Norwich () is a
cathedral city
Cathedral city is a city status in the United Kingdom.
Cathedral city may also refer to:
* Cathedral City, California, a city in Southern California, United States
* Cathedral City Cheddar, a brand of Cheddar cheese
* Cathedral City High Scho ...
and district of
Norfolk
Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the Nor ...
, England, of which it is the
county town
In the United Kingdom and Ireland, a county town is the most important town or city in a county. It is usually the location of administrative or judicial functions within a county and the place where the county's members of Parliament are elect ...
. Norwich is by the
River Wensum
The River Wensum is a chalk river in Norfolk, England and a tributary of the River Yare, despite being the larger of the two rivers. The river is a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest and Special Area of Conservation.
The Wensum is ...
, about north-east of
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
, north of
Ipswich
Ipswich () is a port town and borough in Suffolk, England, of which it is the county town. The town is located in East Anglia about away from the mouth of the River Orwell and the North Sea. Ipswich is both on the Great Eastern Main Line ...
and east of
Peterborough
Peterborough () is a cathedral city in Cambridgeshire, east of England. It is the largest part of the City of Peterborough unitary authority district (which covers a larger area than Peterborough itself). It was part of Northamptonshire unti ...
. As the seat of the
See of Norwich, with one of the country's largest medieval cathedrals, it is the largest settlement and has the largest
urban area
An urban area, built-up area or urban agglomeration is a human settlement with a high population density and infrastructure of built environment. Urban areas are created through urbanization and are categorized by urban morphology as cities ...
in
East Anglia
East Anglia is an area in the East of England, often defined as including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Angles, a people whose name originated in Anglia, in ...
.
The population of the
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 f ...
local authority area was estimated to be 144,000 in 2021, which was an increase from 143,135 in 2019.
The wider
built-up area
An urban area, built-up area or urban agglomeration is a human settlement with a high population density and infrastructure of built environment. Urban areas are created through urbanization and are categorized by urban morphology as cities, ...
had a population of 213,166 in 2019.
[
]
Heritage and status
Norwich claims to be the most complete medieval city in the United Kingdom. It includes cobbled streets such as Elm Hill, Timber Hill and Tombland; ancient buildings such as St Andrew's Hall; half-timbered houses such as Dragon Hall, The Guildhall and Strangers' Hall
Strangers' Hall is a museum of domestic history located in Norwich, Norfolk, UK. It is a Grade I listed building.
The oldest parts of the building date back to the fourteenth century, although many additions have been made to the structure ...
; the Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau (; ) is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. The style is known by different names in different languages: in German, in Italian, in Catalan, and also known as the Modern ...
of the 1899 Royal Arcade; many medieval lanes; and the winding River Wensum that flows through the city centre towards Norwich Castle
Norwich Castle is a medieval royal fortification in the city of Norwich, in the English county of Norfolk. William the Conqueror (1066–1087) ordered its construction in the aftermath of the Norman conquest of England. The castle was used as a ...
.
In May 2012, Norwich was designated England's first UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international coope ...
City of Literature
UNESCO's City of Literature programme is part of the wider Creative Cities Network.
The ''Network'' was launched in 2004, and now has member cities in seven creative fields. The other creative fields are: Crafts and Folk Art, Design, Film, Gas ...
. One of the UK's popular tourist destinations, it was voted by ''The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers '' The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the ...
'' in 2016 as the "happiest city to work in the UK" and in 2013 as one of the best small cities in the world by ''The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' ( ...
Good University Guide''. In 2018, 2019 and 2020, Norwich was voted one of the "Best Places To Live" in the UK by ''The Sunday Times
''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, whi ...
''.
History
Origin
The capital of the Iceni
The Iceni ( , ) or Eceni were a Brittonic tribe of eastern Britain during the Iron Age and early Roman era. Their territory included present-day Norfolk and parts of Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, and bordered the area of the Corieltauvi to the we ...
tribe was a settlement located near to the village of Caistor St Edmund
Caistor St Edmund is a village and former civil parish on the River Tas, in Norfolk, England. The parish covers an area of and had a population of 270 people in 116 households at the 2001 Census which increased to 289 people by the 2011 Cens ...
on the River Tas
The River Tas is a river which flows northwards through South Norfolk in England - towards Norwich. The area is named the Tas Valley after the river. The name of the river is back-formed from the name of village of Tasburgh (E. Ekwall, English-R ...
about to the south of modern Norwich. After an uprising led by Boudica
Boudica or Boudicca (, known in Latin chronicles as Boadicea or Boudicea, and in Welsh as ()), was a queen of the ancient British Iceni tribe, who led a failed uprising against the conquering forces of the Roman Empire in AD 60 or 61. She ...
in about 60 AD, the Caistor area became the Roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
* Rome, the capital city of Italy
* Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lett ...
capital of East Anglia
East Anglia is an area in the East of England, often defined as including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Angles, a people whose name originated in Anglia, in ...
named ''Venta Icenorum
Venta Icenorum (, literally "marketplace of the Iceni") was the civitas or capital of the Iceni tribe, located at modern-day Caistor St Edmund in the English county of Norfolk. The Iceni inhabited the flatlands and marshes of that county and are ...
'', literally "marketplace of the Iceni". This fell into disuse about 450.
The Anglo-Saxons
The Anglo-Saxons were a cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo-Saxons happened ...
settled the site of the modern city sometime between the 5th and 7th centuries, founding the towns of ''Northwic'' ("North Farm"), from which Norwich takes its name, and ''Westwic'' (at Norwich-over-the-Water) and a lesser settlement at Thorpe. Norwich became settled as a town in the 10th century and then became a prominent centre of East Anglian trade and commerce.
Early English and Norman conquest
It is possible that three separate early Anglo-Saxon settlements, one north of the river and two either side on the south, joined as they grew; or that a single Anglo-Saxon settlement, north of the river, emerged in the mid-7th century after the abandonment of the previous three. The ancient city was a thriving centre for trade and commerce in East Anglia in 1004 when it was raided and burnt by Swein Forkbeard
Sweyn Forkbeard ( non, Sveinn Haraldsson tjúguskegg ; da, Svend Tveskæg; 17 April 963 – 3 February 1014) was King of Denmark from 986 to 1014, also at times King of the English and King of Norway. He was the father of King Harald II of D ...
the Viking
Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden),
who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...
king of Denmark. Mercia
la, Merciorum regnum
, conventional_long_name=Kingdom of Mercia
, common_name=Mercia
, status=Kingdom
, status_text=Independent kingdom (527–879)Client state of Wessex ()
, life_span=527–918
, era=Heptarchy
, event_start=
, date_start=
, y ...
n coins and shards of pottery from the Rhineland
The Rhineland (german: Rheinland; french: Rhénanie; nl, Rijnland; ksh, Rhingland; Latinised name: ''Rhenania'') is a loosely defined area of Western Germany along the Rhine, chiefly its middle section.
Term
Historically, the Rhinelands ...
dating from the 8th century suggest that long-distance trade was happening long before this. Between 924 and 939, Norwich became fully established as a town, with its own mint. The word ''Norvic'' appears on coins across Europe minted during this period, in the reign of King Athelstan
King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king.
*In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the ti ...
. The Vikings were a strong cultural influence in Norwich for 40 to 50 years at the end of the 9th century, setting up an Anglo-Scandinavian
Anglo-Scandinavian is an academic term referring to the hybridisation between Norse and Anglo-Saxon cultures in Britain during the early medieval period. It remains a term and concept often used by historians and archaeologists, and in linguisti ...
district near the north end of present-day King Street. At the time of the Norman Conquest
The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Norman, Breton, Flemish, and French troops, all led by the Duke of Normandy, later styled William the Conq ...
, the city was one of the largest in England. The Domesday Book
Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...
states that it had approximately 25 churches and a population of between 5,000 and 10,000. It also records the site of an Anglo-Saxon church in Tombland, the site of the Saxon market place and the later Norman cathedral. Norwich continued to be a major centre for trade, described officially as the Port of Norwich
The Port of Norwich is a small port on the River Wensum at Norwich, Norfolk. The use of the river as a port stretches back at least to medieval times, however its current standing as a port dates to an Act of Parliament on 28 May 1827.
The name ...
. Quern stone
Quern-stones are stone tools for hand-grinding a wide variety of materials. They are used in pairs. The lower stationary stone of early examples is called a saddle quern, while the upper mobile stone is called a muller, rubber or handstone. The ...
s and other artefacts from Scandinavia and the Rhineland have been found during excavations in Norwich city centre. These date from the 11th century onwards.
Norwich Castle
Norwich Castle is a medieval royal fortification in the city of Norwich, in the English county of Norfolk. William the Conqueror (1066–1087) ordered its construction in the aftermath of the Norman conquest of England. The castle was used as a ...
was founded soon after the Norman Conquest. The Domesday Book
Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...
records that 98 Saxon homes were demolished to make way for the castle. The Normans
The Normans ( Norman: ''Normaunds''; french: Normands; la, Nortmanni/Normanni) were a population arising in the medieval Duchy of Normandy from the intermingling between Norse Viking settlers and indigenous West Franks and Gallo-Romans. ...
established a new focus of settlement around the Castle and the area to the west of it: this became known as the "New" or "French" borough, centred on the Normans' own market place, which survives today as Norwich Market, the largest permanent undercover market in Europe.
In 1096, Herbert de Losinga
Herbert de Losinga (died 22 July 1119) was the first Bishop of Norwich. He founded Norwich Cathedral in 1096 when he was Bishop of Thetford.
Life
Losinga was born in Exmes, near Argentan, Normandy, the son of Robert de LosingaDoubleday and Page ...
, Bishop of Thetford
The Bishop of Thetford is an episcopal title which takes its name after the market town of Thetford in Norfolk, England. The title was originally used by the Normans in the 11th century, and is now used by a Church of England suffragan bishop.
...
, began construction of Norwich Cathedral
Norwich Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in Norwich, Norfolk, dedicated to the Holy and Undivided Trinity. It is the cathedral church for the Church of England Diocese of Norwich and is one of the Norwich 12 heritage sites.
The cathedra ...
. The chief building material for the Cathedral was limestone, imported from Caen in Normandy. To transport the building stone to the site, a canal was cut from the river (from the site of present-day Pulls Ferry) up to the east wall. Herbert de Losinga then moved his See there, to what became the cathedral church for the Diocese of Norwich
The Diocese of Norwich is an ecclesiastical jurisdiction or diocese of the Church of England that forms part of the Province of Canterbury in England.
History
It traces its roots in an unbroken line to the diocese of the Bishop of the Eas ...
. The Bishop of Norwich still signs himself ''Norvic''. Norwich received a royal charter
A royal charter is a formal grant issued by a monarch under royal prerogative as letters patent. Historically, they have been used to promulgate public laws, the most famous example being the English Magna Carta (great charter) of 1215, b ...
from Henry II in 1158, and another from Richard ''the Lionheart'' in 1194. After a riot in the city in 1274, Norwich has the distinction of being the only complete English city to be excommunicated by the Pope.
Middle Ages
The first recorded presence of Jews
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
in Norwich is 1134. In 1144, the Jews of Norwich were falsely accused of ritual murder
Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more humans as part of a ritual, which is usually intended to please or appease gods, a human ruler, an authoritative/priestly figure or spirits of dead ancestors or as a retainer sacrifice, wherei ...
after a boy (William of Norwich
William of Norwich (2 February 1132 – 22 March 1144) was an English boy whose disappearance and killing was, at the time, attributed to the Jewish community of Norwich. It is the first known medieval accusation against Jews of ritual murder ...
) was found dead with stab wounds. William acquired the status of martyr and was subsequently canonised
Canonization is the declaration of a deceased person as an officially recognized saint, specifically, the official act of a Christian communion declaring a person worthy of public veneration and entering their name in the canon catalogue of ...
. Pilgrims made offerings to a shrine at the Cathedral (largely finished by 1140) up to the 16th century, but the records suggest there were few of them. In 1174, Norwich was sacked by the Flemings
The Flemish or Flemings ( nl, Vlamingen ) are a Germanic ethnic group native to Flanders, Belgium, who speak Dutch. Flemish people make up the majority of Belgians, at about 60%.
"''Flemish''" was historically a geographical term, as all in ...
. In February 1190, all the Jews of Norwich were massacred except for a few who found refuge in the castle. At the site of a medieval well, the bones of 17 individuals, including 11 children, were found in 2004 by workers preparing the ground for construction of a Norwich shopping centre. The remains were determined by forensic scientists
Forensic science, also known as criminalistics, is the application of science to criminal and civil laws, mainly—on the criminal side—during criminal investigation, as governed by the legal standards of admissible evidence and criminal p ...
to be most probably the remains of such murdered Jews, and a DNA expert determined that the victims were all related so that they probably came from one Ashkenazi Jewish
Ashkenazi Jews ( ; he, יְהוּדֵי אַשְׁכְּנַז, translit=Yehudei Ashkenaz, ; yi, אַשכּנזישע ייִדן, Ashkenazishe Yidn), also known as Ashkenazic Jews or ''Ashkenazim'',, Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation: , singu ...
family. The study of the remains featured in an episode of the BBC television
BBC Television is a service of the BBC. The corporation has operated a public broadcast television service in the United Kingdom, under the terms of a royal charter, since 1927. It produced television programmes from its own studios from 193 ...
documentary series ''History Cold Case
''History Cold Case'' is a British documentary television series in which scientists use modern forensic techniques to investigate ancient remains. Two series of ''History Cold Case'' aired on BBC Two between 6 May 2010 and 21 July 2011. The te ...
''. A research paper from August 30, 2022 confirmed the remains were most likely Ashkenazi Jews. The paper found that many of the victims had certain medical disorders most often seen in Ashkenazi communities, suggesting that a population bottleneck
A population bottleneck or genetic bottleneck is a sharp reduction in the size of a population due to environmental events such as famines, earthquakes, floods, fires, disease, and droughts; or human activities such as specicide, widespread violen ...
had occurred among Ashkenazim before the 12th century. This challenged traditional views among historians that the bottleneck had happened between the 14th and 16th centuries.
In 1216, the castle fell to Louis, Dauphin of France and Hildebrand's Hospital was founded, followed ten years later by the Franciscan
, image = FrancescoCoA PioM.svg
, image_size = 200px
, caption = A cross, Christ's arm and Saint Francis's arm, a universal symbol of the Franciscans
, abbreviation = OFM
, predecessor =
, ...
Friary and Dominican Friary. The Great Hospital dates from 1249 and the College of St Mary in the Field from 1250. In 1256, Whitefriars was founded. In 1266 the city was sacked by the "Disinherited". It has the distinction of being the only English city ever to be excommunicated, following a riot between citizens and monks in 1274.
As a penance, St Ethelbert's Gate, one of the entrances to the cathedral priory, was constructed by Norwich citizens. In 1278 the Cathedral received final consecration. In 1290 the city flooded. Austin Friary was founded in that year.
