were pulled down in July 1973.

    The pulling down of the houses meant that previously hidden sections of the city wall were uncovered, which were previously in the backyards of the properties along here (and visible in the above map).

    Looking back towards St. Augustine Street.

    Not much remains of this section down towards Oak Street, but the council are looking at the potential of making clear that the wall used to be wider than this suggests.

    The house painted white is number 31, which in 1939 was lived in by 6 people, all from the Hardy family. There was Amos Hardy, a pedlar, and his wife, along with five children, including Benjamin, Joyce, Eric and Douglas. Benjamin’s job was marked as “of national importance”, working as a coil spring operator.

    A green area where the houses stood, with the street being named after the number of bakeries that were once here.

  • Streets of Norwich – Recorder Road

    Streets of Norwich – Recorder Road

    Part of my Streets of Norwich project….

    Recorder Road is a relatively new street in Norwich, winding its way through what was until the early twentieth century a distillery and vinegar works. It is L-shaped and connects Horsefair to Prince of Wales Road.

    As the road is relatively new, there’s not a great of historic interest along here, with this being the road from the Prince of Wales Road end.

    The Greek Orthodox Church, which was built for the Christian Scientists in 1934 and was designed by Herbert G Ibberson to seat 300 people. I’ve never thought it was particularly exciting architecturally, but it is a listed building as it’s apparently notable for its Arts and Crafts style of design

    There’s a walkway which connects through to the River Wensum riverside footpath.

    This is where it gets more exciting, when we approach Horsefair, and it’s Stuart Court. These are almshouses which were constructed in 1914 and are listed buildings noted for their Dutch-style design.

    The plaque reads “these housen were built in the year 1915 in memory of James Stuart, Privy Councillor born at Balgonie, Scotland, 1843. Sometime a citizen of Norwich died at Carrow Abbey 1913”. I’m going to post about that word ‘housen’ in another post, it should be used more…..

    A media report at the time noted that “these cottages are two-storied and designed on the flat principle, since owing to the preciousness of land it is impossible to build this class of dwelling economically on any other plan. Each storey, therefore, forms a complete and entirely private home, planned on thoroughly hygienic lines and fitted up in a way which is too rarely met with houses designed for persons of such small means. A wash-house is provided, for instance, containing a tip-up bath, a copper with a patent steam extractor, and many other useful features; while every building is supplied with gas pipes, and in each wash-house space has been left for a gas cooker, tenants being allowed to install a slot meter or not as they wish”.

    Once again, I’ve managed to pay no attention to this despite walking by it hundreds of times.

    This plaque is inside the entranceway to the gardens constructed in 1922, with the gardens also being named after James Stuart. This is the third listed building on Recorder Road, impressive since everything on it is twentieth century (or this century I suppose). The gardens and the gateway were designed by Edward Boardman, who died in 1910, showing how long this took to be finished.

    Some rather nice gardens, very peaceful.

    One mystery I haven’t been able to answer, I don’t know why it’s called Recorder Road. I’m sure it’s obvious, but it’s gone over my head.

  • Streets of Norwich – Plumbers Arms Alley

    Streets of Norwich – Plumbers Arms Alley

    Part of my Streets of Norwich project….

    Located off of Princes Street, this small alley connects to Waggon and Horses Lane, taking its name from the Plumbers Arms pub which traded between the early nineteenth century and 1881.

    The pub building still stands and is now trading as a restaurant, which doesn’t seem to make much of the structure’s heritage in their communications. But, the building is of importance, it has two undercrofts with one from the fifteenth and the other from the sixteenth century and it was originally constructed (albeit much changed since) in the fifteenth century as a residential property.

    Norfolk Museums Service have this drawing in their collection which was created by Percy Stimpson, looking back towards Princes Street.

  • Streets of Norwich – Barrack Street

    Streets of Norwich – Barrack Street

    Part of my Streets of Norwich project….

    Barrack Street at the beginning of the twentieth century and the road line is still there, although the junction at Cowgate is now a large roundabout. It’s named after the cavalry barracks that are still visible on the above map.

    Starting at the Cowgate / St. Crispins Road roundabout.

    St James the Less Church, which is perhaps better known today as Norwich Puppet Theatre. More on this church in another post, as I’ve been on a guided tour of the church and I have photos somewhere of that. This is pretty much all of old Norwich that has survived the mauling about of Barrack Street and the church looks a bit lost today.

    More recently, this has been a light industrial area with an ugly building facing the road. It’s now a housing development being built by Hill.

