Argyle Street, Norwich
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Argyle Street was a Victorian terraced street in
Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with ...
, Norfolk. It became a squat lasting from 1979 to 1985. The street was then demolished in 1986. Some of the newbuild houses were subsequently demolished in 2015.


History

Argyle Street was a Victorian street consisting of small two-up two-down terraced houses. According to Morant's map, it was partly built in 1873. In 1883-4 there were 106 families, primarily manual workers with a significant number of men employed by the railway. The Jarrold & Sons Directory of 1889 lists one shopkeeper. The street was saved from
slum clearance Slum clearance, slum eviction or slum removal is an urban renewal strategy used to transform low income settlements with poor reputation into another type of development or housing. This has long been a strategy for redeveloping urban communities; ...
in the early 1960s, after the nearby area of Richmond, or the "village on the hill", was completely demolished.


Squatted

The
University of East Anglia The University of East Anglia (UEA) is a public research university in Norwich, England. Established in 1963 on a campus west of the city centre, the university has four faculties and 26 schools of study. The annual income of the institution f ...
planned to buy the Victorian terraced housing of Argyle Street from
Norwich City Council Norwich City Council is the city council for the city of Norwich, Norfolk, England. It consists of 39 councillors, elected to represent 13 wards, each with three councillors. It is currently under Labour control and led by Alan Waters. It form ...
for student homes in 1979. However, on 6 December 1978, forty
squatter Squatting is the action of occupying an abandoned or unoccupied area of land or a building, usually residential, that the squatter does not own, rent or otherwise have lawful permission to use. The United Nations estimated in 2003 that there ...
s moved into fourteen empty houses and one of Britain's largest and longest running squats had begun. The other fifteen empty houses were quickly occupied and eventually the street had 120 squatters. The squatters termed the squat the "Argyle Street Alternative Republic". The lamp posts were painted to look like giraffes and the pavements were embellished with rainbows and peace signs. In 1980 the squatters formed a
co-operative A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-control ...
which was backed by Norwich City Council, which at the time included Pat Hollis. Together they applied for a grant from the Government-funded Housing Corporation. In 1981 a £1 million grant was agreed for a major renovation scheme, but in 1982 the
Department of the Environment An environmental ministry is a national or subnational government agency politically responsible for the environment and/or natural resources. Various other names are commonly used to identify such agencies, such as Ministry of the Environment, ...
blocked Norwich City Council's plan to sell or lease the houses to the co-operative.


Redevelopment

In 1984 Norwich City Council decided to demolish the street and redevelop the area for sheltered homes. The final eviction of squatters from Argyle Street occurred in February 1985. Some of the redeveloped houses, built in 1986, were judged to be at risk of subsidence in 2009. The tenants were evacuated and the buildings were finally demolished in 2015 after standing empty for six years and becoming an eyesore. The only option left to the Council was to demolish the homes for £230,000 and turn the area into a park.


Film

In 1981, Argyle Street became the setting for scenes of a filmed adaptation of
Doris Lessing Doris May Lessing (; 22 October 1919 – 17 November 2013) was a British-Zimbabwean novelist. She was born to British parents in Iran, where she lived until 1925. Her family then moved to Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), where she remain ...
's dystopian novel ''
Memoirs of a Survivor ''The Memoirs of a Survivor'' is a dystopian novel by Nobel Prize-winner Doris Lessing. It was first published in 1974 by Octagon Press. It was made into a film in 1981, starring Julie Christie and Nigel Hawthorne, and directed by David Glad ...
''. In 1985, Al Stokes made a film about the eviction of the squatters, called ''Street of Experience.'' Stokes and his crew filmed the leaving party on the night of 19 February and the eviction the following day.


References

{{SquatE&W Norwich Homelessness 1980s in the United Kingdom Utopian fiction Counterculture festivals Evicted squats Squats in the United Kingdom