The engine of trade was wool
Wool is the textile fibre obtained from sheep and other mammals, especially goats, rabbits, and camelids. The term may also refer to inorganic materials, such as mineral wool and glass wool, that have properties similar to animal wool. ...
from Norfolk's sheepwalk
Pasture (from the Latin ''pastus'', past participle of ''pascere'', "to feed") is land used for grazing. Pasture lands in the narrow sense are enclosed tracts of farmland, grazed by domesticated livestock, such as horses, cattle, sheep, or swine ...
s. Wool made England rich, and the staple port
The staple right, also translated stacking right or storage right, both from the Dutch ''stapelrecht'', was a medieval right accorded to certain ports, the staple ports. It required merchant barges or ships to unload their goods at the port and to ...
of Norwich "in her state doth stand With towns of high'st regard the fourth of all the land", as Michael Drayton
Michael Drayton (1563 – 23 December 1631) was an English poet who came to prominence in the Elizabethan era. He died on 23 December 1631 in London.
Early life
Drayton was born at Hartshill, near Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England. Almost nothin ...
noted in ''Poly-Olbion
The ''Poly-Olbion'' is a topographical poem describing England and Wales. Written by Michael Drayton (1563–1631) and published in 1612, it was reprinted with a second part in 1622. Drayton had been working on the project since at least 1598. ...
'' (1612). The wealth generated by the wool trade
Wool is the textile fibre obtained from sheep and other mammals, especially goats, rabbits, and camelids. The term may also refer to inorganic materials, such as mineral wool and glass wool, that have properties similar to animal wool.
As a ...
throughout the Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...
financed the construction of many fine churches, so that Norwich still has more medieval churches than any other city in Western Europe north of the Alps
The Alps () ; german: Alpen ; it, Alpi ; rm, Alps ; sl, Alpe . are the highest and most extensive mountain range system that lies entirely in Europe, stretching approximately across seven Alpine countries (from west to east): France, Sw ...
. Throughout this period Norwich established wide-ranging trading links with other parts of Europe, its markets stretching from Scandinavia
Scandinavia; Sámi languages: /. ( ) is a subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. In English usage, ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and S ...
to Spain and the city housing a Hanseatic warehouse. To organise and control its exports to the Low Countries
The term Low Countries, also known as the Low Lands ( nl, de Lage Landen, french: les Pays-Bas, lb, déi Niddereg Lännereien) and historically called the Netherlands ( nl, de Nederlanden), Flanders, or Belgica, is a coastal lowland region in N ...
, Great Yarmouth, as the port for Norwich, was designated one of the staple ports under the terms of the 1353 Statute of the Staple
The Ordinance of the Staple was an ordinance issued in the Great Council in October 1353. It aimed to regularise the status of staple ports in England, Wales, and Ireland. In particular, it designated particular ports where specific goods could ...
.
From 1280 to 1340 the city walls
A defensive wall is a fortification usually used to protect a city, town or other settlement from potential aggressors. The walls can range from simple palisades or earthworks to extensive military fortifications with towers, bastions and gates ...
were built. At around , these walls, along with the river, enclosed a larger area than that of the City of London
The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London f ...
. However, when the city walls were constructed it was made illegal to build outside them, inhibiting the expansion of the city. Around this time, the city was made a county corporate
A county corporate or corporate county was a type of subnational division used for local government in England, Wales, and Ireland.
Counties corporate were created during the Middle Ages, and were effectively small self-governing county-empo ...
and became the seat of one of the most densely populated and prosperous counties
A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesChambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...
of England. Part of these walls remains standing today.
Early modern period (1485–1640)
Hand-in-hand with the wool industry, this key religious centre experienced a Reformation significantly different from that in other parts of England. The magistracy in Tudor Norwich unusually found ways of managing religious discord whilst maintaining civic harmony.
The summer of 1549 saw an unprecedented rebellion in Norfolk. Unlike popular challenges elsewhere in the Tudor period, it appears to have been Protestant
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
in nature. For several weeks, rebels led by Robert Kett camped outside Norwich on Mousehold Heath
Mousehold Heath is a freely accessible area of heathland and woodland which lies to the north-east of the medieval city boundary of Norwich, in eastern England.
The name also refers to the much larger area of open heath that once extended f ...
and took control of the city on 29 July 1549 with the support of many of its poorer inhabitants. Kett's Rebellion
Kett's Rebellion was a revolt in Norfolk, England during the reign of Edward VI, largely in response to the enclosure of land. It began at Wymondham on 8 July 1549 with a group of rebels destroying fences that had been put up by wealthy landowners ...
was particularly in response to the enclosure of land by landlords, leaving peasants with nowhere to graze their animals and the general abuses of power by the nobility. The uprising ended on 27 August when the rebels were defeated by an army. Kett was convicted of treason and hanged from the walls of Norwich Castle.
Unusually in England, the rebellion divided the city and appears to have linked Protestantism with the plight of the urban poor. In the case of Norwich, this process was underscored later by the arrival of Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
and Flemish
Flemish (''Vlaams'') is a Low Franconian dialect cluster of the Dutch language. It is sometimes referred to as Flemish Dutch (), Belgian Dutch ( ), or Southern Dutch (). Flemish is native to Flanders, a historical region in northern Belgium; ...
"Strangers
A stranger is a person who is unknown to another person or group. Because of this unknown status, a stranger may be perceived as a threat until their identity and character can be ascertained. Different classes of strangers have been identified f ...
" fleeing persecution from the Catholics and eventually numbering as many as one-third of the city's population. Large numbers of such exiles came to the city, especially Flemish Protestants from the Westkwartier ("Western Quarter"), a region in the Southern Netherlands
The Southern Netherlands, also called the Catholic Netherlands, were the parts of the Low Countries belonging to the Holy Roman Empire which were at first largely controlled by Habsburg Spain (Spanish Netherlands, 1556–1714) and later by the A ...
where the first Calvinist
Calvinism (also called the Reformed Tradition, Reformed Protestantism, Reformed Christianity, or simply Reformed) is a major branch of Protestantism that follows the theological tradition and forms of Christian practice set down by John C ...
fires of the Dutch Revolt
The Eighty Years' War or Dutch Revolt ( nl, Nederlandse Opstand) ( c.1566/1568–1648) was an armed conflict in the Habsburg Netherlands between disparate groups of rebels and the Spanish government. The causes of the war included the Ref ...
had spread. Inhabitants of Ypres
Ypres ( , ; nl, Ieper ; vls, Yper; german: Ypern ) is a Belgian city and municipality in the province of West Flanders. Though
the Dutch name is the official one, the city's French name is most commonly used in English. The municipality ...
, in particular, chose Norwich above other destinations. Perhaps in response to Kett, Norwich became the first provincial city to initiate compulsory payments for a civic scheme of poor relief, which it has been claimed led to its wider introduction, forming the basis of the later Elizabethan Poor Law of 1597–1598.
Norwich has traditionally been the home of various minorities, notably Flemish
Flemish (''Vlaams'') is a Low Franconian dialect cluster of the Dutch language. It is sometimes referred to as Flemish Dutch (), Belgian Dutch ( ), or Southern Dutch (). Flemish is native to Flanders, a historical region in northern Belgium; ...
and Belgian Walloon communities in the 16th and 17th centuries. The great "stranger" immigration of 1567 brought a substantial Flemish and Walloon community of Protestant weavers to Norwich, where they are said to have been made welcome. The merchant's house which was their earliest base in the city — now a museum — is still known as Strangers' Hall
Strangers' Hall is a museum of domestic history located in Norwich, Norfolk, UK. It is a Grade I listed building.
The oldest parts of the building date back to the fourteenth century, although many additions have been made to the structure ...
. It seems that the strangers integrated into the local community without much animosity, at least among the business fraternity, who had the most to gain from their skills. Their arrival in Norwich boosted trade with mainland Europe and fostered a movement towards religious reform and radical politics in the city. By contrast, after being persecuted by the Anglican church for his Puritan
The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to purify the Church of England of Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become more Protestant. ...
beliefs, Michael Metcalf
David Michael Metcalf (8 May 1933 – 25 October 2018) was a British academic and numismatist. He was the director of the Heberden Coin Room of the Ashmolean Museum, a fellow of Wolfson College and Professor of Numismatics at the University of ...
, a 17th-century Norwich weaver, fled the city and settled in Dedham, Massachusetts
Dedham ( ) is a town in and the county seat of Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 25,364 at the 2020 census. It is located on Boston's southwest border. On the northwest it is bordered by Needham, on the southwest ...
.
The Norwich Canary was first introduced into England by Flemings fleeing from Spanish persecution in the 16th century. Along with their advanced techniques in textile working, they brought pet canaries which they began to breed locally, eventually becoming in the 20th century a mascot of the city and the emblem of its football club, Norwich City F.C.: "The Canaries".
Printing was introduced to the city in 1567 by Anthony de Solempne, one of the strangers, but it did not take root and had died out by about 1572.
Norwich's coat of arms
A coat of arms is a heraldic visual design on an escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the latter two being outer garments). The coat of arms on an escutcheon forms the central element of the full heraldic achievement, which in its ...
was first recorded in 1562. It is described as: ''Gules a Castle triple-towered and domed Argent in base a Lion passant guardant r Leopard
R, or r, is the eighteenth letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''ar'' (pronounced ), plural ''ars'', or in Irelan ...
Or.'' The castle is supposed to represent Norwich Castle and the lion, taken from the Royal Arms of England
The royal arms of England are the arms first adopted in a fixed form at the start of the age of heraldry (circa 1200) as personal arms by the Plantagenet kings who ruled England from 1154. In the popular mind they have come to symbolise the ...
, may have been granted by King Edward III
Edward III (13 November 1312 – 21 June 1377), also known as Edward of Windsor before his accession, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from January 1327 until his death in 1377. He is noted for his military success and for restoring r ...
.
Civil War to Victorian era
In the English Civil War
The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (" Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I (" Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of r ...
, across the Eastern Counties, Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell (25 April 15993 September 1658) was an English politician and military officer who is widely regarded as one of the most important statesmen in English history. He came to prominence during the 1639 to 1651 Wars of the Three ...
's powerful Eastern Association
The Eastern Association of counties was an administrative organisation set up by Parliament in the early years of the First English Civil War. Its main function was to finance and support an army which became a mainstay of the Parliamentarian mi ...
was eventually dominant. However, to begin with, there had been a large element of Royalist sympathy within Norwich, which seems to have experienced a continuity of its two-sided political tradition throughout the period. Bishop Matthew Wren
Matthew Wren (3 December 1585 – 24 April 1667) was an influential English clergyman, bishop and scholar.
Life
He was the eldest son of Francis Wren (born 18 January 1552 at Newbold Revell), citizen and mercer of London, only son of Cuth ...
was a forceful supporter of Charles I Charles I may refer to:
Kings and emperors
* Charlemagne (742–814), numbered Charles I in the lists of Holy Roman Emperors and French kings
* Charles I of Anjou (1226–1285), also king of Albania, Jerusalem, Naples and Sicily
* Charles I of ...
. Nonetheless, Parliamentary
A parliamentary system, or parliamentarian democracy, is a system of democratic governance of a state (or subordinate entity) where the executive derives its democratic legitimacy from its ability to command the support ("confidence") of the ...
recruitment took hold. The strong Royalist party was stifled by a lack of commitment from the aldermen and isolation from Royalist-held regions. Serious inter-factional disturbances culminated in "The Great Blow" of 1648 when Parliamentary forces tried to quell a Royalist riot. The latter's gunpowder was set off by accident in the city centre, causing mayhem. According to Hopper, the explosion "ranks among the largest of the century". Stoutly defended though East Anglia was by the Parliamentary army, there were said to have been pubs in Norwich where the king's health was still drunk and the name of the Protector sung to ribald verse.
At the cost of some discomfort to the Mayor, the moderate Joseph Hall was targeted because of his position as Bishop of Norwich.
Norwich was marked in the period after the Restoration of 1660 and the ensuing century by a golden age of its cloth industry, comparable only to those in the West Country
The West Country (occasionally Westcountry) is a loosely defined area of South West England, usually taken to include all, some, or parts of the counties of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, Bristol, and, less commonly, Wiltshire, Glouc ...
and Yorkshire, but unlike other cloth-manufacturing regions, Norwich weaving brought greater urbanisation, mainly concentrated in the surrounds of the city itself, creating an urban society, with features such as leisure time, alehouses and other public forums of debate and argument.
Norwich in the late 17th century was riven politically. Churchman Humphrey Prideaux described "two factions, Whig and Tory
A Tory () is a person who holds a political philosophy known as Toryism, based on a British version of traditionalism and conservatism, which upholds the supremacy of social order as it has evolved in the English culture throughout history. The ...
, and both contend for their way with the utmost violence." Nor did the city accept the outcome of the 1688 Glorious Revolution
The Glorious Revolution; gd, Rèabhlaid Ghlòrmhor; cy, Chwyldro Gogoneddus , also known as the ''Glorieuze Overtocht'' or ''Glorious Crossing'' in the Netherlands, is the sequence of events leading to the deposition of King James II and ...
with a unified voice. The pre-eminent citizen, Bishop William Lloyd, would not take the oaths of allegiance to the new monarchs. One report has it that in 1704 the landlord of Fowler's alehouse "with a glass of beer in hand, went down on his knees and drank a health to James the third, wishing the Crowne icwell and settled on his head."
Writing of the early 18th century, Pound describes the city's rich cultural life, the winter theatre season, the festivities accompanying the summer assizes, and other popular entertainments. Norwich was the wealthiest town in England, with a sophisticated system of poor relief, and a large influx of foreign refugees. Despite severe outbreaks of plague, the city had a population of almost 30,000. This made Norwich unique in England, although there were some 50 cities of similar size in Europe. In some, like Lyon and Dresden
Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label= Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth ...
, this was, as in the case of Norwich, linked to an important proto-industry, such as textiles or china pottery, in some, such as Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
, Madrid
Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...
and Dublin
Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 ...
, to the city's status as an administrative capital, and in some such as Antwerp
Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504, , Marseilles
Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Franc ...
and Cologne
Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...
to a position on an important maritime or river trade route.
In 1716, at a play at the ''New Inn'', the Pretender was cheered and the audience booed and hissed every time King George's name was mentioned. In 1722 supporters of the king were said to be "hiss'd at and curst as they go in the streets," and in 1731 "a Tory mobb, in a great body, went through several parts of this city, in a riotous manner, cursing and abusing such as they knew to be friends of the government." However the Whigs gradually gained control and by the 1720s they had successfully petitioned Parliament to allow all adult males working in the textile industry to take up the freedom, on the correct assumption that they would vote Whig. But it had the effect of boosting the city's popular Jacobitism
, war =
, image = Prince James Francis Edward Stuart by Louis Gabriel Blanchet.jpg
, image_size = 150px
, caption = James Francis Edward Stuart, Jacobite claimant between 1701 and 1766
, active ...
, says Knights, and contests of the kind described continued in Norwich well into a period in which political stability had been discerned at a national level. The city's Jacobitism perhaps only ended with 1745, well after it had ceased to be a significant movement outside Scotland. Despite the Highlanders reaching Derby
Derby ( ) is a city and unitary authority area in Derbyshire, England. It lies on the banks of the River Derwent in the south of Derbyshire, which is in the East Midlands Region. It was traditionally the county town of Derbyshire. Derby g ...
and Norwich citizens mustering themselves into an association to protect the city, some Tories refused to join in, and the vestry of St Peter Mancroft
St Peter Mancroft is a parish church in the Church of England, in the centre of Norwich, Norfolk. After the two cathedrals, it is the largest church in Norwich. It was originally established by the then Earl of East Anglia, Ralph de Gael between ...
resolved that it would not ring its bells to summon the defence. Still, it was the end of the road for Norwich Jacobites, and the Whigs organised a notable celebration after the Battle of Culloden
The Battle of Culloden (; gd, Blàr Chùil Lodair) was the final confrontation of the Jacobite rising of 1745. On 16 April 1746, the Jacobite army of Charles Edward Stuart was decisively defeated by a British government force under Prince Wi ...