    At the moment, these buildings have been left looking rather forlorn. It’s the two white buildings at 77-79 Barrack Street that are interesting, they’re listed (which probably annoys the owners) and are terraced houses dating from the beginning of the nineteenth century. As long as no-one has nicked them, the interiors are also important, with a cast-iron hob grate within a timber surround and a rare fireplace inside them. The premises were used as a fish and chip shop until recently, they’re really not in a good state externally.

    Opposite these properties on the other side of the road is Bargate Court, but more on this in a later post.

    This is now the head office of QD.

    And the other side of the building and the paved area on the right is the entrance to what was once Pockthorpe Brewery, which was a substantial complex of buildings. When they built houses here in 1976, they did an archaeological survey and probably started with some high hopes of finding something new. The report stated “we revealed no finds or features of archaeological interest”. Thrilling. But best to check.

    A few years ago they pulled down some council housing, which was in perfectly good nick, and then left the site vacant for years. It wasn’t a good look…. It’s part of the same Hill housing development which is now finally under construction and it’ll be known as St. James’s Quay.

    Now a dentists, this was the Sportman pub from the early nineteenth century until its closure in 1995, when it was used as a solicitors. It replaced a pub of the same name which was located across the road.

    And yet more of the Hill site that will be housing in the next few years. There’s not a huge amount of history lost here, as previously it was a light industrial site for some time and before then it was a timber yard and wharf area.

    The former barracks site, now turned into generic looking housing. It’s a little unfortunate that they demolished the barracks in the 1960s, as the site would have made for an impressive museum location. Although the city council would probably only turned it into another bloody car park, so perhaps it’s better that it’s housing.

    The barrack site again, it was built on the site of Hassett House at the end of the eighteenth century and was known as Cavalry Barracks and then Nelson Barracks.

    Former barracks site on the right, there’s now a gym over on the left-hand side. Again, there wasn’t much here before, unlike the other end of Barrack Street, they haven’t demolished a load of housing.

    A pretty mundane looking wall which has been brightened, or worsened depending on your point of view, with some paint.

    This is a better looking wall, it’s from Hassett House.

    And, this was a former entrance to the barrack buildings, although it has been landscaped so there’s now nothing behind here other than soil. It’s also where the entrance to Hassett House would have been, and for a period of time, the tower over the other side of the Wensum River was known now as Cow Tower, but as Hassett Tower.

  • Streets of Norwich – Telegraph Lane West

    Streets of Norwich – Telegraph Lane West

    Part of my Streets of Norwich project….

    Leading on from Gas Hill, Telegraph Road is split into East and West, divided by Quebec Street.

    The entrance to the street from the Gas Hill end.

    St. Matthew’s Church.

    This is the only listed building, well structure, in this part of Norwich, which is the war memorial that was originally unveiled on 25 September 1921. It has been shunted about a bit as the church is new and some bloody idiot vandalised it, but it’s all been repaired and fixed up. The memorial commemorates 128 servicemen who lost their lives during the First World War.

    Like being in the countryside….

    That’s a slightly abrupt installation of a garage door onto the frontage of an older building. But, whatever works…

  • Streets of Norwich – Britannia Road

    Streets of Norwich – Britannia Road

    Part of my Streets of Norwich project….

    The first part of this road, when approaching from Kett’s Hill, consists of early twentieth century residential properties.

    Then things become a bit more exciting, with Norwich prison appearing in view. This was formerly the site of the Britannia military barracks, which is where the street takes it name from. The barracks were constructed between 1885 and 1887, with the Royal Norfolk Regiment remaining there until 1959. It was also initially built to be used as a prison and this opened in 1887, meaning that the prison at Norwich Castle could be closed and turned into a museum. When the military moved out in 1959, the prison took over those buildings as well.

    Until just a few months ago, this was the home of the Cafe Britannia, where prisoners were able to get customer service work experience. I’m not sure what happened, but the entire project collapsed, with the cafe being left empty (before Covid-19).

    The former entrance to the barracks. At this point, the road splits in two directions, one to the left and the other to the right, but both are apparently still named Britannia Road.

    The road to the left heads back down to Gurney Road, although is also where the road to the right goes to as well so it’d be hard for anyone to get too lost here. Although I can think of a couple of people I know who probably would.

    There’s quite a rural feel to this part of the road.

    As an aside, it’s worth walking down Britannia Road to get this view over the city.

    The prison from the viewpoint.