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Category Archives: River Wensum history

Cecil Upcher: soldier and architect

15 Friday Oct 2021

Posted by reggie unthank in Norwich architect, Norwich buildings, Norwich history, River Wensum history

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

Cecil Upcher architect, Norwich architecture, Norwich buildings, Pull's Ferry

Norwich was slow to find its way into the industrial world. Before the slum clearances, the city still had a timber frame: largely Tudor in appearance with Georgian contributions. Around 1900 the architect Edward Boardman introduced a glimpse of modernity with factories and offices built around steel frames with concrete floors, while George Skipper’s more exuberant projects added sparkle. The contributions of these two Norwich titans survived well, helping to define the city’s present-day character, but much of the fine texture from a century ago was built up by numerous smaller practitioners like Cecil Upcher.

Upcher was born in 1884 in Barnham Broom, Norfolk, where his father, the Reverend Arthur Charles Wodehouse Upcher B.A., was the rector.

Cecil Upcher’s father was rector of Barnham Broom or ‘Ryskys’ (which refers to the profusion of rushes on the riverbank [1]). The name ‘Wodehouse’ was introduced into the family by Cecil’s grandmother. Photo: Barbara Worland.

White’s Directory described Reverend Upcher’s home as ‘a spacious residence with pleasant grounds near the church’ [2]. The 1911 census records that the Upchers lived in the rectory with a cook, a parlour maid, a house maid, a kitchen maid and a nurse. They lived well, in a manner appropriate to the descendants of Abbot Upcher, the man who commissioned the Reptons to design Sheringham Hall and Park.

Abbot Upcher (1784-1819) by George Harlow ©National Trust

Having mentioned Abbot (his given name, not title) Upcher it would be wrong to cast him aside so soon for in some quarters he is the better known Upcher. The name Upcher may be a corruption of Upshire in Essex yet census returns find it most frequently – although still scantly – in Norfolk [3]. In 1812, Abbot and Charlotte Upcher bought their estate near Upper Sheringham on the north-east Norfolk coast. They engaged John Adey Repton as architect and Repton’s father Humphry to reconfigure the landscape.

Sheringham Park and Hall from Humphry Repton’s Red Book © National Trust

Humphry Repton (b1752), the foremost landscape designer of the late Georgian period, died in March 1818, seven years after being badly injured in a carriage accident. In less than a year Abbot Upcher, would also die, aged 35, never to live in the hall he had commissioned.

Abbot’s great grandson Cecil therefore came from Norfolk stock and it was as a Second Lieutenant in the 9th Battalion of the Norfolk Regiment that he served in the Great War.

Second Lieutenant Cecil Upcher. Photo © Royal Norfolk Regimental Museum

Writing to his fiancée, Hilda Ward, he describes the conscripts as “a top hole lot of men all true Norfolk men” [4]. In his letters Upcher describes several of his billets; some he sketched.

© Royal Norfolk Regimental Museum

Since 1906, Upcher had been in practice in Norwich as an architect, specialising in church restoration. His professional training emerges in the sketch below in which he measured the accommodation provided by a dugout: beneath a ceiling four feet high were two beds, six feet long and two feet wide, separated by an 18 inch gap. His temporary refuges were drawn with precision but revealed nothing about the awfulness on the other side of the tin roof.

© Royal Norfolk Regimental Museum

Upcher’s letters convey the sense of the ironic, understated tone of the officer class – especially when wounded.

‘Monday September 27th 10am [1915]. In the train. Here I am on my way to England I believe. I got a bullet through the fleshy part of my left thigh. No damage and as fit as a fiddle. Feeling a bit of a humbug to be leaving it all, but walking is rather a job at present. We had to take a Bosch position at 7am yesterday Sunday morning and I got bowled over with a lot of others I fear [4].’

The voice will be familiar to readers of PG Wodehouse (and the name, Wodehouse, introduced into the family line by Upcher’s grandmother is inescapable here). When asked if he had taken part in the First World War, Bertie Wooster’s manservant Jeeves replied, ‘I dabbled in it to a certain extent, m’lord.’ (Ring for Jeeves, 1953).