.
The events of this period illustrate how Norwich had a strong tradition of popular protest favouring Church and Stuarts and attached to the street and alehouse. Knights tells how in 1716 the mayoral election had ended in a riot, with both sides throwing "brick-ends and great paving stones" at each other. A renowned Jacobite watering-hole, the ''Blue Bell Inn'' (nowadays ''The Bell Hotel''), owned in the early 18th century by the high-church Helwys family, became the central rendezvous of the Norwich Revolution Society in the 1790s.
Britain's first provincial newspaper, the ''Norwich Post
The ''Norwich Post'' was an English provincial newspaper which existed between 1701 and 1713. It is believed to be the earliest truly provincial English newspaper, although the ''London Gazette'' was briefly published in Oxford in 1665.
History
...
'', appeared in 1701. By 1726 there were rival Whig and Tory presses, and as early as mid-century, three-quarters of the males in some parishes were literate. The Norwich municipal library claims an excellent collection of these newspapers, also a folio collection of scrapbooks on 18th-century Norwich politics, which Knights says are "valuable and important". Norwich alehouses had 281 clubs and societies meeting in them in 1701, and at least 138 more were formed before 1758. The Theatre Royal opened in 1758, alongside the city's stage productions in inns and puppet shows in rowdy alehouses. In 1750 Norwich could boast nine booksellers and after 1780 a "growing number of circulating and subscription libraries". says: "ll this
Ll/ll is a digraph that occurs in several languages
English
In English, often represents the same sound as single : . The doubling is used to indicate that the preceding vowel is (historically) short, or that the "l" sound is to be extended l ...
made for a lively political culture, in which independence from governmental lines was particularly strong, evident in campaigns against the war with America and for reform... in which trade and the impact of war with Revolutionary France
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...
were key ingredients. The open and contestable structure of local government, the press, the clubs and societies, and dissent all ensured that politics overlapped with communities bound by economics, religion, ideology and print in a world in which public opinion could not be ignored."
Amid this metropolitan culture, the city burghers had built a sophisticated political structure. Freemen, who had the right to trade and to vote at elections, numbered about 2,000 in 1690, rising to over 3,300 by the mid-1730s. With growth partly the result of political manipulation, their numbers did at one point reach one-third of the adult male population. This was notoriously the age of "rotten" and "pocket" boroughs and Norwich was unusual in having such a high proportion of its citizens able to vote. "Of the political centres where the Jacobin propaganda had penetrated most deeply only Norwich and Nottingham had a franchise deep enough to allow radicals to make use of the electoral process." "Apart from London, Norwich was probably still the largest of those boroughs which were democratically governed," says , describing other towns under the control of a single fief
A fief (; la, feudum) was a central element in medieval contracts based on feudal law. It consisted of a form of property holding or other rights granted by an overlord to a vassal, who held it in fealty or "in fee" in return for a form ...
dom. In Norwich, he says, a powerful Anglican establishment, symbolised by the Cathedral and the great church of St Peter Mancroft was matched by scarcely less powerful congeries of Dissenters headed by the wealthy literate body f Unitarians
F, or f, is the sixth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''ef'' (pronounced ), and the plural is ''efs''.
Hist ...
worshipping at the Octagon Chapel.
In the middle of political disorders of the late 18th century, Norwich intellectual life flourished. Harriet Martineau
Harriet Martineau (; 12 June 1802 – 27 June 1876) was an English social theorist often seen as the first female sociologist, focusing on race relations within much of her published material.Michael R. Hill (2002''Harriet Martineau: Theoretic ...
wrote of the city's ''literati'' of the period, including such people as William Taylor, one of England's first scholars of German. The city "boasted of her intellectual supper-parties, where, amidst a pedantry which would now make laughter hold both his sides, there was much that was pleasant and salutary: and finally she called herself ''The Athens of England''."
Despite Norwich's longstanding industrial prosperity, by the 1790s its wool trade had begun facing intense competition, at first from Yorkshire woollens and then, increasingly, from Lancashire
Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly.
The non-metropolitan county of Lancas ...
cotton. The effects were aggravated by the loss of continental markets after Britain went to war with France in 1793. The early 19th century saw de-industrialisation accompanied by bitter squabbles. The 1820s were marked by wage cuts and personal recrimination against owners. So amid the rich commercial and cultural heritage of its recent past, Norwich suffered in the 1790s from incipient decline exacerbated by a serious trade recession.
As early in the war as 1793, a major city manufacturer and government supporter, Robert Harvey, complained of low order books, languid trade and doubling of the poor rate. Like many of their Norwich forebears, the hungry poor took their complaints onto the streets. Hayes describes a meeting of 200 people in a Norwich public house, where "Citizen Stanhope" spoke. The gathering " oared itsapplause at Stanhope's declaration that the Ministers unless they changed their policy, deserved to have their heads brought to the block; – and if there was a people still in England, the event might turn out to be so." Hayes says that "the outbreak of war, in bringing the worsted manufacture almost to a standstill and so plunging the mass of the Norwich weavers into sudden distress made it almost inevitable that a crude appeal to working-class resentment should take the place of a temperate process of education which the earliest reformers had intended."
At this period opposition to Pitt's government and their war came – in their case almost unanimously – from a circle of radical Dissenting intellectuals of interest in their own right. They included the Rigby, Taylor, Aitkin, Barbold, and Alderson families – all Unitarians - and some of the Quaker Gurneys (one of whose girls, Elizabeth
Elizabeth or Elisabeth may refer to:
People
* Elizabeth (given name), a female given name (including people with that name)
* Elizabeth (biblical figure), mother of John the Baptist
Ships
* HMS ''Elizabeth'', several ships
* ''Elisabeth'' (sch ...
, was later, under her married name of Fry, to become a noted campaigner for prison reform). Their activities included visits to revolutionary France (before the execution of Louis XVI
Louis XVI (''Louis-Auguste''; ; 23 August 175421 January 1793) was the last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. He was referred to as ''Citizen Louis Capet'' during the four months just before he was ...
), the earliest British research into German literature, studies on medical science, petitioning for parliamentary reform, and publishing a highbrow literary magazine called "The Cabinet", in 1795. Their blend of politics, religion and social campaigning was seen by Pitt and Windham as suspicious, prompting Pitt to denounce Norwich as "the Jacobin city". Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke (; 12 January NS.html"_;"title="New_Style.html"_;"title="/nowiki>New_Style">NS">New_Style.html"_;"title="/nowiki>New_Style">NS/nowiki>_1729_–_9_July_1797)_was_an_NS.html"_;"title="New_Style.html"_;"title="/nowiki>New_Style">N ...
attacked John Gurney in print for sponsoring anti-war protests. In the 1790s, Norwich was second only to London as an active intellectual centre in England, and that it did not regain that level of prominence until 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 ...
was established in the late 20th century.
By 1795, it was not just the Norwich rabble who were causing the government concern. In April of that year, the Norwich Patriotic Society was founded, its manifesto declaring "that the great end of civil society was general happiness; that every individual had a right to share in the government." In December the price of bread reached a new peak, and in May 1796, when William Windham was forced to seek re-election after his appointment as war secretary, he only just held his seat. Amid the disorder and violence that was such a common feature of Norwich election campaigns, it was only by the narrowest margin that the radical Bartlett Gurney ("Peace and Gurney – No More War – No more Barley Bread") failed to unseat him.
Though informed by issues of recent national importance, the bipartisan political culture of Norwich in the 1790s cannot be divorced from local tradition. Two features stand out from a political continuum of three centuries. The first is a dichotomous power balance. From at least the time of the Reformation, Norwich was recorded as a "two-party city". In the mid-16th century, the weaving parishes fell under the control of opposition forces, as Kett's rebels held the north of the river, in support of poor clothworkers. Indeed there seems to be a case for saying that with this tradition of two-sided disputation, the city had steadily developed an infrastructure, evident in its many cultural and institutional networks of politics, religion, society, news media and the arts, whereby argument could be managed short of outright confrontation. Indeed, at a time of hunger and tension on the Norwich streets, with alehouse crowds ready to have "a Minister's head brought to the block", the Anglican and Dissenting clergy exerted themselves to conduct a collegial dialogue, seeking common ground and reinforcing the well-mannered civic tradition of earlier periods.
In 1797 Thomas Bignold, a 36-year-old wine merchant and banker founded the first Norwich Union Society. Some years earlier, when he moved from Kent to Norwich, Bignold had been unable to find anyone willing to insure him against the threat from highwaymen. With the entrepreneurial thought that nothing was impossible, and aware that in a city built largely of wood the threat of fire was uppermost in people's minds, Bignold formed the "Norwich Union Society for the Insurance of Houses, Stock and Merchandise from Fire". The new business, which became known as the Norwich Union Fire Insurance Office, was a "mutual" enterprise. Norwich Union
Norwich Union was the name of insurance company Aviva's British arm before June 2009. It was originally established in 1797. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.
On 29 April 2008, Aviva ...
would later become the country's largest insurance giant.
From earliest times, Norwich was a textile centre. In the 1780s the manufacture of Norwich shawl
A shawl (from fa, شال ''shāl'',) is a simple item of clothing from Kashmir, loosely worn over the shoulders, upper body and arms, and sometimes also over the head. It is usually a rectangular or square piece of cloth, which is often folde ...
s became an important industry and remained so for nearly a hundred years. The shawls were a high-quality fashion product and rivalled those of other towns such as Paisley, which had entered shawl manufacturing in about 1805, some 20 or more years after Norwich. With changes in women's fashion in the later Victorian period
In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edward ...
, the popularity of shawls declined and eventually manufacture ceased. Examples of Norwich shawls are now sought after by collectors of textiles.
Norwich's geographical isolation was such that until 1845, when a railway link was established, it was often quicker to travel to Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...
by boat than to London. The railway was introduced to Norwich by Morton Peto
Sir Samuel Morton Peto, 1st Baronet (4 August 1809 – 13 November 1889) was an English entrepreneur, civil engineer and railway developer, and, for more than 20 years, a Member of Parliament (MP). A partner in the firm of Grissell and Peto, he ...
, who also built a line to Great Yarmouth
Great Yarmouth (), often called Yarmouth, is a seaside town and unparished area in, and the main administrative centre of, the Borough of Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, England; it straddles the River Yare and is located east of Norwich. A pop ...
. From 1808 to 1814, Norwich had a station in the shutter telegraph chain that connected the Admiralty
Admiralty most often refers to:
*Admiralty, Hong Kong
*Admiralty (United Kingdom), military department in command of the Royal Navy from 1707 to 1964
*The rank of admiral
*Admiralty law
Admiralty can also refer to:
Buildings
* Admiralty, Traf ...
in London to its naval ships in the port of Great Yarmouth
Great Yarmouth (), often called Yarmouth, is a seaside town and unparished area in, and the main administrative centre of, the Borough of Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, England; it straddles the River Yare and is located east of Norwich. A pop ...
. A permanent military presence was established in the city with the completion of Britannia Barracks in 1897. The Bethel Street and Cattle Market Street drill hall
A drill hall is a place such as a building or a hangar where soldiers practise and perform military drills.
Description
In the United Kingdom and Commonwealth, the term was used for the whole headquarters building of a military reserve unit, ...
s were built around the same time.
20th century
In the early 20th century, Norwich still had several major manufacturing industries. Among them were the large-scale and bespoke manufacture of shoes (for example the Start-rite
Start-rite is a brand of children's shoes. The shoemaker, purportedly Britain's oldest and one of the first manufacturers in Norfolk, was established in 1792 in Norwich, England, by James Smith. His grandson, James Southall, gave the firm its c ...
and Van Dal brands, Bowhill & Elliott and Cheney & Sons Ltd respectively), clothing, joinery (including the cabinet makers and furniture retailer Arthur Brett and Sons
Arthur is a common male given name of Brythonic origin. Its popularity derives from it being the name of the legendary hero King Arthur. The etymology is disputed. It may derive from the Celtic ''Artos'' meaning “Bear”. Another theory, more w ...
, which continues in business in the 21st century), structural engineering, and aircraft design and manufacture. Notable employers included Boulton & Paul
Boulton & Paul Ltd was a British general manufacturer from Norwich, England that became involved in aircraft manufacture.
Jeld Wen Inc. bought Boulton & Paul (along with another joinery company John Carr) from the Rugby Group plc in 1999 to ...
, Barnards (iron founders and inventors of machine-produced wire netting
Overhead power cabling. The conductor consists of seven strands of steel (centre, high tensile strength), surrounded by four outer layers of aluminium (high conductivity). Sample diameter 40 mm
A wire is a flexible strand of metal.
Wire is co ...
), and the electrical engineers Laurence Scott and Electromotors.
Norwich also has a long association with chocolate making, mainly through the local firm of Caley's, which began as a manufacturer and bottler of mineral water and later diversified into chocolate and Christmas crackers. The Caley's cracker-manufacturing business was taken over by Tom Smith in 1953, and the Norwich factory in Salhouse Road closed in 1998. Caley's was acquired by Mackintosh in the 1930s and merged with Rowntree's
Rowntree's is a British confectionery brand and former business based in York, England. Rowntree developed the Kit Kat (introduced in 1935), Aero (introduced in 1935), Fruit Pastilles (introduced in 1881), Smarties (introduced in 1937) brands ...
in 1969 to become Rowntree-Mackintosh. Finally, it was bought by Nestlé
Nestlé S.A. (; ; ) is a Switzerland, Swiss multinational food and drink processing conglomerate corporation headquartered in Vevey, Vaud, Switzerland. It is the largest publicly held food company in the world, measured by revenue and other me ...
and closed in 1996, with all operations moving to York
York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...
after a Norwich association of 120 years. The demolished factory stood where the Chapelfield development is now. Caley's chocolate has since reappeared as a brand in the city, though it is no longer made there.
HMSO
The Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI) is the body responsible for the operation of His Majesty's Stationery Office (HMSO) and of other public information services of the United Kingdom. The OPSI is part of the National Archives of the Un ...
, once the official publishing and stationery arm of the British government and one of the largest print buyers, printers and suppliers of office equipment in the UK, moved most of its operations from London to Norwich in the 1970s. It occupied the purpose-built 1968 Sovereign House building, near Anglia Square, which in 2017 stood empty and due for demolition if a long-postponed redevelopment of Anglia Square went ahead.
Jarrolds
The Jarrold Group is a Norwich–based company, founded as ''Jarrold & Sons Ltd'', in 1770, by John Jarrold, at Woodbridge, Suffolk, before relocating to Norfolk in 1823. ''The Jarrold Group'' still involves members of the Jarrold family.
Fami ...
, established in 1810, was a nationally well-known printer and publisher. In 2004, after nearly 200 years, the printing and publishing businesses were sold. Today, the company remains privately owned and the Jarrold name is best recognised as being that of Norwich's only independent department store
A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store made a dramatic appe ...
. The company is also active in property development in Norwich and has a business training division.
