One
Norwich: An Introduction

With the coming of a new century imaginations are fired to create new ideas covering all aspects of the practical, moral and emancipated structure of our life and surroundings for the perceived good of the future. Norwich was to see some of the greatest changes, destruction, improvement, innovation and upheavals in its entire history enacted during the twentieth century.

In 1900 Norwich, with its population of 111,733 souls, was still more or less contained within its medieval walls which had been built to contain a city of about 5,000 citizens. Its roads were narrow and twisty, many of them unmade or in a poor state of repair. Large areas of the city were described as ‘. . . some of the most disgraceful slums in England’ where families crammed themselves into cramped and poorly maintained housing based around the 749 courts and yards in the city. Many of them had no sanitation with heaps of human dung, up to 9 feet across, recorded in the yards where disease was as rife as the misery therein.

The only road of ‘modern’ construction which affected the medieval pattern was Prince of Wales Road. Opened in November 1862, it was built on the back gardens of once fashionable houses as a commercial speculation to link Thorpe station by means of a grand boulevard to the city centre. Sadly the project ran out of money but Alexandra Mansions (1865) and the summit area around Agricultural Hall Plain – including Hardwick House (1866), Agricultural Hall (1882) and the Royal Hotel (1897) – demonstrate some of the planned grand architecture proposed for the scheme.

The Norwich Electric Tramways Act came into force in July 1897. The company, which had a total capital of £240,000 paid up in £10 shares, began purchasing property in the city according to the powers granted by the Act. Another Act (1898) for the improvement of the city streets meant a number of slums were removed and roads were widened and made up with pathways. Together they enabled an efficient and effective tram system to begin operations in 1900. The overcrowding of the city began to be eased with this practical and cost-effective link between the growing ‘New City’ and the artisan suburbs of streets of terraced houses, corner shops and pubs outside the old walls, while the inner city retained its factories, larger shops and workforce!

Many products and businesses which were household names originated from Norwich: J & J Colman Ltd’s Mustard and Starch, Wincarnis Tonic, Steward and Patteson, Morgans and Youngs, Crawshay & Youngs breweries, Barnard, Bishop & Barnard and Boulton & Paul engineers along with Caley’s Mineral Water, Chocolates and Crackers were familiar businesses based in the city. The largest employers in the city were however the huge boot and shoe factories of companies like Howlett & White and Southall’s (later known by the name of their most famous shoe ‘Start-Rite’). By 1931, 10,800 Norwich people were employed in boot and shoe manufacture with twenty-six firms producing 6,000,000 pairs of shoes – 16 per cent of the total British output in 1935.

The factories not only provided employment but often included pastoral care and benefits such as sponsored housing, medical care schemes and schools for their employees. Each of these great businesses had their own unique sounds and smells and became so much part of the fabric of the city that it was thought they would last forever. Today Norwich’s largest employers are found in the insurance industry; all of the others either no longer exist or have changed beyond recognition.

The peaceful status quo of the improving city was lost in 1914 when the country was plunged into war. Norwich answered the call of the war effort by sending thousands of men and women to serve king and country in all theatres of the war. Many businesses changed what they were doing or developed new products. Examples include Boulton & Paul who began military aircraft manufacture and Barnards who made self assembly buildings and barbed wire under contract to the War Office. Harmer’s made uniforms, and the boot factories made footwearfor our fighting forces. Even Caley’s, with their experience of gunpowder for crackers, produced munitions.

Over 3,500 Norwich men and women were killed in the First World War. Of those who returned many were crippled in mind and body and disillusioned with the lack of a ‘Land Fit for Heroes’ promised for their return. Many were reduced to selling rags and matches on the Market. Things were never quite the same again.

Norwich City Council did want to make things better for those who had returned from war. A concerted effort was made to give employment to city men by starting a major building programme in 1918 when construction began on the Mile Cross Housing Estate, the first council housing estate in the country.

All of the thirty public parks, gardens and recreation grounds which surround the city – a total of more than 738 acres – were created or improved during the 1920s and ’30s. It is not surprising that, by the late 1920s, the Labour Party became the largest group on the city council and gained complete control in 1933.

From this time on the most significant of all the development projects were undertaken. In 1928 the council began purchasing houses all around the municipal buildings and St Peter’s Road area. Following a number of reports and a competition to select a designer and architects, work began on the construction of the new city hall in 1936.

In a project which cost over £200,000 the old city Market Place was completely redesigned and crowned with new civic buildings, which have been described as ‘the best example of inter-war years municipal architecture in the country’.

During the Second World War the city and its people answered the call again but this time the war came to the city. Norwich residents had experienced bombing raids since 1940 but nothing prepared them for the blitz of April 1942, known as the ‘Baedeker Blitz’. The Luftwaffe were given orders to bomb targets of historical significance in an attempt to break British morale. Norwich citizens were killed as a result of the bombing raids, and large areas of the city were reduced to burnt out shells or piles of wood and rubble.

Out of the ashes of the blitz rose a plan which threatened to put paid to most of what was left of the historical city of Norwich. The Norwich City Plan of 1946 included inner and outer ring roads, new housing developments and a grand plan for a large ‘open plaza’-style civic centre.

Luckily the City Plan was considered over a 25-year period and the sweeping changes to the city centre were not carried out entirely. In the 1960s, however, the construction of the inner ring road saw whole areas of the city which had survived the blitz put asunder by the demolition gangs. Historic areas like Grapes Hill, Chapel Field, Magdalen Street and St Stephens were knocked about or given ‘features’ which have irreparably damaged or destroyed the area as we knew it. It was also during this time that some hideous office blocks which still aggrieve our skyline were erected.

Time has marched on and Norwich people are now given a greater voice in deciding the shape and future of major developments in the city. The old cattle market area was redeveloped to become the Castle Mall Shopping Centre, which opened in 1993. From the mid-1990s the city’s riverside has been developed from old engineering works, factories and wharves into a trendy area for arts and entertainment with additional parking. A number of the grand Victorian breweries, along with the old boot and shoe factories, have not been demolished but have been converted to offices or smart residential accommodation.

Following the terrible fire at the library and the sell-off of the Nestlé site, redevelopment of the Chapel Field and Bethel Street areas has involved a number of public presentations and a great deal of serious consultation with the people of Norwich. As we advance into the twenty-first century I look forward to seeing the new library and Chapelfield area develop. I simply hope the sites will be as sympathetic and beneficial to the city as they are promised to be.

Finally, I raise a glass to the fine old City of Norwich, the city which could once truthfully claim ‘a pub for every day and a church for every weekend’ – we’re not too far out even today. We have a lot to be proud of but also need to remember what we’ve lost; we must not forget or become complacent about the historical buildings we are blessed with and could take for granted as part of our city. It is up to us to be responsible for what is left of Norwich’s past for its future. As the Norfolk saying goes when you are entrusted with a treasured heirloom: ‘Now, dew yew maik sure an’ tek care of ut!’