By mid-1916 Upcher was suffering from deep depression and was invalided out with shell shock [5]. When he married Hilda the same year we see him holding a cane that seems too large for a swagger stick, suggesting he was still carrying an injury. Nevertheless, he returned to active service until the end of the war.

Cecil Upcher and Hilda Ward on their wedding day, Epsom, October 1916. © Royal Norfolk Regimental Museum

Upcher had been educated at Haileybury College, Herts before training at the Liverpool School of Architecture. Before the war, he was in partnership with Arthur John Lacey at number 6 Upper King Street Norwich. They specialised in church renovation and one of their last projects before the outbreak of war was the restoration of the ruinous St Martin, Overstrand.

St Martin Overstrand restored by Lacey and Upcher 1914. Photo: Wikimedia Commons by Stavros1

After the war, in the church in Upper Sheringham that housed the Upcher mausoleum, Cecil Upcher acknowledged men of the village killed in the war, by designing the oak pulpit and the foliate reredos above the altar.

And as a memorial to the men of the Norfolk Regiment who died in the Great War, Upcher designed a crescent of 12 alms houses in Norwich for disabled soldiers.

Memorial cottages on Mousehold Lane. Built 1920-1923.
In memory of the 6000 officers and men of the Norfolk Regiment who died in the Great War

The medallion of Britannia at the top of this memorial is signed by HA Miller who collaborated with Upcher on a memorial in the cathedral [6]. Herbert Miller (1880-1952), who trained at the Norwich School of Art, seems to have specialised in memorial plaques with portrait roundels, including: Amelia Opie on Opie House in Castle Meadow; John Sell Cotman on Cotman House in St Martin-at-Palace Plain; George Borrow outside George Borrow House in Willow Lane; and the Baptist preacher Joseph Kinghorn on a house in Pottergate near the Grapes Hill underpass [7].

After the Second World War Upcher was to design, for an adjacent plot, a range of six cottages for the wounded, funded by the public via The Home Guard. Distinguished by their Dutch gables, these cottages seem to belong to an earlier age; they appear less generous than the two-storey accommodation provided by the Great War cottages but were designed for the disabled as single-storey bungalows in order to avoid difficulties with stairs.

In July 1951, the Lord Lieutenant, Colonel Sir Edmund Bacon, dedicated the six new Memorial Cottages to the memory of the 2025 officers and men of the Royal Norfolk Regiment who died in WW2. Photo: EDP/Archant

Documents in the Norfolk Record Office confirm that Upcher’s practice was involved in all aspects of restoration in churches around Norfolk. They were not, however, restricted to ecclesiastical work; for example, Number 24 Princes Street is a Tudor building restored in 1932 by Upcher. Stripping the plaster from the front revealed the herringbone brick infill we see today. According to George Plunkett, the wooden lintel above the door came from a house in Fyebridge Street, once home to Edmund Wood who was Sheriff in 1536 and Mayor in 1548 [8].

Numbers 24 and 26 Princes Street, both restored by Upcher, in 1932 and 1956 respectively.

The repurposed spandrels of No 24’s door contain the merchants’ mark of the Worshipful Company of Grocers (top right, below). And around 400 years later, Cecil Upcher and builder Robert Carter left their names carved on the door jambs of the house in Princes Street.

The mark of the Mercers’ Company is also suggested to be represented somewhere [8] but the shield at top left contains a tangle of initials and not the maiden’s head that was, from 1530, the mercers’ mark, a fine example of which can be seen in nearby Elm Hill.

The Mercers’ Maiden, mark of the Mercers’ Company, on a beam above the alleyway by the side of the Strangers’ Club on Elm Hill. Post-1540.

Cley Windmill in North Norfolk also received Upcher’s attention.

Cley Windmill, converted to a holiday home for Mrs Wilson in 1921. Wikimedia CC BY 3.0 Stavros 1

In the last years of the nineteenth century, when the city was expanding beyond the city walls, the Trafford estate in the parish of Lakenham was developed on land owned by Edward Southwell Trafford. In 1919 his son, WJ Trafford, extended the estate around Eleanor and Trafford Roads and in the early 1930s Upcher designed a church for the new community. As one of the few churches built in Norwich between the wars St Albans was very much in keeping with the surrounding detached villas – comfortable yet somehow ’modern’.

