The previous post [1] on the Victorian plant nurseries concentrated in a single Norwich parish seems to have struck a chord in this city with a long history of horticulture. The feedback has been tremendous and, since personal reminiscences and comments brought the topic alive, I felt they deserved to be recorded. The scale of some of the nurseries was astonishing: Adcock’s glasshouses ‘totall(ed) a quarter of a million square feet of glass’. One reader said she’d heard gardeners on Upton Road remarking on how much broken glass they keep digging up. Another, whose garden backs onto the site of Adcock’s nursery, found a subterranean cistern underneath her garden. As we’ll see, other comments provide a fascinating insight into the seed shops maintained by nurseries in the city centre.
On Twitter, Huw Sayer made the comparison between Adcock’s nursery and the subject of an article in the Eastern Daily Press. More than a century after Adcock, a giant tomato glasshouse is being built just outside Norwich, using ‘More glass than the Shard.’ [2]
The only surviving nursery lives on as Notcutt’s Garden Centre. As we saw [1], this started as Mackie’s nursery, which was so large that clients could drive around in their carriages. It became the Townclose Nurseries and, after being sold to the Daniels brothers was bisected in the 1930s by the Daniels Road portion of the ring road.
I show the Daniels Bros receipt (1892) again as a reminder that in addition to their out-of-town seed grounds and nurseries around Newmarket and Ipswich Roads, they had city centre warehouses in Exchange Street and Bedford Street. This latter area, around the north-west corner of modern-day Jarrolds Department Store, provided a shop window for out-of-town nurseries. The location is perhaps not surprising since the Corn Exchange was built at this junction between the two streets. The area was therefore a focus for the gardening as well as the farming seed trade.
In 1854, Mason’s Directory records that William John Ewing of the Royal Norfolk Nurseries, Eaton, had a seed warehouse at 9 Exchange Street, while Mackie’s and Stewart had a ‘seed establishment’ next door at 10&11 [3]. Correspondent Don Watson provides a link with the Daniels store around the corner: ‘I remember Daniels’ shop in Bedford Street because, being at school in Norwich, it became my job to buy the vegetable seeds there – much better quality than Bees Seeds from Woolworths (so I was told). That establishment was one of a few which still in the 1950s had only a beaten earth floor’.
Dick Malt confirmed this recollection: ‘Don Watson is quite right, the shop stood about opposite Little London Street and became The Granary when Daniels left. The facade is still the same as it was.’ … ‘The Bedford St premises were where, at that time, seeds were cleaned and dressed for sale, both horticultural and agricultural. The cleaning floor was the topmost, under the roof. By the time I remember it, that aspect of the business had ceased and orders were packed there for posting out. There was a sack hoist from the ground floor and the warehouse manager’s office on the first floor was connected by a speaking tube to the upper floor’.
Simon Gooch said, I ‘thought you might be interested in a little more information about The Granary in Bedford Street, filling in a bit of a missing link between Daniels seedsmen and Jarrolds taking over. My late father Michael Gooch (who was in partnership with my mother Sheila as M & S Gooch, Architects, in Norwich) converted the warehouse into a new shop for the owners Chapman & Pape in 1971-2. They called it The Granary, and at a time before Habitat or John Lewis had arrived in the city it was a bit of a mecca for good furniture and kitchenware. I have a couple of black & white photos taken just after the shop opened, showing the smart typography of the name on one of the windows; the ground floor facade was painted a dark colour, I think purple (though being the Seventies it might have been chocolate brown [Michael later confirmed this to have been 1970s-fashionable brown]). The interior’s handsome pine beams and supports were exposed, and the wood and steel staircase inserted.’ The building is now Jarrolds’ modern furniture and design store and they retained the name, The Granary.
Dick Malt’s account continues: ‘This picture of Bedford St [2 above] shows the shop in the 1960s. It had a long mahogany counter which had almost certainly come from the Arcade. My father, A.E. (Jim) Malt was the firm’s manager and later managing director, having spent his working life in the horticultural and agricultural seed trades, beginning as an apprentice to Daniels. The shop was then in the Royal Arcade – I still have the keys!’
