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With more than 1500 historic buildings and a labyrinth of medieval streets, lanes and alleys, Norwich is a living monument to a thousand years of urban development.
The city grew up around the Norman cathedral, now surrounded by The Close, one of the largest in England. Among the buildings in this area are the 15th century Bishop’s Palace, the Prior’s Hall, dating from the 13th century, and the Carnary Chapel, bought by the city corporation in 1547 to accommodate the Norwich School (King Edward VI School), now housed in a number of other buildings in The Close.
Upper Close is reached from Tombland by two superb gateways. The main entrance is the Ethelbert Gate, which took its name from a church which stood nearby until it was ravaged by rioters in 1272. The gate was rebuilt in the 14th century. The Erpingham Gate dates from around 1420 and was built by Sir Thomas Erpingham, commander of the English archers at the Battle of Agincourt. The gate is richly decorated with carved buttresses and spandrels, the figures of 24 saints and a statue of Sir Thomas himself, kneeling in prayer.
A statue of Admiral Lord Nelson, hero of the great naval battles of the Nile, Copenhagen and Trafalgar, stands in Upper Close, near the cathedral’s west front. Born at Burnham Thorpe, North Norfolk, in 1758, Nelson was a pupil at the Norwich School.
Some of the most beautiful houses in Norwich are to be found around the green of the Lower Close. The road is on the site of a canal which was dug to bring stone when the cathedral was being built and it leads to an ancient watergate on the River Wensum. Here is Pull’s Ferry, named after James Pull who operated the ferry from 1796 until his death in 1841. The ferry ceased working some 60 years ago.
Remains of the city walls, built in the mid-14th century, still stand in several parts of the city, especially at the south end of Ber Street and along Carrow Hill. About halfway down the hill is the Black Tower, built from black flint and used in the past as a prison and in the 17th century as an isolation house for plague victims. The Cow Tower, standing on a sharp bend of the river north-east of the cathedral, was another part of the city’s medieval defences. It later sheltered cattle grazing along the riverside.
King Street, running north from the bottom of Carrow Hill to Tombland, contains two of the city’s most important medieval buildings. The Music House is the oldest domestic dwelling in Norwich – built in 1175 by a Jewish merchant. It is now part of an adult education centre. A couple of hundred yards along the street is Dragon Hall, a massive warehouse built in 1450 so that Robert Toppes, a wealthy textile merchant, could show off his wares.
A short stroll north of Tombland, site of the city’s Saxon origins, is Elm Hill, a delightful cobblestoned lane of buildings ranging from medieval to Georgian. In the 1920s it was threatened with demolition, but saved by the casting vote of the Lord Mayor. Today, it is justifiably the city’s main tourist attraction.
At the north end of Marketplace is the 15th century Guildhall, a striking example of decorated flintwork, now housing the city’s Tourist Information Centre. The largest medieval city hall built outside London, it served as a civic centre for 500 years. The local authority moved to the City Hall in the 1930s and the Crown and County Courts to new premises on Bishopgate in the 1980s.