St Albans on Grove Walk and Eleanor Road (1932-1938), taken in 1938 © georgeplunkett.co.uk

Pevsner and Wilson [9] called the style, ‘vaguely E.E.’, although the church’s rounded arches are clearly at odds with the lancets of Early English. By adopting a ’free’ Norman style, before the incursions of the architectural Goths, Upcher may have been differentiating his new church from the work of the Gothic revivalists of the previous generation. See, for example, the recent post on the campaign of Nonconformist church-building by Norwich architect AF Scott before the Great War [10]. Scott, incidentally, was still alive when St Albans was being built.

What the building is is vernacular. No imported stone here, its craftsmanship expressed in local materials drawn from Norfolk soil: unknapped flints with red-brick dressings. Pevsner and Wilson [8] described St Albans as being, ‘In the Maufe succession,’ suggesting a link with Sir Edward Brantwood Maufe (né Muff) whose first major commission was Kelling Hall in north Norfolk.

Kelling Hall 1913. Photo Wikipedia. Stavros1

Following Norfolk’s two other butterfly houses – Happisburgh Manor in 1900 (by Detmar Blow) and Voewood in 1903 (by ES Prior) – Kelling Hall was built in 1913 for the co-owner of the Shell Oil Company, Sir Henry Deterding. Like St Albans, Kelling Hall is clad in local flint pebbles and, in making the connection with St Albans, Pevsner and Wilson are placing Upcher’s church in the Arts & Crafts tradition.

Inside St Albans, the reinforced concrete ceiling in the chancel is a thing of beauty, predating the raw concrete of Brutalism by some 20 years – perhaps less a display of modernist leanings than an expression of the ‘truth to materials’ propagated by Pugin and Morris.

The woodwork in the chancel is reminiscent of the carving at Upper Sheringham.

At the east end of the chancel is a large painting of an epicene Christ in Majesty, floating over the view of Norwich from Mousehold Heath. It was painted in 1955 by Jeffery Camp RA in response to a competition by the Eastern Daily Press to provide a work of art above the altar.

Upcher also designed the vicarage next door.

Cecil Upcher is perhaps best known for his restoration of one of the city’s most photographed landmarks: Pulls Ferry on the eastern boundary of Cathedral Close. Norwich Cathedral is faced with Caen limestone, each piece of which was shipped across the Channel. The stone was transferred to low barges behind what was to become Old Barge Yard on King Street, allowing cargo to be delivered up the narrow canal connecting the Wensum with the stonemasons’ yard inside the cathedral precinct. In the fifteenth century a flat-arched Water Gate was built over the canal and the waterway itself was filled in ca.1780 [11].

PullsFerry3.jpg
The Water Gate, now known as Pull’s Ferry. The adjoining Ferry House (left in photo) was built in 1647 [8].

The crossing from the opposite bank of the Wensum was known for most of its life as Sandling’s Ferry [11]. This watercolour by Robert Ladbrooke, co-founder of the Norwich Society of Artists, shows us what the ferry looked like at the very beginning of the nineteenth century.

Sandling’s Ferry ca 1804-5 by Robert Ladbrooke, co-founder of the Norwich Society of Artists. Courtesy of Norfolk Museums Collections NWHCM: 2005.596.2

Sandling was superseded by John Pull who operated a pub here (Pull’s Ferry Inn or Ferry House) from 1796 until his bankruptcy in 1841 [12]. Pull’s Ferry operated until 1943 although it was already in ruin when Cecil Upcher drew the watergate in 1928.

Pull’s Ferry by Cecil Upcher, August 1928. Norfolk Record Office MC2060/1/8/1.

The Norfolk Record Office holds a small collection of photographs, possibly taken by Upcher himself. Wisely, they are sealed in plastic covers (I mention this to excuse the reflections on some of the following photographs). Upcher restored the house and watergate 1948-9.

NRO MC2060/1/6/2. Undated but assumed to be 1948, before work started,
The project was carried out by Robert Carter’s firm who had worked before with Upcher. NRO MC 2060 1/13/1
The Water Gate, before and after. NRO 2060/1/15/2 and 1/16/1
The watergate became the headquarters of Norwich Girl Guides Association in 1949. The renovation was funded by a bequest and with money raised by the Guides. This appears to be the opening ceremony. NRO 2060/1/19/2

The restored Ferry House became offices for Upcher’s architectural practice but plans show that much of the space was dedicated to a two-storey flat – the only evidence of business being the small typist’s room on the ground floor and the office upstairs. The largest upstairs room, labelled ‘J.F.W.’, was allocated to Upcher’s nephew, James Fletcher-Watson. The largest room on the ground floor was C.U’s.