Pubs and brewing
The city had a long tradition of brewing. Several large breweries
A brewery or brewing company is a business that makes and sells beer. The place at which beer is commercially made is either called a brewery or a beerhouse, where distinct sets of brewing equipment are called plant. The commercial brewing of beer ...
continued into the second half of the 20th century, notably Morgans, Steward & Patteson, Youngs Crawshay and Youngs, Bullard and Son, and the Norwich Brewery. Despite takeovers and consolidation in the 1950s and 1960s, only the Norwich Brewery (owned by Watney Mann
Watney Combe & Reid was a leading brewery in London. At its peak in the 1930s it was a constituent of the FT 30 index of leading companies on the London Stock Exchange. It produced Watney's Red Barrel.
History
The Watney family were the mai ...
and on the site of Morgans) remained by the 1970s. That too closed in 1985 and was then demolished. Only microbreweries
Craft beer is a beer that has been made by craft breweries. They produce smaller amounts of beer, typically less than large breweries, and are often independently owned. Such breweries are generally perceived and marketed as having an emphasis o ...
remain today.
It was stated by Walter Wicks in his book that Norwich once had "a pub for every day of the year and a church for every Sunday". This was in fact significantly under the actual amount: the highest number of pubs in the city was in the year 1870, with over 780 beer-houses. The Licensing Act of 1872 had several detrimental effects for landlords and customers, with the total pub numbers dropping to 634. A "Drink Map" produced in 1892 by the Norwich and Norfolk Gospel Temperance Union showed 631 pubs in and around the city centre. By 1900, the number had dropped to 441 pubs within the City Walls. The title of a pub for every day of the year survived until 1966, when the Chief Constable informed the Licensing Justices that only 355 licences were still operative, with the number still shrinking: over 25 had closed in the last decade. In 2018, about 100 pubs remained open around the city centre.
Second World War
Norwich suffered extensive bomb damage during World War II, affecting large parts of the old city centre and Victorian terrace housing around the centre. Industry and the rail infrastructure also suffered. The heaviest raids occurred on the nights of 27/28 and 29/30 April 1942; as part of the Baedeker raids
The Baedeker Blitz or Baedeker raids were a series of aerial attacks in April and May 1942 by the German ''Luftwaffe'' on English cities during the Second World War. The name derives from Baedeker, a series of German tourist guide books, includ ...
(so-called because Baedeker's series of tourist guides to the British Isles
The British Isles are a group of islands in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner and Outer Hebrides, the Northern Isl ...
were used to select propaganda-rich targets of cultural and historic significance rather than strategic importance). Lord Haw-Haw
Lord Haw-Haw was a nickname applied to William Joyce, who broadcast Nazi propaganda to the UK from Germany during the Second World War. The broadcasts opened with "Germany calling, Germany calling", spoken in an affected upper-class English acc ...
made reference to the imminent destruction of Norwich's new City Hall
In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or a municipal building (in the Philippines), is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses ...
(completed in 1938), although in the event it survived unscathed. Significant targets hit included the Morgan's Brewery building, Colman's
Colman's is an English manufacturer of mustard and other sauces, formerly based and produced for 160 years at Carrow, in Norwich, Norfolk. Owned by Unilever since 1995, Colman's is one of the oldest existing food brands, famous for a limited ra ...
Wincarnis
Wincarnis is a brand name of a British tonic wine, popular in Jamaica and some other former British colonies. The name is derived from "wine ''carnis''", from the Latin meaning "of meat." It is a fortified wine (17%) now made to a secret recipe of ...
works, City Station, the Mackintosh chocolate factory, and shopping areas including St Stephen's St and St Benedict's St, the site of Bond's department store
A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store made a dramatic appe ...
(now John Lewis
John Robert Lewis (February 21, 1940 – July 17, 2020) was an American politician and civil rights activist who served in the United States House of Representatives for from 1987 until his death in 2020. He participated in the 1960 Nashville ...
) and Curl's (later Debenhams) department store.
229 citizens were killed in the two Baedeker raids with 1,000 others injured, and 340 by bombing throughout the war — giving Norwich the highest air raid casualties in Eastern England. Out of the 35,000 domestic dwellings in Norwich, 2,000 were destroyed, and another 27,000 suffered some damage. In 1945 the city was also the intended target of a brief V-2 rocket
The V-2 (german: Vergeltungswaffe 2, lit=Retaliation Weapon 2), with the technical name ''Aggregat 4'' (A-4), was the world’s first long-range guided ballistic missile. The missile, powered by a liquid-propellant rocket engine, was develop ...
campaign, though all these missed the city itself.
Post-war redevelopment
As the war ended, the city council revealed what it had been working on before the war. It was published as a book – ''The City of Norwich Plan 1945'' or commonly known as "The '45 Plan" – a grandiose scheme of massive redevelopment which never properly materialised. However, throughout the 1960s to early 1970, the city was completely altered and large areas of Norwich were cleared to make way for modern redevelopment.
In 1960, the inner-city district of Richmond, between Ber Street and King Street, locally known as "the Village on the Hill", was condemned as slums and many residents were forced to leave by compulsory purchase order
A compulsory purchase order (CPO; , ) is a legal function in the United Kingdom and Ireland that allows certain bodies to obtain land or property without the consent of the owner. It may be enforced if a proposed development is considered one for p ...
s on the old terraces and lanes. The whole borough demolished consisted of some 56 acres of existing streets, including 833 dwellings (612 classed as unfit for human habitation), 42 shops, four offices, 22 public houses and two schools. Communities were moved to high-rise buildings such as Normandie Tower and new housing estates such as Tuckswood, which were being built at the time. A new road, Rouen Road, was developed instead, consisting mainly of light industrial units and council flats. Ber Street, a once historic main road into the city, had its whole eastern side demolished. About this time, the final part of St Peters Street, opposite St Peter Mancroft
St Peter Mancroft is a parish church in the Church of England, in the centre of Norwich, Norfolk. After the two cathedrals, it is the largest church in Norwich. It was originally established by the then Earl of East Anglia, Ralph de Gael between ...
Church, were demolished along with large Georgian townhouses at the top of Bethel Street, to make way for the new City Library in 1961. This burnt down on 1 August 1994 and was replaced in 2001 by The Forum.
A controversial plan was implemented for Norwich's inner ring-road in the late 1960s. In 1931, the city architect Robert Atkinson, referring to the City Wall, remarked that "in almost every position are slum dwellings put up during the last 50 years. It would be a great adventure to clear them all out and open up the road following the wall which has always been a natural highway. Do this, and you will have a wonderful circulating boulevard all around the city and its cost would be comparatively nothing." To accommodate the road, many more buildings were demolished, including an ancient road junction – Stump Cross. Magdalen Street, Botolph Street, St George's Street, Calvert Street and notably Pitt Street, all lined with Tudor and Georgian buildings, were cleared to make way for a fly-over and a Brutalist
Brutalist architecture is an architectural style that emerged during the 1950s in the United Kingdom, among the reconstruction projects of the post-war era. Brutalist buildings are characterised by Minimalism (art), minimalist constructions th ...
concrete shopping centre – Anglia Square
Anglia Square is a shopping centre in the north of Norwich city centre, in Norfolk, England. Opened in 1970, it was part of a larger Norwich redevelopment during this period, which was also complemented by the establishment of the nearby HMSO b ...
– as well as office blocks such as an HMSO
The Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI) is the body responsible for the operation of His Majesty's Stationery Office (HMSO) and of other public information services of the United Kingdom. The OPSI is part of the National Archives of the Un ...
building, Sovereign House. Other areas affected were Grapes Hill, a once narrow lane lined with 19th-century Georgian cottages, which was cleared and widened into a dual carriageway leading to a roundabout. Shortly before construction of the roundabout, the city's old Drill Hall
A drill hall is a place such as a building or a hangar where soldiers practise and perform military drills.
Description
In the United Kingdom and Commonwealth, the term was used for the whole headquarters building of a military reserve unit, ...
was demolished, along with sections of the original city wall and other large townhouses along the start of Unthank Road (named after the Unthank family, local landowners). The roundabout also required the north-west corner of Chapelfield Gardens to be demolished. About a mile of Georgian and Victorian terrace houses along Chapelfield Road and Queens Road, including many houses built into the city walls, was bulldozed in 1964. This included the surrounding district off Vauxhall Street, consisting of swathes of terrace housing that were condemned as slums. This also included the whole West Pottergate district, which contained a mix of 18th and 19th-century cottages and terraced housing, pubs and shops. Post-war housing and maisonettes flats now stand where the Rookery slums once did. Some aspects of The '45 Plan were put into action, which saw large three-story Edwardian houses in Grove Avenue and Grove Road, and other large properties on Southwell Road, demolished in 1962 to make way for flat-roofed single-story style maisonettes that still stand today. Heigham
Heigham is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
*Anne Heigham (c.1563–1601), English Catholic martyr
*Clement Heigham (c.1495–1571), English lawyer and politician
*John Heigham (c.1568–c.1634), English Roman Catholic printer, ...
Hall, a large Victorian manor house off Old Palace Road was also demolished in 1963, to build Dolphin Grove flats, which housed many Norwich families displaced by 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; ...
.
Other housing developments in the private and public sector took place after the Second World War, partly to accommodate the growing population of the city and to replace condemned and bomb-damaged areas, such as the Heigham Grove district between Barn Road and Old Palace Road, where some 200 terraced houses, shops and pubs were all flattened. Only St Barnabas church and one public house, The West End Retreat, now remain. Another central street bulldozed during the 1960s was St Stephens Street. It was widened, clearing away many historically significant buildings in the process, firstly for Norwich Union
Norwich Union was the name of insurance company Aviva's British arm before June 2009. It was originally established in 1797. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.
On 29 April 2008, Aviva ...
's new office blocks and shortly after with new buildings, after it suffered damage during the Baedeker raids
The Baedeker Blitz or Baedeker raids were a series of aerial attacks in April and May 1942 by the German ''Luftwaffe'' on English cities during the Second World War. The name derives from Baedeker, a series of German tourist guide books, includ ...
. In Surrey Street, several grand six-storey Georgian townhouses were demolished to make way for Norwich Union's office. Other notable buildings that were lost were three theatres (the Norwich Hippodrome on St Giles Street, which is now a multi-storey car park, the Grosvenor Rooms and Electric Theatre in Prince of Wales Road) The Norwich Corn Exchange in Exchange Street (built 1861, demolished 1964), the Free Library in Duke Street (built 1857, demolished 1963) and the Great Eastern Hotel, which faced Norwich Station. Two large churches, the Chapel Field East Congregational church (built 1858, demolished 1972) was pulled down, as well as the 100-foot tall Presbyterian church in Theatre Street, built in 1874 and designed by local architect Edward Boardman. It has been said that more of Norwich's architecture was destroyed by the council in post-war redevelopment schemes than during the Second World War.
Other events
In 1976 the city's pioneering spirit was on show when Motum Road in Norwich, allegedly the scene of "a number of accidents over the years", became the third road in Britain to be equipped with sleeping policemen
Speed bumps (also called traffic thresholds, speed breakers or sleeping policemen) are the common name for a class of traffic calming devices that use vertical deflection to slow motor-vehicle traffic in order to improve safety conditions. Varia ...
, intended to encourage adherence to the road's speed limit. The bumps, installed at intervals of 50 and 150 yards, stretched 12 feet across the width of the road and their curved profile was, at its highest point, high.[ The responsible ]quango
A quango or QUANGO (less often QuANGO or QANGO) is an organisation to which a government has devolved power, but which is still partly controlled and/or financed by government bodies. The term was originally a shortening of "quasi-NGO", where N ...
gave an assurance that the experimental devices would be removed not more than one year after installation.[
From 1980 to 1985 the city became a frequent focus of national media due to squatting in Argyle Street, a Victorian street that was demolished in 1986, despite being the last street to survive the Richmond Hill redevelopment. On 23 November 1981, a minor F0/T1 tornado struck Norwich as part of a record-breaking nationwide tornado outbreak, causing minor damage in Norwich city centre and surrounding suburbs.
]
Government
Norwich has been governed by two tiers of local government
Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of public administration within a particular sovereign state. This particular usage of the word government refers specifically to a level of administration that is both geographically-loc ...
since the implementation of the Local Government Act 1972
The Local Government Act 1972 (c. 70) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed local government in England and Wales on 1 April 1974. It was one of the most significant Acts of Parliament to be passed by the Heath Gov ...
. Norfolk County Council manages services such as schools, social services and libraries across Norfolk
Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the Nor ...
. Norwich City Council manages services such as housing, planning, leisure and tourism.
Norwich elects 13 county councillors to the 84-member county council. The city is divided into single-member electoral divisions, with county councillors elected every four years. Norwich City Council consists of 39 councillors elected to 13 wards. Each year (except in the year of county council elections) one councillor in every ward is elected for a four-year term. Ward boundary changes caused all 39 seats to be contested in the 2019 Norwich City Council election. Since the 2019 election, the distribution of seats is Labour 27, Green Party 9, and Liberal Democrats 3, with Labour retaining overall control.
Lord mayoralty and shrievalty
The ceremonial head of the city is the Lord Mayor; though now simply a ceremonial position, in the past the office carried considerable authority, with executive powers over the finances and affairs of the city council. The office of Mayor of Norwich dates from 1403 and was raised to the dignity of lord mayor in 1910 by Edward VII
Edward VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Emperor of India, from 22 January 1901 until Death and state funeral of Edward VII, his death in 1910.
The second chil ...
"in view of the position occupied by that city as the chief city of East Anglia and of its close association with His Majesty". The title was regranted on local government reorganisation in 1974. From 1404 the citizens of Norwich, as a county corporate
A county corporate or corporate county was a type of subnational division used for local government in England, Wales, and Ireland.
Counties corporate were created during the Middle Ages, and were effectively small self-governing county-empo ...
, had the privilege of electing two sheriffs. Under the Municipal Corporations Act 1835
The Municipal Corporations Act 1835 (5 & 6 Will 4 c 76), sometimes known as the Municipal Reform Act, was an Act of Parliament, Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed local government in the incorporated boroughs of England and ...
this was reduced to one and became a ceremonial post. Both Lord Mayor and Sheriff are elected for a year's term of office at the council's annual meeting, but the term of office was temporarily extended to two years for the periods 2019-2021 and 2021-2023, the normal annual elections having been disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic in the years 2020-2022. [
]
Unitary status proposal
In October 2006, the Department for Communities and Local Government
The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC), formerly the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), is a department of His Majesty's Government responsible for housing, communities, local governme ...
produced a Local Government White Paper
A white paper is a report or guide that informs readers concisely about a complex issue and presents the issuing body's philosophy on the matter. It is meant to help readers understand an issue, solve a problem, or make a decision. A white paper ...
inviting councils to submit proposals for unitary
Unitary may refer to:
Mathematics
* Unitary divisor
* Unitary element
* Unitary group
* Unitary matrix
* Unitary morphism
* Unitary operator
* Unitary transformation
* Unitary representation In mathematics, a unitary representation of a grou ...
restructuring. Norwich submitted its proposal in January 2007, which was rejected in December 2007, as it did not meet all the rigorous criteria for acceptance. In February 2008, the Boundary Committee for England The Boundary Committee for England was a statutory committee of the Electoral Commission, an independent body set up by the UK Parliament. The committee's aim was to conduct thorough, consultative and robust reviews of local government areas in Eng ...
, was asked to consider alternative proposals for the whole or part of Norfolk, including whether Norwich should become a unitary authority, separate from Norfolk County Council. In December 2009, the Boundary Committee recommended a single unitary authority covering all Norfolk including Norwich.