‘My father was born in 1909, so was most likely apprenticed to the firm in about 1923. Some of the time he had to work on the firm’s farm at Tunstead, near Coltishall, where seeds were grown … He had to collect the keys to the Arcade from the Guildhall on his way to open up the shop. One sharp March morning he found the lock on the gates frozen up – a policeman thawed them out with a blow lamp’.
‘Daniels Bros, ‘The Royal Norfolk Seed Establishment’, had a shop at 16-20 Exchange Street (as seen on the printing block image (below) – reversed for ease of reading) …
The plate shows the building was originally five storeys high but numbers 16-20 are now much reduced.
The discrepancy is explained by George Plunkett’s photograph of the collapse in 1991 of the north-west end of the street.
Dick Malt suggests that Daniels may have moved to the Royal Arcade ‘when it was opened in 1899’. Below, Stuart McPherson’s ‘ghost’ photo, shows the location of Daniels’ shop in the arcade.
Holders of the Royal Warrant awarded by King Edward VII advertise their prestigious address in the newly-opened Royal Arcade.
The list of Daniels’ locations from a 1939-40 catalogue indicates the firm owned seed farms at Tunstead and Ashmanhaugh. It also shows they still maintained the Royal Arcade address up to the Second World War.
‘The shop moved to the Daniels Road nursery site in 1967 – a new phenomenon then – a Garden Centre – and the Bedford St premises became ‘The Granary’.’
The two seated celebrities were Percy Thrower (the country’s most famous gardener) and Ted Moult (farmer, radio and TV personality).
There is a short history of the firm in ‘Norfolk Fair’ magazine Vol.5, No.11, 1973. Does anyone have access to a copy?
Thanks. I am grateful to the readers who made comments and those who provided further information, especially Dick Malt whose father’s working life is commemorated in this piece.
Sources
COLONEL UNTHANK'S NORWICH 
So Jim Malt had the keys to our shop! No wonder we couldn’t find them. In 1985, Langleys moved into the units that were once occupied by Daniels in the Royal Arcade. Stuart McPherson created this wonderful ‘ghost’ image incorporating the old and the new: https://flic.kr/p/oFPaUA
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What a wonderful ‘ghost’ image, showing the Daniels shop in the Royal Arcade. Would be great to have a copy of that for the horticultural record. (I’ll ask Dick Malt to send the keys back)
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Dear Colonel
I have enjoyed your pieces on the nurseries and seedsmen of Norwich, and thought you might be interested in a little more information about The Granary in Bedford Street, filling in a bit of a missing link between Daniels seedsmen and Jarrolds taking over. My late father Michael Gooch (who was in partnership with my mother Sheila as M & S Gooch, Architects, in Norwich) converted the warehouse into a new shop for the owners Chapman & Pape in 1971. They called it The Granary, and at a time before Habitat or John Lewis had arrived in the city it was a bit of a mecca for good furniture and kitchenware.
I have a couple of black & white photos taken just after the shop opened, showing the smart typography of the name on one of the windows; the ground floor facade was painted a dark colour, I think purple (though being the Seventies it might have been chocolate brown). The interior’s handsome pine beams and supports were exposed, and the wood and steel staircase inserted.
We retrieved some beautiful 19th century engraved seed catalogues from a heap of rubbish when it was a building site, but I have since lost track of their whereabouts.
If you’re interested in the photos for your archive I can send JPEGS.
All the best
Simon Gooch
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Yes, please. Would very much like to see those images. I’ll be in touch. Reggie
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What fascinating information has come to light from your original post. The picture taken inside the old Corn Hall brings back some memories, both of Saturdays (when I suspect the photo was taken) and also the Wednesday auctions which were sadly missed when it was demolished
Don Watson
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Thank you for the help, Don. The feedback has been exceptional.