NRO MC 2060/1/44/2

The photograph below, labelled ‘C Upcher’s room and armchair’, underlines how much space was dedicated to living accommodation.

NRO MC 2060 13/24/1
Cecil Upcher (centre) and colleagues at the Ferry House ca 1949. Photo: NRO MC2060/1/42/1

Standing on the left of the photograph is James Fletcher-Watson (1913-2004), with whom Upcher shared the practice. Trained as an architect under Edwin Lutyens, Fletcher-Watson is better known as one of the finest watercolourists of his generation.

Junk Shop, Cow Hill, Norwich by James Fletcher-Watson. Courtesy of Mandell’s Gallery, Norwich

Cecil Upcher died age 88 and is buried in All Saints Upper Sheringham.

©2021 Reggie Unthank

Sources

  1. https://www.hiddenea.com/Survey%20A%20to%20B.htm
  2. https://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/NFK/Barnham_Broom/White1883
  3. https://your-family-history.com/surname/u/upcher/?year=1881#map
  4. Cecil Upcher letters Aug 1915 – Oct 1916. Royal Norfolk Regimental Museum.
  5. https://norfolkinworldwar1.wordpress.com/2015/09/
  6. Peter Bardwell’s Flickr page on Cecil Upcher: https://www.flickr.com/photos/132932913@N02/albums/72157682762647195
  7. Richard and Sarah Cocke (2013). Public Sculpture of Norfolk and Suffolk. Pub: Liverpool University Press.
  8. http://www.georgeplunkett.co.uk/Norwich/pri.htm#Prins
  9. Nikolaus Pevsner and Bill Wilson (2002). The Buildings of England. Norfolk I.Pub: Yale University Press.
  10. https://colonelunthanksnorwich.com/2021/05/15/af-scott-architectconservative-or-pioneer/
  11. Frank Meeres (2011). The Story of Norwich. Pub: Phillimore and Co Ltd, Andover.
  12. https://norfolkpubs.co.uk/norwich/pnorwich/ncppfi.htm

Thanks

I am grateful to Kate Thaxton, Curator, Royal Norfolk Regimental Museum for background on Upcher; to John Snape and Barbara Worland for Barnham Broom history; and to Gordon Blacklock at the Norfolk Record Office for guiding me through the Upcher archive.

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The Bridges of Norwich Part 2: Around the bend

15 Wednesday Aug 2018

Posted by reggie unthank in Norwich buildings, Norwich history, River Wensum history

≈ 15 Comments

Tags

psychogeography, River walk, streetscape

In this second part of the river walk we turn 1800 around Cow Tower at the edge of deceptively tranquil meadowland before descending into Victorian industry south of Station Bridge.

New King 2.jpg

Continuing the river walk, I travelled from Whitefriars’ Bridge (green star) to Carrow Bridge (yellow star). Plan of Norwich 1776 by Daniel King. Courtesy of Norfolk Museums Service NWHCM: 1996.550.81.M

Downstream from Whitefriars’ Bridge and the former home of Jarrolds Printing Works, the John Jarrold Bridge (2011) connects the cathedral precinct (and the Adam and Eve pub) with the St James Place Business Quarter and to Mousehold Heath beyond. The curving box girder, clad in weathered steel with a hardwood deck, seems the most welcoming of the later bridges.  IMG_8735.jpg

On the south bank, not far from this bridge, you will walk over a sluice that connects the river with the country’s last surviving swan pit where the Master of the Great Hospital fattened cygnets for feasts. This pit, in the grounds of the Great Hospital, was built in the late C18 by William, son of Thomas Ivory who designed the Octagon Chapel and Assembly Rooms [1].

IMG_8744.jpg

Half-hidden, a swan-shaped sign marking the sluice to the Swan Pit in the Great Hospital

The Bishop of Norwich also owned swans [2] but whether he feasted on them is not recorded.