However, it was announced in February 2010 that despite a December 2009 recommendation of the Boundary Committee, Norwich would gain separate unitary status. The proposal was resisted notably by Norfolk County Council and the Conservative opposition in Parliament. Reacting to the announcement, Norfolk County Council said it would look to challenge the decision in the courts. A letter was leaked to the local media, in which the Permanent Secretary for the Department for Communities and Local Government noted that the decision did not meet all the criteria and that the risk of it "being successfully challenged in judicial review proceedings is very high." The Shadow Local Government and Planning Minister, Bob Neill
Sir Robert James MacGillivray Neill (born 24 June 1952) is a British barrister and Conservative Party politician. He has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Bromley and Chislehurst since a by-election on 29 June 2006, following t ...
, stated that if the Conservative Party
The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right.
Political parties called The Conservative P ...
won the 2010 general election, it would reverse the decision.
After the 2010 general election, Eric Pickles
Eric Jack Pickles, Baron Pickles, (born 20 April 1952) is a British Conservative Party politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Brentwood and Ongar from 1992 to 2017. He served in David Cameron's Cabinet as Secretary of State f ...
was appointed Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government
The secretary of state for levelling up, housing and communities, also referred to as the levelling up secretary, is a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, responsible for the overall leadership and strategic direction ...
in a Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government. There were press reports that he instructed his department to take urgent steps to reverse the decision and maintain the status quo in line with the Conservative Party manifesto. However, the unitary plans were backed by the Liberal Democrat group on the city council and by Simon Wright, Liberal Democrat MP for Norwich South, who would lobby the party leadership to allow the changes to go ahead.
The Local Government Act 2010 to reverse the unitary decision for Norwich (and Exeter and Suffolk) received Royal Assent
Royal assent is the method by which a monarch formally approves an act of the legislature, either directly or through an official acting on the monarch's behalf. In some jurisdictions, royal assent is equivalent to promulgation, while in oth ...
in December 2010. The disputed award of unitary status had meanwhile been referred to the High Court, which ruled it unlawful and revoked it in June 2010; the city failed to attain unitary status.
Westminster
Since 1298 Norwich has returned two members of Parliament to the House of Commons
The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...
. Until 1950
Events January
* January 1 – The International Police Association (IPA) – the largest police organization in the world – is formed.
* January 5 – Sverdlovsk plane crash: ''Aeroflot'' Lisunov Li-2 crashes in a snowstorm. All 19 ...
the city was an undivided constituency, returning two MPs. Since that date, the area has been two single-member constituencies: Norwich North and Norwich South. Both proved to be marginal seats in recent elections until 2010, switching between the Labour and Conservative parties.
Norwich North, which includes some rural wards of Broadland
Broadland is a local government district in Norfolk, England, named after the Norfolk Broads. The population of the local authority district taken at the 2011 Census was 124,646. Its council is based in Thorpe St Andrew.
In 2013, Broadland w ...
District, was held by Labour from 1950 to 1983 when it was gained by the Conservatives. Labour regained the seat in 1997, holding it until a by-election in 2009. The current MP is the Conservative, Chloe Smith
Chloe Rebecca Smith (born 17 May 1982) is a British politician who served as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions from September to October 2022. She previously served as Minister of State for Disabled People, Work and Health from 2021 to 2 ...
, who held the seat in the 2015 General Election. Norwich South, which includes part of South Norfolk
South Norfolk is a Non-metropolitan district, local government district in Norfolk, England. Its council is based in Long Stratton. The population of the Local Authority District was 124,012 as taken at the United Kingdom census, 2011, 2011 ...
District, was held by Labour from February 1974 to 1983, when it was gained by the Conservatives. John Garrett regained the seat for Labour in 1987. Charles Clarke
Charles Rodway Clarke (born 21 September 1950) is a British Labour Party politician, who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Norwich South from 1997 until 2010, and served as Home Secretary from December 2004 until May 2006.
Early life
T ...
became Labour MP for Norwich South in 1997. In the 2010 General Election, Labour lost the seat to the Liberal Democrats, with Simon Wright becoming MP. At the 2015 General Election, Clive Lewis regained the seat for Labour.
In both the 2017 General Election and 2019 General Election, the two incumbent 2015 MPs held their seats.
Demography
The 2021 United Kingdom census
The decennial 2021 censuses of England and Wales and of Northern Ireland took place on 21 March 2021, and the census of Scotland took place on 20 March 2022. The censuses were administered by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in England an ...
reported a resident population for the City of Norwich of approximately 144,000, a 8.7 per cent increase over the 2011 census. The urban, built-up area of Norwich had a population of 213,166 according to the 2011 census. This area extends beyond the city boundary, with extensive suburban areas on the western, northern and eastern sides, including Costessey
Costessey ( ) is a civil parishes in England, civil parish centred boxing the compass, WNW of Norwich in Norfolk, England. Three dispersed village, centres of population exist: the long-established town/village of Costessey (now commonly Old C ...
, Taverham
Taverham is a village and civil parishes in England, civil parish in Norfolk, in England. It is approximately 5 miles (8 km) north-west of Norwich. Taverham sits on the River Wensum. Taverham forms part the wider Norwich Built-up area.
In ...
, Hellesdon
Hellesdon is a village and suburb of Norwich in the District of Broadland in Norfolk, England. It lies approximately north-west of Norwich city centre and has a population of 11,132, according to the 2011 Census. Norwich International Airport is ...
, Bowthorpe
Bowthorpe is a suburban village to the west of Norwich, in the county of Norfolk, England.
Geography
Bowthorpe is primarily a residential area, but includes a large industrial estate (Bowthorpe Industrial Estate; occupied by mix-use commercia ...
, Old Catton
Old Catton is a suburban village and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk which lies to the north-east of central Norwich. The parish is bounded by the Norwich International Airport at Hellesdon to the west and Sprowston to the east. T ...
, Sprowston
Sprowston ( or ) is a small suburban town bordering Norwich in Norfolk, England. It is bounded by Heartsease to the east, Mousehold Heath and the suburb of New Sprowston to the south (in Norwich), Old Catton to the west, and by the open farmland ...
and Thorpe St Andrew
Thorpe St Andrew is a town and civil parish in the Broadland district of Norfolk, England. It is situated on the River Yare, two miles east of the centre of Norwich, and is outside the boundary of the city. The civil parish has an area of and ...
. The parliamentary seats cross over into adjacent local-government districts. The population of the Norwich travel to work area
A travel to work area or TTWA is a statistical tool used by UK Government agencies and local authorities, especially by the Department for Work and Pensions and Jobcentres, to indicate an area where the population would generally commute to a ...
(i. e. the self-contained labour-market area in and around Norwich in which most people live and commute to work) was estimated at 282,000 in 2009. Norwich is one of the most densely populated local-government districts in the East of England
The East of England is one of the nine official regions of England. This region was created in 1994 and was adopted for statistics purposes from 1999. It includes the ceremonial counties of Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire ...
, with 3,690 people per square kilometre (9,557 per square mile).
In 2022 the ethnic composition of Norwich's population was 87.1% White
White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White on ...
, 5.5% Asian
Asian may refer to:
* Items from or related to the continent of Asia:
** Asian people, people in or descending from Asia
** Asian culture, the culture of the people from Asia
** Asian cuisine, food based on the style of food of the people from Asi ...
, 3.2% of mixed race
Mixed race people are people of more than one race or ethnicity. A variety of terms have been used both historically and presently for mixed race people in a variety of contexts, including ''multiethnic'', ''polyethnic'', occasionally ''bi-ethn ...
, 2.6% Black
Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white have o ...
, 0.6% Arab
The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...
and 1.1% of other ethnic heritage. In religion, 33.6% of the population are Christian, 3% Muslim, 1.2% Hindu, 0.7% Buddhist, 0.2% Jewish, 0.1% Sikh, 0.9% of another religion, 53.5% with no religion and 6.8% unwilling to state their religion. In the 2001 and 2011 censuses, Norwich was found to be the least religious city in England, with the highest proportion of respondents with no reported religion, compared to 25.1% across England and Wales.
The largest quinary
Quinary (base-5 or pental) is a numeral system with five as the base. A possible origination of a quinary system is that there are five digits on either hand.
In the quinary place system, five numerals, from 0 to 4, are used to represent an ...
group consists of the 20 to 24-year-olds (14.6%) because of the high university student population.
Ethnicity
Religion
Education
Primary and secondary
The city has 56 primary schools (including 16 academies and free schools) and 13 secondary schools, 11 of which are academies. The city's eight independent schools include Norwich School
Norwich School (formally King Edward VI Grammar School, Norwich) is a selective English independent day school in the close of Norwich Cathedral, Norwich. Among the oldest schools in the United Kingdom, it has a traceable history to 1096 as a ...
and Norwich High School for Girls
Norwich High School for Girls is an independent day school for girls aged 3 to 18 in Norwich, England. The school was founded in 1875 by the Girls’ Public Day School Company (now the Girls' Day School Trust), which aimed to establish schools ...
. There are five schools for children with learning disabilities.
The former Norwich High School for Boys in Upper St Giles Street has a blue plaque
A blue plaque is a permanent sign installed in a public place in the United Kingdom and elsewhere to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person, event, or former building on the site, serving as a historical marker. The term i ...
commemorating Sir John Mills
Sir John Mills (born Lewis Ernest Watts Mills; 22 February 190823 April 2005) was an English actor who appeared in more than 120 films in a career spanning seven decades. He excelled on camera as an appealing British everyman who often portray ...
, who was a pupil there.
Universities and colleges
Norwich has two universities: 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 ...
and Norwich University of the Arts
Norwich University of the Arts (NUA) is a public university in Norwich, Norfolk, United Kingdom that specialises in art, design and media. It was founded as Norwich School of Design in 1845 and has a long history of arts education. It gained ful ...
. The student population is around 15,000, many of them from overseas. The University of East Anglia, founded in 1963, is located on the outskirts of the city. It has a creative writing programme, established by Malcolm Bradbury
Sir Malcolm Stanley Bradbury, (7 September 1932 – 27 November 2000) was an English author and academic.
Life
Bradbury was born in Sheffield, the son of a railwayman. His family moved to London in 1935, but returned to Sheffield in 1941 with ...
and Angus Wilson
Sir Angus Frank Johnstone-Wilson, CBE (11 August 191331 May 1991) was an English novelist and short story writer. He was one of England's first openly gay authors. He was awarded the 1958 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for ''The Middle Age of ...
, whose graduates include Kazuo Ishiguro
Sir Kazuo Ishiguro ( ; born 8 November 1954) is a British novelist, screenwriter, musician, and short-story writer. Ishiguro was born in Nagasaki, Japan, and moved to Britain in 1960 with his parents when he was five.
He is one of the most cr ...
and Ian McEwan
Ian Russell McEwan, (born 21 June 1948) is an English novelist and screenwriter. In 2008, ''The Times'' featured him on its list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945" and ''The Daily Telegraph'' ranked him number 19 in its list of th ...
. It has done work on climate research and climate change. Its campus is home to the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts
The Sainsbury Centre is an art gallery and museum located on the campus of the University of East Anglia, Norwich, England. The building, which contains a collection of world art, was one of the first major public buildings to be designed by th ...
, which houses several important art collections. The Norwich University of the Arts dates back to 1845 as the Norwich School of Design. Founded by artists and followers of the Norwich School
Norwich School (formally King Edward VI Grammar School, Norwich) is a selective English independent day school in the close of Norwich Cathedral, Norwich. Among the oldest schools in the United Kingdom, it has a traceable history to 1096 as a ...
art movement, it was founded to provide designers for local industries. Previously a specialist art school (the Norwich School of Art and Design), it achieved university status in 2013.
Norwich has three further education
Further education (often abbreviated FE) in the United Kingdom and Ireland is education in addition to that received at secondary school, that is distinct from the higher education (HE) offered in universities and other academic institutions. I ...
colleges. City College Norwich
City College Norwich is a college of further and higher education in Norfolk, England. It is one of the largest colleges in the country. The College has expanded in recent years following mergers with Easton College in 2020 and Paston College ...
, situated on Ipswich Road, was founded in 1891 and is one of the largest such colleges in the country. Access to Music
Access to Music (noAccess Creative College was a UK-based independent training provider which specialised in industry-focused popular music and creative education. It operated across England with dedicated music colleges in Birmingham, Brighton, Br ...
is located on Magdalen Street at Epic Studios, and Easton & Otley College's Easton Campus is located west of the city.
Culture and attractions
Historically Norwich has been associated with art, literature and publishing. This continues. It was the site of England's first provincial library, which opened in 1608, and the first city to implement the Public Libraries Act 1850
The Public Libraries Act 1850 (13 & 14 Vict c.65) was an Act of the United Kingdom Parliament which first gave local boroughs the power to establish free public libraries. The Act was the first legislative step in the creation of an enduring natio ...
. The ''Norwich Post
The ''Norwich Post'' was an English provincial newspaper which existed between 1701 and 1713. It is believed to be the earliest truly provincial English newspaper, although the ''London Gazette'' was briefly published in Oxford in 1665.
History
...
'' was the first provincial newspaper outside London, founded in 1701.[ The ]Norwich School
Norwich School (formally King Edward VI Grammar School, Norwich) is a selective English independent day school in the close of Norwich Cathedral, Norwich. Among the oldest schools in the United Kingdom, it has a traceable history to 1096 as a ...
of artists was the first provincial art movement, with nationally acclaimed artists such as John Crome
John Crome (22 December 176822 April 1821), once known as Old Crome to distinguish him from his artist son John Berney Crome, was an English landscape painter of the Romantic era, one of the principal artists and founding members of the Norw ...
associated with the movement. Other literary firsts include Julian of Norwich
Julian of Norwich (1343 – after 1416), also known as Juliana of Norwich, Dame Julian or Mother Julian, was an English mystic and anchoress of the Middle Ages. Her writings, now known as ''Revelations of Divine Love'', are the earlies ...
's ''Revelations of Divine Love
''Revelations of Divine Love'' is a medieval book of Christian mystical devotions. It was written between the 14th and 15th centuries by Julian of Norwich, about whom almost nothing is known. It is the earliest surviving example of a book in ...
'', published in 1395, which was the first book written in the English language by a woman, and the first poem written in blank verse
Blank verse is poetry written with regular metrical but unrhymed lines, almost always in iambic pentameter. It has been described as "probably the most common and influential form that English poetry has taken since the 16th century", and P ...
, composed by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey
Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1516/1517 – 19 January 1547), Order of the Garter, KG, was an English nobleman, politician and poet. He was one of the founders of English Renaissance poetry and was the last known person executed at the instan ...
, in the 16th century.[
Today the city is a regional centre for publishing, with 5 per cent of the UK's independent publishing sector based in the city in 2012.][ In 2006 Norwich became the UK's first City of Refuge, part of the ]International Cities of Refuge Network
The International Cities of Refuge Network (ICORN) is an independent organisation of cities and regions which offers shelter to writers, journalists and artists at risk of persecution, with the goal of advancing freedom of expression.
History
It ...
(ICORN) which promotes free speech.[ Norwich made the shortlist for the first city to be designated ]UK City of Culture
UK City of Culture is a designation given to a city (or a local area from 2025) in the United Kingdom for a period of one calendar year, during which the successful bidder hosts cultural festivities through culture-led regeneration for the ye ...