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I have a copy of Norfolk Fair in my archive. Would you like a sight of it? Or have you already got a source?
John Webster
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Thanks John. I’ll be in touch
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This post is so interesting for me, as I believe one of my ancestors, Richard Wragg, was a market gardener in Norwich.
I would love to find out exactly where he worked. Is it possible to obtain lists of employees in the nurseries and gardens for the 1860s to 1900s?
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Hello Carolyn, Although a quick search at Norfolk Record Office online failed to recognise Richard Wragg it may still be worth asking there to see if they hold individual records of Norwich nurseries. Reggie
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I believe 16-20 Exchange St was Sutton’s Music Shop back in the ’60s and it fell down as the result of a gas explosion in the basement. I remember there being a huge gap, right through to the cellars, for a number of years, but I thought that business had eventually resumed at the same premises. Someone I was at the CNS with was working for them as a piano tuner by 1972. Is that George Plunkett photo with all the scaffolding possibly from earlier than 1991 or did it fall down twice in some 25 years? Mark you, it wouldn’t be the first time something like this had happened in the area. Nearby St. John Maddermarket was severely damaged in a gas explosion in the 1870s. Pictures in the paper show that the heavy wooden pews had been blown literally through the roof ……..!
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Plunkett’s photo is annotated on his website with ‘Collapsed 2nd April 1991’ and I – a latecomer of 1982 – can certainly remember the building being shored up. George Plunkett refers to 14 Exchange Street so it may be that you remember the neighbours (16-20) from the ’60s. The end of that terrace is still truncated at the northern end where Thorn’s hardware shop is only two storeys.
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Having checked it out with my friend I can confirm that it was as far back as October 10th, 1963 that Tony’s Place, a greasy spoon next door to Thorn’s, “went on fire”, as they say North of the border, culminating in an explosion when the flames reached the gas supply. Insurance scam. I’d forgotten some of the details and thought I remembered it happening about five years later. However, it seems the eponymous Tony had, alas, managed to get traces of petrol on himself and when he put the lighted match through his own letter box he nearly went up with it. The Fire fighters picked him up flat on his back in Exchange St. Later- the police! All those shop buildings, including Thorn’s, went up for five floors in those days. Sutton’s Piano Workshop was a double frontage on the other side of Tony’s Place from Thorn’s, the left-hand side occupied the first undamaged part of the block, actually shown to the far right in George Plunkett’s photo which seems to focus on a little further up the street. There could well have been structural problems there by 1991, a knock-on effect from the explosion perhaps . No sign of Sutton’s, which, by then, makes sense. My friend joined the firm as an apprentice on leaving school and went in business on his own shortly before the firm closed in 1980. People, notwithstanding, still seem to need their pianos tuning! Further to the St. John Maddermarket prequel to the story, by the way, some sources would have it that a verger smelt gas and lit a taper to look for the leak. No casualties. It was a Choir practice that night ,seemingly- perhaps they were rehearsing Verdi’s Requiem! MGR.
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It certainly seems as if the 1991 collapse photographed by Plunkett was a consequence of the earlier fire. Thank you for the fascinating background, Mike.
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I was delighted to come across this site – my grandfather was Charles E Daniels, pictured in the opening of Notcutts, and I’d not seen this one before.
Charles was the grandson of Charles Daniels (1844-1923), one of the Brothers who founded the company. The Daniels family hadn’t been involved in Daniels Bros for many year, but he re-invested in the late 1970s, I think, before selling to Notcutts. He also owned (and sold in 1971) the nursery business C S Daniels & Sons in Northfields, Wymondham, which had been started by his father Charles Samuel Daniels around 1900. (Too many Charles’s!).
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Nick, do you know if any of the Daniels emigrated to the US? I have a William Daniels born 1853, who married my relative, Charlotte (Kate) Wragg and moved to Westchester NY, where he opened a florist business.
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