Swan beak markings.jpg

The Bishop of Norwich marked the beaks of his swans with four nicks. ©[15]

 

Fifty-foot-high Cow Tower (rebuilt late C14) was strategically placed to fire upon the higher ground across the river. It is an early example of Norwich brickwork into which, for nine shillings each, stonemason Snape inserted cross-loops that could have accommodated  longbows, crossbows and hand-held artillery [3]. Still, this didn’t deter Robert Kett’s rebels – during their righteous uprising against land enclosures – from firing down from Mousehold Heath and damaging the battlements.

IMG_8756.jpg

IMG_8755.jpg

Tapered embrasures allowed a wide range of fire

Next, Bishop Bridge – the only surviving medieval bridge (c 1340)  [3]. From here you would have seen followers of John Wycliffe (d.1384) and later heretics burned just over the bridge in Lollards’ Pit. And in 1549, from what we now know as Kett’s Heights, you would have seen Robert Kett’s followers fire down upon, then storm, the fortified bridge. IMG_8760.jpg

On the opposite side of the bridge, to the right of the Lollards’ Pit pub, is the superstructure that guided the rise and fall of the Gas Hill gasometer. Built in 1880, at the foot of the steepest hill in Norfolk, it stored town gas released by burning coal. But coal became increasingly redundant from the late 1960s when domestic appliances were adapted to use natural gas from under the North Sea.gasometer.jpg

Downstream, a ferry once ran across to the cathedral watergate. In 1807, Cole referred to it on his Norwich plan as Sandling’s Ferry (after its C17 operator) although by then the ferry was being run by John Pull (active 1796 to 1841) [4]. Evidently, he managed to make a living despite the proximity of toll-free Bishop Bridge.

1807 Plan of Norwich by G Cole A.jpg

The Sandling Ferry on the 1807 Plan of Norwich by G Cole. Courtesy Norfolk Museums Collection NWHCM: 1954.138.Todd5.Norwich.19

Every piece of Norman sandstone for the building of Norwich Cathedral (from 1096) would have come across the Channel and up the Wensum to the mason’s yard via a canal that remained open until c.1780.

PullsFerry3.jpg

Pull’s Ferry. C15 watergate and C17 ferry house, restored in 1948/9 by Cecil Upcher [3]

 

In 1811 a toll bridge was built across the Wensum near the present day Thorpe Rail Station, taking its name from the iron foundry on the city-side bank.

star.jpg

Foundry Bridge on the 1819 Longman map, courtesy www.georgeplunkett.co.uk

In 1844, the railway arrived from Yarmouth to the east. To make that next step across the river towards the city centre a wooden bridge was replaced by this iron one seen in the painting by John Sell Cotman’s son, John Joseph.

JJ Cotman.jpg
John Joseph Cotman’s Old Foundry Bridge. Courtesy Norfolk Museums Collections NWHCM: 1916.41.1

The Victorian solution to encroaching modernity was to build Prince of Wales Road (1850s/1860s) on rubble from the old city wall at Chapelfield [5]. This provided a wide direct route, connecting the station to the city centre and market [3]; in 1888 Foundry Bridge/Station Bridge was made correspondingly wider.

IMG_8774.jpg

Foundry Bridge, looking up Prince of Wales Road from the station side. Note the arrow pointing down the steps.

A diversion. Do not do as I did and follow the seductive  arrow on the side of Norwich Nelson Premier Inn for it leads to a dead end, not a riverside walk. Ploughing on, I walked up Prince of Wales Road, left on Rose Lane and left on Mountergate. A sign on the side of the new Rose Lane Car Park states that this was the site of the Norwich Fish Market that moved here in 1913.

IMG_8642.jpg

Before this, the fish market had been in the Norman marketplace for over 800 years [6]. In 1860 the shambolic stalls were replaced with a neoclassical building at the back of the present-day market but this was demolished in 1938 [7].

OldFishMarket.jpg

The Old Fish Market (1860-1938) on St Peter’s Street, roughly where the Memorial Gardens are today. Top left, the battlements of the medieval Guildhall grin through the mist. Courtesy Norfolk County Council, Picture Norfolk

On the opposite side of Mountergate is an old weavers’ building with one of the last remaining weavers’ or through-light windows.