, but in July 2010 it was announced that Derry
Derry, officially Londonderry (), is the second-largest city in Northern Ireland and the fifth-largest city on the island of Ireland. The name ''Derry'' is an anglicisation of the Old Irish name (modern Irish: ) meaning 'oak grove'. The ...
had been selected. In May 2012 Norwich was designated as England's first UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international coope ...
City of Literature
UNESCO's City of Literature programme is part of the wider Creative Cities Network.
The ''Network'' was launched in 2004, and now has member cities in seven creative fields. The other creative fields are: Crafts and Folk Art, Design, Film, Gas ...
.
Attractions
Norwich is a popular destination for a city break. Attractions include Norwich Cathedral
Norwich Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in Norwich, Norfolk, dedicated to the Holy and Undivided Trinity. It is the cathedral church for the Church of England Diocese of Norwich and is one of the Norwich 12 heritage sites.
The cathedra ...
, the cobbled streets and museums of old Norwich, Norwich Castle
Norwich Castle is a medieval royal fortification in the city of Norwich, in the English county of Norfolk. William the Conqueror (1066–1087) ordered its construction in the aftermath of the Norman conquest of England. The castle was used as a ...
, Cow Tower, Dragon Hall and The Forum. Norwich is one of the UK's top ten shopping destinations, with a mix of chain retailers and independent stores, and Norwich Market as one of the largest outdoor markets in England.
The Forum, designed by Michael Hopkins and Partners and opened in 2002 is a building designed to house the Norfolk and Norwich Millennium Library, a replacement for the Norwich Central Library building which burnt down in 1994, and the regional headquarters and television centre for BBC East. In 2006–2013 it was the most visited library in the UK, with 1.3 million visits in 2013. The collections contains the 2nd Air Division Memorial Library, a collection of material about American culture and the American relationship with East Anglia, especially the role of the United States Air Force on UK airbases throughout the Second World War and Cold War. Much of the collection was lost in the 1994 fire, but the collection has been restored by contributions from many veterans of the war, European and American. The building also provides a venue for art exhibitions, concerts and events, although the city still lacks a dedicated concert venue.
Recent attempts to shed the backwater image of Norwich and market it as a popular tourist destination, as well as a centre for science, commerce, culture and the arts, have included refurbishment of the Norwich Castle, Norwich Castle Museum and the opening of the Forum. The proposed new slogan for Norwich as ''England's Other City'' has been the subject of much discussion and controversy. It remains to be seen whether it will be adopted. Several signs at the city's approaches still display the traditional phrase: "Norwich — a fine city".
The city promotes its architectural heritage through a collection of notable buildings in Norwich called the "Norwich 12". The group consists of: Norwich Castle
Norwich Castle is a medieval royal fortification in the city of Norwich, in the English county of Norfolk. William the Conqueror (1066–1087) ordered its construction in the aftermath of the Norman conquest of England. The castle was used as a ...
, Norwich Cathedral
Norwich Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in Norwich, Norfolk, dedicated to the Holy and Undivided Trinity. It is the cathedral church for the Church of England Diocese of Norwich and is one of the Norwich 12 heritage sites.
The cathedra ...
, the Great Hospital, St Andrew's and Blackfriars' Hall, Norwich, St Andrew's Hall and Blackfriars' Hall, The Guildhall, Dragon Hall, The Assembly House, St James Mill, St John the Baptist Cathedral, Norwich, St John the Baptist RC Cathedral, Surrey House, City Hall
In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or a municipal building (in the Philippines), is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses ...
and The Forum.
Art and music
Each year the Norfolk and Norwich Festival celebrates the arts, drawing many visitors into the city from all over eastern England. The Norwich Twenty Group, founded in 1944, presents exhibitions of its members to promote awareness of modern art. Norwich was home to the first arts festival in Britain in 1772.
Norwich Arts Centre is a notable live music venue, concert hall and theatre located in St Benedict's Street. The King of Hearts in Fye Bridge Street is another centre for art and music. Norwich has a thriving music scene based around local venues such as the University of East Anglia LCR, Norwich Arts Centre, The Waterfront, Norwich, The Waterfront and Epic Studios. Live music, mostly contemporary musical genres, is also to be heard at a number of other public house and club venues around the city. The city is host to many artists that have achieved national and international recognition such as Cord (band), Cord, The Kabeedies, Serious Drinking, Tim Bowness, Sennen (band), Sennen, Magoo (band), Magoo, Let's Eat Grandma and KaitO.
Norwich hosted BBC Radio 1's Big Weekend in 2015. The event was held on 23–24 May in Earlham Park.
Established record labels in Norwich include All Sorted Records, NR ONE, Hungry Audio and Burning Shed.
The British artist Stella Vine lived in Norwich from the age of seven, including for a short while in Argyle Street, Norwich and again later in life with her son Jamie. Vine depicted the city in a large painting, ''Welcome to Norwich a fine city'' (2006).
Theatres
Norwich has theatres ranging in capacity from 100 to 1,300 seats and offering a wide variety of programmes. The Theatre Royal is the largest and has been on its present site for nearly 250 years, through several rebuildings and many alterations. It has 1,300 seats and hosts a mix of national touring productions including musicals, dance, drama, family shows, stand-up comedians, opera and pop.
The Maddermarket Theatre opened in 1921 as the first permanent recreation of an Elizabethan theatre. The founder was Nugent Monck who had worked with William Poel. The theatre is a Shakespearean-style playhouse and has a seating capacity of 310. Norwich Puppet Theatre was founded in 1979 by Ray and Joan DaSilva as a permanent base for their touring company and was first opened as a public venue in 1980, following the conversion of the medieval church of St James in the heart of Norwich. Under subsequent artistic directors — Barry Smith and Luis Z. Boy — the theatre established its current pattern of operation. It is a nationally unique venue dedicated to puppetry, and currently houses a 185-seat raked auditorium, the 50-seat Octagon Studio, workshops, an exhibition gallery, shop and licensed bar. It is the only theatre in the Eastern region with a year-round programme of family-centred entertainment. Norwich Arts Centre theatre opened in 1977 in St Benedict's Street and has a capacity of 290. The Norwich Playhouse, which opened in 1995 and has a seating capacity of 300, is a venue in the heart of the city and one of the most modern performance spaces of its size in East Anglia.
The Garage studio theatre seats up to 110 in a range of layouts, or can be used for standing events for up to 180. Platform Theatre is in the grounds of the City College Norwich. Productions are staged mainly in the autumn and summer months. The theatre is raked and seats about 250. On 20 April 2012, it held a large relaunch event with an evening performance, showcasing it with previews of coming performances and scenes from past ones.
The Whiffler Theatre, built in 1981, was given to the people of Norwich by the local newspaper group Eastern Daily Press. It is an open-air facility in Norwich Castle Gardens, with fixed-raked seating for up to 80 and standing for another 30 on the balcony. The stage is brick-built and has its dressing rooms set in a small building to stage left. The Whiffler mainly plays small Shakespeare productions. Sewell Barn Theatre is the smallest theatre in Norwich and has a seating capacity of just 100. The auditorium features raked seating on three sides of an open acting space. This staging helps to draw the audience closer into the performance.
Public performance spaces include the Forum in the city centre, with a large open-air amphitheatre for performances of many types throughout the year. Additionally, the cloisters of Norwich Cathedral are used for open-air performances as part of an annual Shakespeare festival.
Museums
Norwich has several museums to reflect the history of the city and of Norfolk, and wider interests. The largest, Norwich Castle, Norwich Castle Museum, has extensive collections of archaeological finds from Norfolk, art (including a fine collection of paintings by the Norwich School (art movement), Norwich School of painters), ceramics (including the largest collection of British teapots), silver, and natural history. Of particular interest are dioramas of Norfolk scenery showing wildlife and landscape. It has been much remodelled to enhance the display of the collections and hosts frequent temporary exhibitions of art and other subjects.
The Museum of Norwich in Bridewell Alley (until 2014 the Bridewell Museum) closed in 2010 for refurbishment of the building and overhaul of the displays, and re-opened in July 2012. The several galleries and groups of displays include "Life in Norwich: Our City 1900–1945"; "Life in Norwich: Our City 1945 Onwards"; and "England's Second City" depicting Norwich in the 18th century. "Made in Norwich", "Industrious City" and "Shoemakers" have exhibits connected with historic industries of Norwich, including weaving, shoe and bootmaking, iron foundries, and manufacture of metal goods, engineering, milling, brewing, chocolate-making and other food manufacturing. "Shopping and Trading" extends from the early 19th century to the 1960s.
Strangers' Hall
Strangers' Hall is a museum of domestic history located in Norwich, Norfolk, UK. It is a Grade I listed building.
The oldest parts of the building date back to the fourteenth century, although many additions have been made to the structure ...
, at Charing Cross, is one of the oldest buildings in Norwich: a merchant's house from the early 14th century. The many rooms are furnished and equipped in the styles of different eras, from the Tudor period, Early Tudor to the Victorian era, Late Victorian. Exhibits include costumes and textiles, domestic objects, children's toys and games and children's books. The last two collections are seen to be of national importance.
The Royal Norfolk Regiment, Royal Norfolk Regimental Museum was, until 2011, housed in part of the former Shirehall, Norwich, Shirehall, close to the castle. Although archives and the reserve collections are still held in the Shirehall, the principal museum display there closed in September 2011 and was relocated to the main Norwich Castle Museum, reopening fully in 2013. It illustrates the history of the regiment from its 17th-century origins to its incorporation into the Royal Anglian Regiment in 1964, along with many aspects of its military life. There is an extensive, representative display of medals awarded to soldiers of the regiment, including two of the six Victoria Crosses won.
The City of Norwich Aviation Museum is at Horsham St Faith, on the northern edge of the city, close to Norwich International Airport, Norwich Airport. It has static displays of military and civil aircraft, with various collective exhibits, including one for the Eighth Air Force, United States 8th Army Air Force.
Formerly known as The John Jarrold Printing Museum, The Norwich Printing Museum covers the history of printing, with examples of printing machinery, presses, books and related equipment considered of national and international importance. Exhibits date from the early 19th century to the present day. Some machinery and equipment are shown in use. Many items were donated by Jarrold Printing. In November 2018, redevelopment plans for the museum site at Whitefriars caused uncertainty about its future. The museum closed its Whitefriars premises on 23 October 2019, with a plan to relocate to the vacant medieval church of St Peter Parmentergate in King Street in 2020, but this site was later found to be unsuitable. In 2021, the museum trustees were offered space at Blickling Hall, near Aylsham, and, as "The Norwich Printing Museum", it reopened there as a fully-working museum in July 2021.
Dragon Hall in King Street exemplifies a medieval merchants' trading hall. Mostly dating from about 1430, it is unique in Western Europe. In 2006 the building underwent restoration. Its architecture is complemented by displays on the history of the building and its role in Norwich through the ages. The Norwich Castle Study Centre at the Shirehall in Market Avenue has some important collections, including one of more than 20,000 costume and textile items built up over some 130 years and previously kept in other Norwich museums. Although not a publicly open museum in the usual sense, items are accessible to the public, students and researchers by prior appointment.
Entertainment
Norwich has three cinema complexes. Odeon Cinemas, Odeon Norwich is located in the Riverside Leisure Centre, Vue Cinemas, Vue inside the Castle Mall and previously the Hollywood Cinema (closed 2019) at Anglia Square
Anglia Square is a shopping centre in the north of Norwich city centre, in Norfolk, England. Opened in 1970, it was part of a larger Norwich redevelopment during this period, which was also complemented by the establishment of the nearby HMSO b ...
, north of the city centre. Norwich Cinema City, Cinema City is an art-house cinema showing non-mainstream productions, operated by Picturehouse Cinemas, Picturehouse in St Andrews Street opposite St Andrew's Hall, whose patron was actor John Hurt. Norwich has a large number of pubs throughout the city. Prince of Wales Road in the city centre, running from the Riverside district near Norwich railway station to Norwich Castle, is home to many of them, along with bars and clubs.
Media and film
Norwich is the headquarters of BBC East, its presence in the East of England, and BBC Radio Norfolk, ''BBC Look East'', ''Inside Out'' and ''The Politics Show'' are broadcast from studios in The Forum. Independent radio stations based in Norwich include Heart East, Smooth East Anglia, Greatest Hits Radio North Norfolk, and the University of East Anglia's Livewire 1350, an online station. A community station, Future Radio, was launched on 6 August 2007.
ITV Anglia, formerly Anglia Television, is based in Norwich. Although one of the smaller ITV companies, it supplied the network with some of its most popular shows such as ''Tales of the Unexpected (TV series), Tales of the Unexpected'', ''Survival (TV series), Survival'' and ''Sale of the Century (UK game show), Sale of the Century'' (1971–1983), which began each edition with John Benson's enthusiastic announcement: "And now from Norwich, it's the quiz of the week!" The company also had a subsidiary called Anglia Multimedia, which produced educational content on CD and DVD mainly for schools, and was one of the three companies, along with Granada TV and the BBC vying for the right to produce a digital television station for English schools and colleges.
Launched in 1959, Anglia Television lost its independence in 1994 with a takeover by Meridian Broadcasting. Subsequent mergers have seen it reduced from a significant producer of programmes to a regional news centre. The company is still based in Anglia House, the former Norfolk and Norwich Agricultural Hall, on Agricultural Hall Plain near Prince of Wales Road.
Despite the contraction of Anglia, television production in Norwich has by no means ended. Anglia's former network production centre at Magdalen Street has been taken over by Norfolk County Council and revamped. After a total investment of £4 million from the East of England Development Agency (EEDA) it has re-opened as Epic Studios (East of England Production Innovation Centre). Degree courses in film and video are run at the centre by Norwich University of the Arts. Epic has commercial, broadcast-quality post-production facilities, a real-time virtual studio and a smaller HD discussion studio. The main studio opened as an HD facility in November 2008, when it began concentrating on the development of new TV formats and has worked on pilot shows.
Archant publishes two dailies in Norwich, the ''Norwich Evening News'' and the regional ''Eastern Daily Press'' (EDP). It had its own television operation, Mustard TV, which closed after being bought out by the That's TV group. Mustard TV is now That's Norfolk.
The character of Alan Partridge in the sitcom ''I'm Alan Partridge'' (1997–2002) and the comedy film ''Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa'' (2013) is a Norwich broadcaster played by Steve Coogan.
Esoteric associations
Because Norwich was England's second city in the medieval and Renaissance periods, it has some little acknowledged, but significant associations with esoteric spirituality. It was the home of William Cuningham, a physician who published ''An Invective Epistle in Defense of Astrologers'' in 1560. The Elizabethan era, Elizabethan dramatist Robert Greene (dramatist), Robert Greene, author of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, was born in Norwich in 1558. The city was the retirement residence of Arthur Dee (died Norwich, 1651), eldest son of the alchemist John Dee.
Norwich was the residence of the physician and hermeticism, hermetic philosopher Sir Thomas Browne, author of The Garden of Cyrus (1658). Many influential esoteric titles are listed as once in Browne's Library of Sir Thomas Browne#Esoteric, library. His coffin-plate, on display at the church of St Peter Mancroft
St Peter Mancroft is a parish church in the Church of England, in the centre of Norwich, Norfolk. After the two cathedrals, it is the largest church in Norwich. It was originally established by the then Earl of East Anglia, Ralph de Gael between ...
