Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Tag: Streets of Norwich

  • Streets of Norwich – St. John Maddermarket

    Streets of Norwich – St. John Maddermarket

    Part of my Streets of Norwich project….

    For some reason that I’ve never fathomed out, I’ve always liked this street, which is dominated by St. John the Baptist, Maddermarket Church and its sprawling churchyard. The name of the street is derived from the time that madder, which is a root that produced a red dye, was sold from the north end of the churchyard in the thirteenth century. From then on, the name has stuck and this street connects St. Andrew’s Street with Pottergate. More on the church in another post though…..

    The building on the left is number 21-23, two buildings constructed in the seventeenth century which have been two separate shops for some time, with the left-hand side property having once been a pub.

    I’ve been intrigued by this graveyard on the right-hand side, as it’s raised up and I know that in York and in other cities this was simply because they kept trying to put burials in the space they had, and the ground level rose. However, the church itself is also higher, because it was fitted into a limited amount of land. But, having written that, there was an archaeological dig which found bodies from the seventeenth century underneath now what is the above road, so the graveyard was once lower.

    I hadn’t noticed this until today, it’s a water pump from the nineteenth century which is made out of iron and is now missing its handle.

    A view down the street towards St. Andrew’s Street.

    Another thing that I haven’t noticed before, this notes where the Golden Lion public house was located between 1783 and 1965. It was also the location of Golden Lion yard, which was also swept away when the pub was demolished.

    This is where the pub was. Replaced by yet another bland and generic building. Although to be fair, there’s a photo of the pub here and it didn’t look that exciting either. But I prefer the look of the pub.

  • Streets of Norwich – Rigbys Court

    Streets of Norwich – Rigbys Court

    Part of my Streets of Norwich project….

    Rigby’s Court, which is the small lane which leads from Bethel Street to St. Giles Street. There’s a small plaque (below) which is on the right-hand side property.

    The lane takes its name from Dr. Edward Rigby (1717-1821) who was the Mayor of Norwich in 1805 who lived in the building. As the plaque notes, “he was associated with the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital for fifty years from its foundation in 1771, and was responsible for introducing vaccination into the city”.

    There’s an opened up area along the lane, which are numbers 4-9. Number 4 was made a listed building in 1972, although I’m unsure why, it’s marked as being an early nineteenth century residential building that is now offices, of which Norwich has many…..

    The building on the left, number 3, is an early nineteenth century residential property which became a printers and looks like it’s back to being a residential property again.

    Not much has changed since the 1880s, although before 1850, it was known as Pitt Lane.

  • Streets of Norwich – Queen Street

    Streets of Norwich – Queen Street

    Part of my Streets of Norwich project….

    Queen Street is located off of Tombland and connects with Redwell Street. I’m omitting one building of interest on this street from this post, which is the Church of St. Mary the Less, which has an intriguing story of its own.

    This is the Old Bank of England Court. The building to the right-hand side of the court is a former residential property built in the late seventeenth century, which is now used as offices. It is also where the offices of Edward Boardman were once located, a well-known (well, locally, I don’t think he was an international superstar in the nineteenth century) Norwich architect. The building to the left-hand side of the court is similar in once being residential, although was first built in the early eighteenth century.

    The name of the court is because the Bank of England had offices here between 1826 and 1852, a regional location to try and bring some stability to the country’s banks, which had gone through a period of instability. They gave up with that idea in the 1850s, which the Bank of England operations being centralised back in London.

    This is handy at the Boardman Building at the Bank of England Court (which is a different location to the nearby Boardman House), the history of a building on a panel at the front. More places should do this.

    Looking back down Queen Street towards the Ethelbert Gateway, with the Church of St. Mary the Less visible on the left-hand side.

    The building on the left is Seebohm House, the former Haldinstein’s Boot and Shoe Manufactory, which later became the Bally shoe factory.

    Another view of Seebohm House, with the large gateway.

    Norwich Brewdog, I wish it was open as usual…..

    Brewdog is at 1 Queen Street, which was built as a residential property in the late seventeenth century, although it retains its fifteenth century undercroft. It has been a licensed premises since the beginning of the twentieth century, with CAMRA noting that over the last few decades that it has traded as “Hideout, Knowhere, Noir, Indulge, Hogshead, City Ale & Wine Bar, Gundry Whites Cafe Bar, Drummonds and Whites”. And as I’ve learned to love Brewdog, so hopefully it’ll stay there for some time….

    Next to Brewdog is the Bank of Scotland at number 3 Queen Street, which also has a fifteenth century undercroft.

    This is now Revolución de Cuba, which is the sister bar to Revolution, which is located over the road. I remember this as Yates, although it has been a Slug and Lettuce.

  • Streets of Norwich – St. George’s Street (Colegate to Blackfriars Bridge)

    Streets of Norwich – St. George’s Street (Colegate to Blackfriars Bridge)

    Part of my Streets of Norwich project….

