Norwich

Norwich

The city of Norwich is located on the River Wensum, 100 miles north-east of London and is in Norfolk. It has survived some tumultuous times and has a long and colourful history. In 2019, its population was estimated to be 197,212.

Today the economy of Norwich is mainly service-based, but in the early part of the twentieth century, the city was still home to the manufacture of shoes, joinery, clothing, engineering, and of aircraft design and manufacturing. Interestingly, there was a local chocolate firm called Caley’s which was bought by Mackintosh in the 1930s and then eventually by Nestle who closed the factory in 1996.

Norwich has a long connection with the printing industry (HMSO, one of the largest print buyers, printers and of office supplies who moved its UK operations from London to Norwich in the 1970s) and with the pub trade and brewing – there were several large breweries in Norwich in the second half of the twentieth century, but now only microbreweries exist. In 1870, there were over 780 pubs, by 1900 there were 441 within the city walls, and now there is less than 100.

During the Second World War, the German Baedeker bombings had a significant effect on the landscape of the city centre and its infrastructure with much damage caused, but happily, not a great loss of life. After the war, Norwich altered in that large areas were cleared (in the 1960s, communities were moved to high-rise buildings) for modern development. There was a need to provide housing for a growing population, but unfortunately, this resulted in much priceless architecture being recklessly destroyed by the council.

Now, Norwich has a good education system with 56 primary schools, 13 secondary schools and 8 independent schools such as Norwich High School for Girls. It possesses three further education colleges and two universities which are the University of East Anglia and the Norwich University of the Arts – about 15,000 overseas students are normally attracted to them. It is also worth mentioning that the city has strong links to literature, art and publishing, in fact, Norwich had the first provincial library in England which opened in 1608 and also boasted the first provincial newspaper outside of London in 1701.

There are many interesting things for a visitor to Norwich to see like: Norwich Cathedral (constructed using limestone from Caen in France), the Catholic St John the Baptist Cathedral, the medieval cobbled streets, the Norman Castle and many museums and parish churches. Norwich Market is also one of the largest outdoor markets in England and there are good cinemas within the city. Usually, there is the provision of lots of live music in various venues in the city.

If you enjoy watching or participating in sport, then Norwich is a great place to do so as it has a mixture of professional and amateur sport on offer. Norwich City Football Club (known as “The Canaries” due to Flemings fleeing with their pet canaries from Spanish persecution in the sixteenth century) is the main professional team but there are also the Norwich United and Norwich CBS. Also, there are the Norwich Lions Rugby Club and the City of Norwich AC athletics club. In addition, there is a handball team, five field hockey teams, and facilities for dry skiing and snowboarding.

Norwich has an abundance of parks and open spaces – there being 23 parks and 95 open spaces. Some of the parks were built with government grants after the First World War e.g., Wensum Park and Eaton Park.

You may also be attracted to the many museums in the city of which Norwich Castle Museum is the largest, and includes Norfolk archaeological finds and paintings by the Norwich School of Painters. Other museums of interest are The Museum of Norwich which has exhibits which relate to shoe and boot making, weaving, brewing etc. and The City of Norwich Aviation Museum.

A brief study of the wonderful city of Norwich would not be complete without delving a bit into its history. After the demise of the Roman settlement in the area, between the fifth and seventh centuries the Anglo-Saxons founded the settlements of Westwic, Northwic (Norwich) and Thorpe. Some people think that these three settlements joined together to create a thriving centre for trade and commerce. However, in 1004, it was raided and burnt by Swein Forkbeard who was the Viking King of Denmark – Vikings remained a strong cultural influence in Norwich for 40 or 50 years until the end of the ninth century.

The town was one of the largest in England at the time of the Norman Conquest and The Domesday Book shows that it had a population of 5,000 to 10,000, and also had 25 churches at the time. Norwich Castle was founded soon after the Norman Conquest and it was said that 98 Saxon homes were demolished to make way for it. 

Wool was an important industry to Norwich and to England and through the wealth it created, many churches were built and many trade links were forged with other parts of Europe stretching from Scandinavia to Spain. In 1353, Great Yarmouth acted as a very important port to Norwich. Then in the sixteenth century, “stranger” immigration brought Flemish weavers, with their superior know-how to Norwich and this boosted trade with mainland Europe.

The golden age of the cloth and weaving industries brought great wealth to Norwich and led to the urbanisation of the town with many alehouses and more leisure time in general. By the early eighteenth century, Norwich was the wealthiest town in England and possessed a sophisticated system of poor relief and foreign refugees – its population was almost 30,000. Fortunes eventually waned with competition from Yorkshire woollens and Lancashire cotton and was negatively influenced by the loss of continental markets following the war with France in 1793. But significantly, in 1797, Thomas Bignold founded a society that became extremely successful and is now known as the insurance giant Norwich Union.

The early part of the nineteenth century saw rapid de-industrialisation in Norwich with wage cuts and personal recrimination against owners. There were serious financial problems and poor people took their complaints onto the streets in opposition to the Pitt’s government and their war.

It is clear to see that Norwich is steeped in political and cultural tradition and, if you are interested, you might enjoy further researching it yourself.  

Interestingly, Norwich remains the most complete medieval city in the UK with such features as its cobbled streets, Norwich Castle and its half-timbered buildings. If you think you would like to visit the city, you will find it is well-served by road and rail so when things are a bit better, why not pay it a visit!

* With a lot of help from Wikipedia

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