, alludes to Paracelsian medicine and alchemy. Translated from Latin it reads, "Great Virtues, ...sleeping here the dust of his spagyric body converts the lead to gold." Browne was also a significant figure in the history of physiognomy.
The Church of St John Maddermarket's graveyard includes the Crabtree headstone, which has the pre-Christian symbol of the Ouroboros along with Masonic Square and Compasses carved upon it. Within the church is the Layer Monument, a rare example of an alchemical mandala in European funerary art.
From 1787 the congregation of the New Jerusalem Church of Swedenborgians, followers of the mystic Emanuel Swedenborg, worshipped at the St Mary the Less, Norwich, Church of St Mary the Less; in 1852 they moved to Park Lane, Norwich to establish the Swedenborgian Chapel.
Architecture
Norwich's medieval period is represented by the 11th-century Norwich Cathedral
Norwich Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in Norwich, Norfolk, dedicated to the Holy and Undivided Trinity. It is the cathedral church for the Church of England Diocese of Norwich and is one of the Norwich 12 heritage sites.
The cathedra ...
, 12th-century castle (now a museum) and several parish churches. In the Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...
, 57 churches stood within the city wall; 31 still exist and seven are still used for worship. There was a common regional saying that it had a church for every week of the year and a pub for every day. Norwich is said to have more standing medieval churches than any city north of the Alps
The Alps () ; german: Alpen ; it, Alpi ; rm, Alps ; sl, Alpe . are the highest and most extensive mountain range system that lies entirely in Europe, stretching approximately across seven Alpine countries (from west to east): France, Sw ...
. The Adam and Eve (public house), ''Adam and Eve'' is believed to be the oldest pub in the city, with the earliest known reference made in 1249. Most medieval buildings are in the city centre. Notable secular examples are Dragon Hall, built about 1430, and The Guildhall, built in 1407–1413 with later additions. From the 18th century, the pre-eminent local name is Thomas Ivory, who built the Assembly Rooms (1776), the Octagon Chapel (1756), St Helen's House (1752) in the grounds of the Great Hospital, and innovative speculative housing in Surrey Street (c. 1761). Ivory should not be confused with the Irish architect of the same name and a similar period.
The 19th century saw an explosion in Norwich's size and much of its housing stock, as well as commercial building in the city centre. The local architect of the Victorian era, Victorian and Edwardian era, Edwardian periods who continues to command most respect was George Skipper (1856–1948). Examples of his work include the Norwich Union
Norwich Union was the name of insurance company Aviva's British arm before June 2009. It was originally established in 1797. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.
On 29 April 2008, Aviva ...
headquarters in Surrey Street the Modern Style (British Art Nouveau style) Royal Arcade, and the Hotel de Paris in the nearby seaside town of Cromer. The neo-Gothic Roman Catholic St John the Baptist Cathedral, Norwich, cathedral dedicated to St John the Baptist in Earlham Road was begun in 1882 by George Gilbert Scott Junior and his brother, John Oldrid Scott. George Skipper had great influence on the appearance of the city. John Betjeman compared it to Gaudi's influence on Barcelona.
The city continued to grow through the 20th century. Much housing, particularly in areas further from the city centre, dates from that century. The first notable building since Skipper was the City Hall
In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or a municipal building (in the Philippines), is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses ...
by C. H. James and S. R. Pierce, opened in 1938. At the same time they moved the Norwich War Memorial, City War Memorial, designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, to a memorial garden between the city hall and the market place. Bombing during the Second World War, resulting in relatively little loss of life, caused marked damage to the housing stock in the city centre. Much of the post-war replacement stock was designed by the local-authority architect, David Eyre Percival, David Percival. However, the major post-war architectural development in Norwich was the opening of 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 ...
in 1964. Originally designed by Denys Lasdun (his design was never completely executed), it has been added to over subsequent decades by major names such as Norman Foster, Baron Foster of Thames Bank, Norman Foster and Rick Mather.
Norwichcathedral2.jpg, Norwich Cathedral lies close to Tombland in the city centre.
ElmHill.jpg, Elm Hill is an intact medieval street.
Cowtower.jpg, Cow Tower stands on the banks of the River Wensum.
Gentlemanswalk.JPG, The varying styles of architecture along Gentleman's Walk
Parks, gardens and open spaces
''See also List of parks, gardens and open spaces in Norwich''
Chapelfield Gardens in central Norwich became the city's first public park in November 1880. From the start of the 20th century, Norwich Corporation began buying and leasing land to develop parks when funds became available. Sewell Park, Norwich, Sewell Park and James Stuart Gardens are examples of land donated by benefactors.
After the First World War the Corporation applied government grants to lay out a series of formal parks as a means to alleviate unemployment. Under Parks Superintendent Captain Sandys-Winsch, Heigham Park was completed in 1924, Wensum Park in 1925, Eaton Park in 1928 and Waterloo Park in 1933. These retain many features from Sandys-Winsch's plans and have joined the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest.
As of 2015, the city has 23 parks, 95 open spaces and 59 natural areas managed by the local authority. In addition there are several private gardens occasionally opened to the public in aid of charity. The Plantation Garden, Norwich, Plantation Garden, also private, opens daily.
Sport
The principal local association football, football club is Norwich City FC, Norwich City, known as the ''Canaries''. In 2020–21 it finished first in the second tier of English football, the Championship, earning promotion to the Premier League for 2021–22. Majority-owned by celebrity chef Delia Smith and her husband Michael Wynn-Jones, its ground is Carrow Road, Carrow Road Stadium. It has strong East Anglian Derby, East Anglian rivalry with Ipswich Town F.C., Ipswich Town. The club's current manager is Dean Smith (footballer, born 1971), Dean Smith. The club has enjoyed much success in the past, having played in the top division regularly since 1972, its longest spell being a nine-year run from 1986 to 1995. It has won two Football League Cups, and finished third in the inaugural Premier League in 1993. The club was relegated two years later and did not reclaim its place for nine years, going down again after just one season, only to return in 2011 after two successive promotions.
In 1993, the club eliminated German giants Bayern Munich from the UEFA Cup, in what is to date Norwich City's only season in European competitions; it had qualified for the UEFA Cup three times between 1985 and 1989 but been unable to compete as there was a ban on English clubs in European competitions at the time. Before emerging as a top division club, it famously eliminated Manchester United FC, Manchester United from the FA Cup in 1959 and went on to reach the semi-finals of the domestic cup competition, a run it achieved again in 1989 and most recently in 1992. In the 1980s and early 1990s, the club produced some highly-rated talent of that era, including striker Chris Sutton, winger Ruel Fox, defender Andy Linighan, midfielder Mike Phelan, midfielder Tim Sherwood and striker Justin Fashanu. The club's successful managers have included Kenneth Brown (footballer born 1934), Ken Brown, Ron Saunders, Dave Stringer, Mike Walker (Welsh footballer), Mike Walker, Nigel Worthington, Paul Lambert and Daniel Farke.
The city's second club, Norwich United FC, Norwich United, is based in Blofield some east of the city. Along with Norwich CBS F.C., Norwich CBS, it plays in the Eastern Counties Football League, Eastern Counties League. The now-defunct Gothic F.C., Gothic was also based in Norwich. Local football clubs are served by the Norwich and District Saturday Football League.
Norwich has an athletics (sport), athletics club, City of Norwich AC (CoNAC), a rugby football, rugby club, the Norwich Lions, a Team handball, handball Club, Norwich HC, and five field hockey clubs. In the 2012–2013 season, the club playing at the highest level on the men's side was Norwich City Hockey Club in the East Hockey Premier B, which is two levels below the National League. The second highest is Norwich Dragons in Division Two North, then the students only 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 ...
Men's Hockey Club in Division Three North East, then Norfolk Nomads Men's Hockey Club in Division Six North East. On the Ladies' side of the game, both Norwich City Hockey Club and Norwich Dragons Hockey club play in East Hockey's Division One North, two levels below National League. Following them, the students from 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 ...
Women's Hockey Club play in the Norfolk Premier Division. Also in Norwich, there is a veterans-only side, Norwich Exiles.
Outside the city boundary, the dry ski and snowboarding slopes of Norfolk Ski Club are located at Whitlingham Lane in Trowse. Close by in the parish of Whitlingham is Whitlingham Country Park, home to the Outdoor Education Centre. The centre is based on the south bank of the Great Broad which is also used by Scuba diving, scuba divers from one of the city's three diving schools, and by other water and land sports.
Of Norwich's two main Rowing (sport), rowing clubs, the Yare Boat Club is the older but smaller of the two. It is based on an island on the River Yare accessed from beside the ''Rivergarden'' pub in Thorpe Road. The larger Norwich Rowing Club, in partnership with Norwich Canoe Club, UEA Boat Club, Norwich School Boat Club and Norwich High School Rowing Club, has built a boathouse alongside Whitlingham Little Broad and the River Yare. Norwich Canoe Club specialises in sprint and marathon racing. It holds the highest British Canoe Union Top Club Gold accreditation, and is one of the more successful clubs in the UK. Ian Wynne, 2004 Olympics K1 500m bronze medallist, is an honorary member.
Motorcycle speedway, Speedway racing was staged in Norwich before and after World War II at The Firs Stadium in Holt Road, Hellesdon
Hellesdon is a village and suburb of Norwich in the District of Broadland in Norfolk, England. It lies approximately north-west of Norwich city centre and has a population of 11,132, according to the 2011 Census. Norwich International Airport is ...
. The Norwich Stars raced in the Northern League of 1946 and the Speedway National League Division Two, National League Division Two between 1947 and 1951, winning it in 1951. They were later elevated to the National League (1932–1964), National League and raced at the top flight until the stadium was closed at the end of the 1964 season. One meet was staged at a venue at Hevingham, but without an official permit, and it did not lead to a revival of the sport in the Norwich area.
In boxing, Norwich can boast former European Boxing Union, European and British lightweight champion Jon Thaxton, reigning English light heavyweight champion Danny McIntosh and heavyweight Sam Sexton, a former winner of the Prizefighter series, Prizefighter tournament. Based in Norwich, Herbie Hide has been WBO Heavyweight World Champion twice, winning the championship in 1994–95 and for a second time in 1997.
Norwich has a UK baseball team, the Norwich Iceni, which competes at the Single-A level of the British Baseball Federation, BBF. It was founded in 2015 with players from the UEA Blue Sox, who wished to carry on playing after university. The team officially joined the league in 2017 and was crowned BBF Single-A champions in its first season, going undefeated with 17 wins.
Statistics
Norwich was the second city of England after London for several centuries before industrialisation, which came late to Norwich due to its isolation and lack of raw materials.
In November 2006 the city was voted the greenest in the UK. There is currently an initiative to make it a transition town. Norwich has been the scene of open discussions in public spaces, known as "meet in the street", to cover social and political issues.
Articles in the past suggested that compared with other UK cities, Norwich was top of the league by percentage of population among who use the popular Internet auction site eBay. The city also unveiled the then-biggest free Wi-Fi network in the UK in July 2006.
In August 2007 Norwich was listed among nine finalists in its population group for the International Awards for Liveable Communities. The city eventually won a silver award in the small-city category.
Economy and infrastructure
Norwich's economy was historically manufacturing-based, including a large shoemaking industry, but it transitioned in the 1980s and 1990s into a service-based economy.
The greater-Norwich economy (including Norwich, Broadland
Broadland is a local government district in Norfolk, England, named after the Norfolk Broads. The population of the local authority district taken at the 2011 Census was 124,646. Its council is based in Thorpe St Andrew.
In 2013, Broadland w ...
and South Norfolk
South Norfolk is a Non-metropolitan district, local government district in Norfolk, England. Its council is based in Long Stratton. The population of the Local Authority District was 124,012 as taken at the United Kingdom census, 2011, 2011 ...
government districts) as measured by Gross value added, GVA was estimated at £7.4 billion in 2011 (2011 GVA at 2006 prices). The city's largest employment sectors are business and financial services (31%), public services (26%), retail (12%), manufacturing (8%) and tourism (7%).
The proportion of working-age adults in Norwich claiming unemployment benefits is 3.3% compared with 3.6% across the UK.
New developments on the former Boulton and Paul site include a Riverside (Norwich), Riverside entertainment complex with nightclubs and other venues featuring the usual national leisure brands. Nearby, the football stadium is being upgraded with more residential property development alongside the River Wensum.
Archant, formerly Eastern Counties Newspapers (ECN), is a national publishing group that has grown out of the city's local newspapers and is headquartered in Norwich.
Norwich has long been associated with the making of Mustard (condiment), mustard. The world-famous Colman's
Colman's is an English manufacturer of mustard and other sauces, formerly based and produced for 160 years at Carrow, in Norwich, Norfolk. Owned by Unilever since 1995, Colman's is one of the oldest existing food brands, famous for a limited ra ...
brand, with its yellow packaging, was founded in 1814 and operated from a factory at Carrow, latterly owned by Unilever. This site closed in 2019, with mustard now being made by Condimentum at Honingham, in a supply deal with Unilever. Colman's is exported worldwide, putting Norwich on the map of British heritage brands. The Colman's Mustard Shop, which sold Colman's products and related gifts, was until 2017 located in the Royal Arcade in the centre of Norwich but closed in that year.
Situated to the south-west of the city is the Norwich Research Park, a community of research organisations, including the Institute of Food Research and the John Innes Centre, and over 30 science and technology-based businesses, 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 ...
and the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital.
Norwich's night-time economy of bars and night clubs is mainly located in Tombland, Prince of Wales Road and the Riverside area adjacent to Norwich railway station.
Norwich's location in a mainly-agricultural county provided opportunities for the supply of services to that industry. Prior to 1960, a large area below the Castle Mound was given over to Norwich Livestock Market. In that year, the Livestock Market moved from the centre of the city to a new site at Harford and, although now diminished in size, it continues to hold regular auctions of poultry, cattle, sheep and farm machinery.
Retail
Norwich was the eighth most prosperous shopping destination in the UK in 2006. It has an Norwich Market, ancient marketplace established by the Normans in 1071–1074, which is today the largest six-day-a-week open-air market in England. In 2006, the market was downsized and redeveloped; the new market stalls have proved controversial: with 20% less floor space than the originals, higher rental and other charges, and inadequate rainwater handling, which has been unpopular with many stallholders and customers. In 2007 the local ''Norwich Evening News'' called Norwich Market an ongoing conflict between market traders and its operator, Norwich City Council.
The Castle Quarter, Norwich, Castle Quarter, a shopping centre designed by the local practice Lambert, Scott & Innes and opened in 1993, presents an ingenious solution to the problem of accommodating retail space in a historic city-centre environment — the building is largely concealed underground and built into the side of a hill, with a public park created on its roof in the area south of the castle.
A second shopping centre, Intu Chapelfield (formally Chapelfield) was opened in 2005 on the site of a closed Caley's (later Rowntree Mackintosh and Nestlé
Nestlé S.A. (; ; ) is a Switzerland, Swiss multinational food and drink processing conglomerate corporation headquartered in Vevey, Vaud, Switzerland. It is the largest publicly held food company in the world, measured by revenue and other me ...