IMG_8638.jpg

As Mountergate constricts to an alleyway, a tall wall screening Parmentergate Court is all that remains of the once-thriving Co-op Shoe Factory that had, itself, moved into premises vacated by Boulton and Paul. coop-factory.jpg

The real object of my diversion was to check on the progress of the restoration of Howard House, derelict so long its scaffolding is said to have gained listed status. Now, Orbit Homes are restoring the house as part of the residential St Anne’s Quarter. IMG_8637.jpg

Howard House was built in 1660 by Henry Howard 6th Duke of Norfolk on land seized by Henry VIII from the Austin Friars [3]. The duke laid out a pleasure garden that was still referred to on C19 maps as ‘My Lords Gardens’. The garden wall peeping over the hoarding on King Street is probably the original boundary wall of the friary [8]. IMG_8635.jpg

Instead of continuing down King Street, which I’ll save for another day, I retraced my steps, crossed Foundry Bridge and walked along the station side of the river. On the east bank the contrast between now and then couldn’t be more stark: modern leisure vs Victorian industry. From 1999 the Riverside leisure complex (gym, cinema, bowling, pub, restaurants) replaced the engineering works of Boulton and Paul, which moved here from the other side of the river during the First World War [9].

Boulton and Paul1939.jpg

Boulton and Paul’s Riverside Works 1939, just before it was bombed in the Blitz. The stadium of Norwich City FC can be seen to the right. Courtesy of Norfolk County Council, Picture Norfolk. 

Like their great rivals Barnard Bishop and Barnards, several bridges upstream, Boulton and Paul produced wire netting amongst an enormous range of products for farm, estate and garden. During World War I they were asked by the government to produce aeroplanes, making more Sopwith Camels than any other company.1024px-Sopwith_F-1_Camel_USAF.jpg

After WWI they were to produce light bombers to their own design, including the Norfolk-named Sidestrand and Overstrand. B&P also produced the ‘Daffy’ Defiant night fighter as well as a night-fighter named after that well-camouflaged bird of the Norfolk Broads – the Bittern [9].

BnPDuo.jpg

Boulton and Paul exhibited the world’s first all-metal plane, the P10, in Paris 1919. ©Boulton and Paul. From [9].

 

Looking across the river is the newly-coined St Anne’s Quarter – a seething building site whose name is explained on the 1884 OS map. Not only does it lie upon C17 ducal gardens but on the St Ann’s Ironworks (1847-1883) belonging to Thomas Smithdale & Son [10]. St Ann’s Works, where the Smithdales cast the iron required for their business as millwrights, was named for St Ann’s Chapel once on this site. The former foundry is now part of a larger site comprised of the Old Norwich Brewery on King Street, several maltings and the only-named Synagogue Street in the country (bombed in WWII).

StAnnesQuarter.jpg

St Ann’s Foundry, opposite the Riverside complex. The zoomable 1884 OS map is courtesy of Frances and Michael Holmes [11].

 

Connecting the two sides of the river is the Lady Julian Bridge (2009) that commemorates Julian of Norwich, the anchoress (c1342-c1416) whose Revelations of Divine Love is said to be the first English book written by a woman [12]. If you were to cross her bridge, turn left on King Street then right on St Julian’s Alley you would come to her eponymous Anglo-Norman church and her cell, largely rebuilt after the Blitz. LadyJulianBridge.jpg

Along this stretch of the river is a building that georgeplunkett.co.uk lists as an old grain warehouse. The ownership is unclear but whoever owns the corrugated building occupies one of the last undeveloped sites on the river margin.old grain warehouse.jpg

[Updated March 3 2019. Reading ref 15 I see this building at the A.B.C. Wharf was owned in 1910 by H Newhouse & Co Ltd whose Yarmouth – Hull steamers plied goods along the eastern seaboard.IMG_0476.jpg

 

Connecting the profusion of riverside apartments around the Old Flour Mill with the railway station is the Novi Sad Friendship Bridge, built by May Gurney (2001) to mark the twinning of Norwich with the Serbian city.