    St. George’s Street is a little complex as chunks of it have been renamed over the centuries and the route at the north has changed. And, it once wasn’t called St. George’s Street, it was instead known as Gildengate and it runs along the line of a Viking defensive ditch and bank which was constructed in around 900.

    As it’s such a long street, this post is just the section between Colegate and Blackfriars Bridge. Moderately surprisingly for such an historic street, there’s only one listed building in this section of road, suggesting how much the buildings have been mauled about and demolished over the last couple of centuries. This section of the street was probably more often known as Bridge Street in the nineteenth century, rather than St. George’s Street.

    This was historically a built-up area of the street, but is now St. George’s Green. Near to the river, the Blackfriars Tavern was a pub which traded between the mid-eighteenth century until its final closure in 1911. It was also known as the Cellar House and the Friars Tavern, and probably overlooked the river.

    Norwich Playhouse, which is housed in what was built as a nineteenth century maltings building, which became a theatre in 1995. This former building is set back a little, with the roadside section once taken by the Crown public house, which closed in 1928.

    A former shop, now used as offices. Somewhere behind these buildings there was a pub known as the Cork Cutters Arms, which was a licensed premises between around the early 1860s until 1898.

    Cafe Pure on the right-hand side.

    The Last Wine Bar on the left. Somewhere on the left-hand side of the photo was the Two Quarts pub, which traded between the 1760s and was closed down in 1907. It sounds like a pub of some considerable character and it had rooms to rent.

    The building to the left, numbers 25, 27 and 29, are the only listed properties on this section of the street. They date to the sixteenth century, which were added to in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, although the shopfronts are from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The frontages of the buildings have been heavily restored, the photos George Plunkett took in the 1930s show much more character. Although the buildings would have probably fallen down if they weren’t restored…. Number 25 was a cafe for quite a period, run by Alfred and Emily Aldridge in the late 1930s and all of 25-29 is now By Appointment, which I think was a cafe and is now a hotel.

  • Streets of Norwich – Haymarket (East Side)

    Streets of Norwich – Haymarket (East Side)

    Part of my Streets of Norwich project….

    I’ve already posted about Haymarket, but there are some buildings on the east side which are of particular interest.

    The Haymarket Chambers building, designed by the local architect George Skipper. Now one of the two Pret outlets in the city, it was previously used by Snob, a clothing retailer.

    Looking down towards the Market Place, the rest of Haymarket is on the left-hand side of this photo.

    The entrance to the Lamb Inn, which is one of the oldest pubs in the city and some argue that it might be the second oldest in Norwich (the Adam and Eve on Bishopgate dates back to the mid-thirteenth century).

    The original part of the Primark building, once used by BHS when they were in the city.

    The new Primark extension on the left, which has been open for a few months. Well, it’s shut now with the virus, but, other than that….. The archaeological report from that process is an interesting read as well. There was no real loss with the building they pulled down, a bland modern affair, which was used by Wallis and Dorothy Perkins.

    This is number 3/4 Haymarket, now used by Fatface, but it has a substantial heritage and it retains its fifteenth century undercroft. I haven’t yet got to go on one, but there are tours of the building as part of the Heritage Open Days Weekends (and there’s a series of photos on-line at http://www.oldcity.org.uk/norwich/tours/curathouse/index.php). There are still oak panelled rooms inside from when this was a residential property, lived in at one stage by John Curat in the sixteenth century, with the building now often referred to as Curat’s House.

  • Streets of Norwich – Redwell Street

    Streets of Norwich – Redwell Street

    Part of my Streets of Norwich project….

    Redwell Street today doesn’t quite make sense, it goes from Princes Street at the top of the above map, down to Queen Street, which is where Brewdog is located.

    Redwell Street makes more sense in this map from the 1880s, as some buildings were demolished to allow for St. Andrew’s Street to be extended, allowing trams to use the road. This cut Redwell Street in two and the lower half is really now part of St. Andrew’s Street in terms of the road layout.

    The street used to be known as St. Michael’s Street, because of St. Michael-at-Plea Church which is located here. In the seventeenth century a pump was added to an existing well by the church, which likely had a red covering and surround, and it became known as Red Well Street. That, over time, became corrupted into the current name of Redwell Street.

    This is Boardman House, which has a Redwell Street address, but its frontage and a connected building is on Princes Street, so more on that another time.

    Not much of huge historic interest here, although the building on the far right is 8 Redwell Street, which retains its nineteenth century frontage.

    The building on the right-hand side was built in 1957 for the Norfolk News Company, sadly demolishing a fair chunk of its heritage during the process. Given that the first provincial newspaper was published here at the beginning of the eighteenth century, it’s a shame that there’s nothing more than a plaque to mark the event.

    This is the building to the right-hand side of Jackson-Stops, the entrance to Clement Court.

    The signs show where Bank Plain and Redwell Street meet. The building on the right is interesting, this is 2 Redwell Street, which has a fifteenth century undercroft. The shopfront is original from the nineteenth century and the undercroft and cellars project underneath the Redwell Street pavement.

  • 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

  • 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.

  • 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.