) chocolate factory, featuring as its flagship department store House of Fraser. Following a change of ownership in 2020, it was renamed Chantry Place. Detractors have criticised the centre as unnecessary and damaging to local businesses, prompting smaller retailers to band together to promote their virtues. Despite this, in August 2006 it was reported by the Javelin Group that Norwich was one of the top five retail destinations in the UK, and in October 2006 the city centre was voted best in the UK in a shopping satisfaction survey run by Goldfish Credit Card.
A section of central Norwich roughly bounded by Bethel Street/Upper St Giles Street, Grapes Hill, St Benedict's and St Andrew's Hill/London Street/Castle Meadow is now known and promoted as Norwich Lanes. As a series of mostly pedestrianised lanes, alleyways and streets, it is noted for independent retailers and eating and drinking establishments. It also contains several of the city's cultural attractions, including museums, theatres and other venues. Norwich Lanes, as part of a nationwide drive to recognise the importance and maintain the character and individuality of Britain's high streets, was the Great British High Street Awards 2014 national winner in the "City" category.
To the north is Anglia Square
Anglia Square is a shopping centre in the north of Norwich city centre, in Norfolk, England. Opened in 1970, it was part of a larger Norwich redevelopment during this period, which was also complemented by the establishment of the nearby HMSO b ...
shopping centre. The owners of the site want it redeveloped; demolition work was due to start in 2010 after an archaeological dig, conducted in 2009 and due to the centre being located around the site of a Saxon fortified settlement. The Twentieth Century Society has objected to demolish on the ground of the architectural merits of one of the few Brutalists shopping centres left in the UK and the 35,900 tonnes of embodied carbon. The development is planned to be a mix of shops and housing, unlike the original offices, shops and cinema. In February 2009, an initial delay to the plans was blamed on the economic climate, and developers were unable to say when work would begin. Further delays occurred in the years following. In 2014, it was bought by investment manager Threadneedle Investments for £7.5 million. The owners and their partner Weston Homes announced in November 2016 they had been holding talks with chief officers at Norwich City Hall. Plans submitted included demolishing Anglia Square, the former stationery office and Gildengate House. Over a thousand homes were planned above shop units and a public square. In early 2018, Weston Homes and landowner Columbia Threadneedle Investments, Columbia Threadneedle submitted regeneration plans to include 1,200 homes, a 20-storey High-rise building, tower block, a supermarket, a hotel, green squares and central courtyards. The controversial 2018 plans were rejected by the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government in 2020, and in 2021 the developer resubmitted revised plans.
Electricity supply
Temporary electric street lighting in Norwich started in 1882. The first permanent supply came in 1893 from a generating station in Duke Street. This supplied local industry and domestic users and from 1900 the Norwich Electric Tramways. In the late 1920s, a new 40 MW power station was built at Thorpe, to which was added in 1937 30 MW "high pressure" generating plant. These operated until 1975. A gas turbine plant was installed in 1964 to provide power at times of peak demand. This closed in 1986 and the entire Thorpe power station site was demolished and cleared in 1981–1982. Two tall electricity pylons stood near the site until they were dismantled in 2017. Further details appear in Norwich power stations.
Transport
Road
Norwich stands north of the A47 road, A47 (bypassed to the south of the city), which connects it with Great Yarmouth
Great Yarmouth (), often called Yarmouth, is a seaside town and unparished area in, and the main administrative centre of, the Borough of Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, England; it straddles the River Yare and is located east of Norwich. A pop ...
to the east, and King’s Lynn and Peterborough
Peterborough () is a cathedral city in Cambridgeshire, east of England. It is the largest part of the City of Peterborough unitary authority district (which covers a larger area than Peterborough itself). It was part of Northamptonshire unti ...
to the west. There are plans to upgrade the A47, especially sections that are still single-carriageway, prompted partly by ongoing construction of Great Yarmouth Outer Harbour. Norwich is linked to Cambridge via the A11 road (England), A11, which leads to the M11 motorway for London and the M25 motorway, M25. It is linked to Ipswich
Ipswich () is a port town and borough in Suffolk, England, of which it is the county town. The town is located in East Anglia about away from the mouth of the River Orwell and the North Sea. Ipswich is both on the Great Eastern Main Line ...
to the south by the A140 road, A140 and to Lowestoft to the south-east by the A146 road, A146. Norwich has the UK's largest independent car club.
Railway
Norwich railway station, east of the city centre, is managed by Greater Anglia (train operating company), Greater Anglia as the northern terminus of the Great Eastern Main Line, with half-hourly services to Liverpool Street railway station, London Liverpool Street worked by British Rail Class 745, Class 745 electric multiple units. It is also linked to the English Midlands, Midlands and North West England, with hourly services to Liverpool Lime Street railway station, Liverpool Lime Street, operated by East Midlands Railway British Rail Class 158, Class 158 Diesel multiple unit, DMUs via Peterborough railway station, Peterborough, Nottingham railway station, Nottingham, Sheffield railway station, Sheffield and Manchester Piccadilly railway station, Manchester Piccadilly.
Additional hourly regional services to Cambridge railway station, Cambridge, and out of Norwich as far as Ely railway station, Ely, are run along the Breckland Line by Greater Anglia. This additionally runs hourly local services to Great Yarmouth railway station, Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft railway station, Lowestoft (using the Wherry Lines) and to Sheringham railway station, Sheringham (using the Bittern Line). They all use British Rail Class 755, Class 755 bi-mode units.
Norwich is the site of Crown Point TMD, a depot that maintains the trains used in the area.
Bus and coach
The bus companies serving Norwich include BorderBus, First Norfolk & Suffolk, Konectbus and Sanders Coaches. Destinations throughout Norfolk and beyond are served, as are Peterborough
Peterborough () is a cathedral city in Cambridgeshire, east of England. It is the largest part of the City of Peterborough unitary authority district (which covers a larger area than Peterborough itself). It was part of Northamptonshire unti ...
and Lowestoft. National Express Coaches, National Express runs ten coaches a day to three main London airports (Stansted Airport, Stansted, Heathrow Airport, Heathrow and Gatwick Airport, Gatwick), five a day to Victoria Coach Station, London and once a day to Birmingham Coach Station, Birmingham. Megabus (Europe), Megabus also operates a daily service to London. Most bus and coach services run from Norwich bus station or Castle Meadow.
The Norwich park and ride network has six sites run by Konectbus, as one of the larger UK park & ride operations. Almost 5,000 parking spaces are provided, and in 2006 3.4 million passengers used the service.
Air
Norwich Airport (ICAO airport code, ICAO code EGSH) is a feeder to KLM's Schiphol Airport, Schiphol hub. Loganair and TUI Airways both serve Norwich. Through Bristow Helicopters, Norwich Airport caters for the offshore oil and gas industry. There is also a strong holiday charter business there. The airport was originally the airfield of RAF Horsham St Faith. One of the old RAF hangars became the home of Air UK, which grew out of Air Anglia and was then absorbed by the Dutch airline KLM.
Cycling
National Cycle Route National Cycle Route#Main routes, 1 passes through Norwich, linking Beccles and Fakenham (and eventually Dover and the Shetland Islands).
Waterways
The River Yare is navigable from the sea at Great Yarmouth
Great Yarmouth (), often called Yarmouth, is a seaside town and unparished area in, and the main administrative centre of, the Borough of Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, England; it straddles the River Yare and is located east of Norwich. A pop ...
up to Trowse, south of the city. From there, the River Wensum
The River Wensum is a chalk river in Norfolk, England and a tributary of the River Yare, despite being the larger of the two rivers. The river is a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest and Special Area of Conservation.
The Wensum is ...
is navigable into Norwich and up to New Mills; it is crossed by the Novi Sad Friendship Bridge. Scheduled trips through the city and out to the nearby ''The Broads, Broads'' are run by ''City Boats'' from outside of Norwich station and Elm Hill. In June 2012, Norwich City Council gave permission for punt (boat), punting on the River Wensum.
Proposed developments
In 2017, the first part of the new Norwich Northern Distributor Road, linking the A1067 in the north-west of the city to the A47 road in the east, was opened. The remainder of the road opened in 2018. There is also some discussion in building the Norwich Western Link section from the A1067 to the A47 southern bypass to the west, as originally proposed.
Other proposals in the ''Norwich Transport Strategy'' include limiting traffic on some roads, introducing five rapid bus links into the city and creating a train/tram link to the Rackheath eco-town.
Geography
Norwich is 100 miles (161 km) north-east of London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
, 40 miles (64 km) north of Ipswich
Ipswich () is a port town and borough in Suffolk, England, of which it is the county town. The town is located in East Anglia about away from the mouth of the River Orwell and the North Sea. Ipswich is both on the Great Eastern Main Line ...
and 65 miles (104 km) east of Peterborough
Peterborough () is a cathedral city in Cambridgeshire, east of England. It is the largest part of the City of Peterborough unitary authority district (which covers a larger area than Peterborough itself). It was part of Northamptonshire unti ...
.
Climate
Norwich, like the rest of the British Isles
The British Isles are a group of islands in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner and Outer Hebrides, the Northern Isl ...
, has a temperate maritime climate. It does not suffer extreme temperatures, and benefits from rainfall fairly evenly spread throughout the year. Coltishall, about to the north-east, was the nearest official met-office weather station for which records are available, although it ceased reporting in early 2006 – Norwich airport now provides readings. Norwich's position in East Anglia, jutting out into the North Sea can produce weather conditions that have less effect on other parts of the country, such as snow or Rain and snow mixed, sleet showers during the winter months on a northerly or easterly wind, or sea fog/Haar (fog), haar during the summer half of the year. An example of Norwich being afflicted by sea fog is shown in the adjacent image.
The highest temperature recorded at Coltishall was during June 1976. However, go back further to 1932, and Norwich's absolute record high reached ., while 37.0ºC was reched in July 2022 at Norwich Weather Centre. Typically the warmest day of the year should reach and 9.9 days should register a temperature of or higher.
The lowest temperature recorded at Coltishall was during January 1979. In a typical year however, the coldest night should only fall to . On average 39.4 air frosts will be recorded during the course of the year More recently, the temperature at Norwich Airport fell to on 18 December 2010 with unofficial weather stations reporting localised readings of .
The nearest sunshine monitoring weather station for which records are available is Morley, Norfolk, Morley agricultural research centre, about south-west of Norwich city centre. For the 1961–1990 period, it averaged 1558 hours of sunshine a year, a relatively high total for an inland part of the British Isles outside of southern England.
Rainfall, at around 650 mm (25 inches), is low, although as much as 100 mm (4 inches) higher than other, more sheltered parts of East Anglia, as Norwich is more prone to showers originating from the North Sea.
Travellers' comments
In 1507 the poet John Skelton (poet), John Skelton (1460–1529) wrote of two destructive fires in his ''Lament for the City of Norwich''.
: "All life is brief, and frail all man's estate. City, farewell: I mourn thy cruel fate."
Thomas Fuller in his ''The Worthies of England'' described the City in 1662 as:
: "Either a city in an orchard or an orchard in a city, so equally are houses and trees blended in it, so that the pleasure of the country and the populousness of the city meet here together. Yet in this mixture, the inhabitants participate nothing of the rusticalness of the one, but altogether the urbanity and civility of the other."
Celia Fiennes (1662–1741) visited Norwich in 1698 and described it as
: "a city walled full round of towers, except on the riverside which serves as a wall; they seem the best in repair of any walled city I know." She also records that three times a year the city held:
: "great fairs – to which resort a vast concourse of people and wares a full trade", Norwich being "a rich, thriving industrious place full of weaving, knitting and dyeing".
Daniel Defoe in ''Tour thro' the whole Island of Great Britain'' (1724) wrote:
: "The inhabitants being all busy at their manufactures, dwell in their garrets at their looms, in their combing-shops, so they call them, twisting-mills, and other work-houses; almost all the works they are employed in being done within doors."
John Evelyn (1620–1706), royalist, traveller and diarist, wrote to Sir Thomas Browne:
: "I hear Norwich is a place very much addicted to the flowery part." He visited the City as a courtier to Charles II of England, King Charles II in 1671 and described it thus:
: "The suburbs are large, the prospect sweet, and other amenities, not omitting the flower-garden, which all the Inhabitants excel in of this City, the fabric of stuffs, which affords the Merchants, and brings a vast trade to this populous Town."
James Woodforde (1740–1803), clergyman, on his first visit to Norwich, wrote in his diary on 14 April 1775:
: "We took a walk over the City in the morning, and we both agreed that it was the finest City in England by far, in the center of it is a high Hill and on that a prodigious large old Castle almost perfect and forms a compleat square, round it is a fine Terrass Walk which commands the whole City. There are in the City 36 noble Churches mostly built with flint, besides many meeting Houses of divers sorts. A noble River runs almost thro the Center of the City. The City walls are also very perfect and all round the City but where the River is. On the Hills round the City stand many Wind Mills about a dozen, to be seen from Castle Mount."
George Borrow in his semi-autobiographical novel Lavengro (1851) wrote of Norwich as:
: "A fine old city, perhaps the most curious specimen at present extant of the genuine old English Town ….There it spreads from north to south, with its venerable houses, its numerous gardens, its thrice twelve churches, its mighty mound...There is an old grey castle on top of that mighty mound: and yonder rising three hundred feet above the soil, from amongst those noble forest trees, behold that old Norman master-work, that cloud-enriched cathedral spire... Now who can wonder that the children of that fine old city are proud, and offer up prayers for her prosperity?"
Borrow wrote far less favourably of the City in his translation of Faust:
: "They found the people of the place modelled after so unsightly a pattern, with such ugly figures and flat features that the devil owned he had never seen them equalled, except by the inhabitants of an English town, called Norwich, when dressed in their Sunday's best."
In 1812, Andrew Robertson wrote to the painter Constable:
: "I arrived here a week ago and find it a place where the arts are very much cultivated … some branches of knowledge, chemistry, botany, etc. are carried to a great length. General literature seems to be pursued with an ardour which is astonishing when we consider that it does not contain a university, as is merely a manufacturing town."
In 1962, Sir Nikolaus Pevsner stated in his North-West Norfolk and Norwich volume of ''The Buildings of England'':
: "Norwich is distinguished by a prouder sense of civic responsibility than any other town of about the same size in Britain."
Notable people
Twin cities
Norwich has Twin towns and sister cities, town twinning agreements with four cities:
:Rouen, Normandy (administrative region), Normandy, France, since 1951
:Koblenz, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, since 1978
:Novi Sad, Vojvodina, Serbia, since 1985
:El Viejo, Chinandega Department, Nicaragua, since 1996
Freedom of the City
The following people, military units and organisation have received the Freedom of the City of Norwich.
Individuals
*Ove Fundin
*Colin Self
*Arthur Miller
*Robert Sainsbury, Sir Robert and Lady Sainsbury
Military units
*1st East Anglian Regiment: 1964
*1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment: 1984
*RAF Marham: 2008
*2nd Air Division, United States Army Air Forces, USAAF Association
Organisations and groups
*ITV Anglia, Anglia TV
*Norwich City F.C., Norwich City Football Club: 2002
*Norfolk Constabulary
*Norwich Union
Norwich Union was the name of insurance company Aviva's British arm before June 2009. It was originally established in 1797. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.
On 29 April 2008, Aviva ...
*The Jarrold Group: June 2020
Notes
References
Key to English Place-names
Sources
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{{Authority control
Norwich,
Cities in the East of England
County towns in England
Non-metropolitan districts of Norfolk
Towns in Norfolk
Unparished areas in Norfolk
Boroughs in England