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 The
stories behind our street names
BOLINBROKE ROAD (Aylsham Road) What
a fine name for a man… Horatio Bolingbroke was the first
Sheriff of Norwich appointed under the Municipal Reform
Act, 1835. Born in 1798 he was the youngest son of Nathaniel
Bolingbroke, who was the Mayor of Norwich in 1819. Young
Horatio was educated at Norwich Grammar School and then
became a textile manufacturer.
In politics he was a Liberal and a great man of the
people. By all accounts he was a very popular man and
was described as an “outstanding philanthropist”. Later
tragedy struck. He became blind and was forced to retire
from public life. For many years he lived at 23 St Giles,
later to become the Masonic Hall. He died in 1879 and
was buried at the Norwich Rosary.
BONIFACE CLOSE (Maid Marion Road)
What a splendid name which sums up this development.
The word Boniface comes from the name of the jovial
innkeeper in Farquhar’s Beau Stratagem (1707). George
Westgate, who was the secretary of the East Anglian
Licensed Trade Development Association, thought up this
most appropriate name for an estate of 23 bungalows,
near Ipswich Road. They were owned by a charitable organisation
known as the Licensed Victuallers’ National Homes, and,
after being a life member of the association, a retired
licensee could apply for the tenancy of a bungalow.
BORROWDALE DRIVE (Heartsease Lane)
George Borrow, the famous traveller and writer,
was the man who first coined the description of Norwich
as a “fine city”. Borrow, who was born at Dereham in
1803, was educated at the King Edward VI Grammar School
in the Cathedral Close. He spent many hours on Mousehold
Heath with the gipsies camped there, and it was probably
from listening to their tales that his urge to travel
came from.
But Borrowdale Close is more likely to have got its
name from the lovely valley of Borrowdale in the Lake
District. Borrowdale is considered by many to be the
most beautiful valley in England.
At the end of one valley is Seathwaite, a farming hamlet
noted for having the highest rainfall in England, and
which suffered devastating floods in 1966. From here
the valley leads up to Sty Head Tarn and the mountain
of Great Gable, and beyond that to Scafell Pike, the
highest mountain in England. Perhaps one of the developers
had enjoyed a holiday in Cumbria and decided to remind
himself of picturesque Borrowdale by naming this Norwich
street after it.
BOTOLPH WAY (St Augustine’s Street)
ST Botolph was a popular saint in medieval England,
but modern-day visitors on their way to Anglia Square
probably don’t realise that a church dedicated to him
once stood here. The church was originally founded before
1300 and was taken down in 1548. Botolph, who died around
680, became a monk and there seems to be a connection
between him and Boston in Lincolnshire. St Ceolfied
is said to have journeyed all the way from Wearmouth
to talk to this “man of remarkable life and learning”.
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