NoviSad3.jpg

The Old Flour Mill started life in 1837 as the Albion Yarn Mill for making worsted, silk and mohair thread to be used in our weaving industry but by the time of the 1884 OS survey it had become a ‘Confectionery’. In the 1930s, the building was taken over by RJ Read of Horstead Water Mill. Latterly, known as the Read Woodrow flour mill it closed in 1993 and was converted to apartments from 2005 [13].

ReadsMill.jpg

The redbrick buildings of the former flour mill 

King St 237 Read's flour mills across river [6597] 1990-03-18 (1).jpg

King Street Flour Mill 1990. Courtesy http://www.georgeplunkett.co.uk

Carrow Bridge, the final pedestrian bridge inside the old city.CarrowBridge3.jpg

Within living memory the Wensum would have been alive with ships, some much larger than picturesque Norfolk wherries. Below, the movable section of this bascule bridge is being raised to allow a sea-going ship through.

Wensum Carrow bascule bridge open for ship [4765] 1964-05-09.jpg

Carrow Bridge opening for a ship in 1964. Courtesy http://www.georgeplunkett.co.uk

 

River trade was also regulated by the paired boom towers near Carrow Bridge, part of the early C14 walled defences. A boom – originally a beam but in this case chains of Spanish iron – was strung across the river to regulate access and extract tolls [14]. The chains were raised by a windlass in the twin tower on the west/city side.

Boom Tower.jpg

The eastern boom tower – the Devil’s Tower – downstream of Carrow Bridge

This two-part walk around the river underlines the richness of the city’s industrial past. Once, Norwich made things. Its pre-eminent textile trade survived into the C19 to be replaced by a variety of trades of the Industrial Revolution: shoe-making, iron-working, brewing, general engineering, aeronautical engineering and other light manufacturing industries. But, in the later stages of this riverside walk especially, there is now little to show of those old trades as all traces of productive industry are being erased in favour of  housing and leisure. We stopped at the last road bridge, just short of Colman’s mustard factory that was synonymous with this city for a century and half. After the business closes next year the future of the site is unclear but what price riverside apartments?

©2018 Reggie Unthank

BONUS TRACKS

Wensum body loves you. Frank Sinatra

Blood Red River Blues. Josh White (to accompany the previous post on Norwich Red dye). Click: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hs2_6LRPgqo

Red River Blues. Henry Thomas (1928)

Moody River. Pat Boone

Down by the River. Neil Young

Down by the Riverside. Traditional

Time and the River. Nat King Cole

Take me to the River. Al Green

Cry me a River. Julie London

Moon River. Andy Williams

Ol’ Man River. Paul Robeson

Down to the River to Pray. Alison Krauss

Travelling Riverside Blues. Robert Johnson

River. Joni Mitchell

The River. Bruce Springsteen

Up a Lazy River. Louis Armstrong

River Deep Mountain High. Ike and Tina Turner. Not for Norfolk

Sources

  1. http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2418563
  2. Ticehurst, N.F. (1936). On Swan-Marks. British Birds vol 29, p266.
  3. Pevsner, Nikolaus and Wilson, Bill (1962). The Buildings of England. Norfolk 1: Norwich and North-East. Pub: Yale University Press.
  4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulls_Ferry,_Norwich
  5. Meeres, Frank (2011). The Story of Norwich. Pub: Phillimore.
  6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwich_Market
  7. http://www.georgeplunkett.co.uk/Norwich/markets.htm
  8. http://www.georgeplunkett.co.uk/Norwich/kin.htm
  9. The Leaf and the Tree: The Story of Boulton and Paul 1797-1947 (1947). Author: Anon. Pub: Boulton and Paul Ltd.
  10. http://www.norfolkmills.co.uk/Millwrights/smithdale.html
  11. http://www.norwich-heritage.co.uk/norwich_maps/Norwich_map_1884_zoomify.htm. Do visit the Holmes’ exciting new site on Norwich history http://www.norwich-heritage.co.uk/
  12. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_of_Norwich
  13. https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/5768436
  14. https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/5766195
  15. ‘Citizens of No Mean City: Norwich – the East Anglian Capital’ (ca1910). Pub: Jarrold and Son, London & Norwich.

Thanks: Frances and Michael Holmes; Clare Everitt of Picture Norfolk; and members of the Dragon Hall Local History Group (Sheila Fiddes, Richard Matthew and Barbara Roberts).

 

 

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Recent Posts

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