|
 The
stories behind
our street names
FAIRFAX ROAD (North Park
Avenue)
Henry Fairfax was Dean of Norwich from 1689 to 1702.
The road commemorates him, but there was also another
Fairfax worth remembering. J Griffith Fairfax represented
Norwich at Westminster between the wars and became famous
as a soldier-poet.
FARMERS AVENUE
The heart and soul has been knocked out of this old
road that is now wedged between Castle Mall and the
multi-storey car park.
Traffic has taken over when city once met country.
Norwich people originally named this road in honour
of their country cousins who came to the old cattle
market where the Mall now stands.
The once-flourishing premises that surrounded the busy
market stood gaunt and derelict for years before they
were finally flattened.
FARROW ROAD (between
Earlham Road and Dereham Road)
AN appropriate tribute to a man who was chairman of
the burial board committee — name a road after
him that runs through the cemetery.
William Joseph Farrow was born in London in 1853 and
was engaged in the leather business. He came to Norwich
and took on premises on the Haymarket.
He was elected to the city council in 1900 and was chairman
of the burial committee from 1907 to 1918. He died in
March 1926.
FIDDLEWOOD ROAD (St Faith’s
Road)
NAMED in 1975 after the wood shaped like a fiddle in
the middle of the housing estate.
FINCH CLOSE (Purland Close)
A RAILWAYMAN who served the City of Norwich in its
darkest hour and then helped to rebuild it…that
was William James Finch.
 |
| This picture, taken in 1940,
shows Lord Mayor B J Hanly (right) and Sheriff W
J Finch (left) on the steps of the newly opened
City Hall. |
He was sheriff at the start
of the war in 1940 and then Lord Mayor following the
Blitz in 1943/4.
Born in 1887, the son of Walter Munday Finch, he came
to Norwich at the age of five and went to Angel Road
School.
For almost the whole of his life he was at the old Norwich
City Station where he was chief clerk of the goods department
and later the station master and goods agent.
William served as a member of the national executive
of the Railway Clerks Association from 1920 to 1934
and as a member of the Eastern Divisional Committee
of Workers’ Education.
He was also a magistrate.
He became a Labour councillor for the tough Ber Street
Ward in 1933 where he did what he could to help the
hundreds of families living in the courts and yards
and was a very popular figure.
For many years he was controlling the purse strings
as chairman of the Norwich City Council finance committee.
Soon after the outbreak of war, he served as sheriff
and following the Blitz in 1942, during which his own
home was hit, he became the Lord Mayor.
During his year of office he announced the appointment
of Michael Bulman as chairman of a new post war committee
whose priority to build at least 5,000 new council houses
was way above the national average.
He married in 1910, Ann Florence, daughter of Robert
Brown, having three sons and two daughters.
Definitely a man worth remembering.
FINKELGATE
IF you stand in Finkelgate at the top of busy Ber Street
and sniff the air the chances are all you’ll get
is a whiff of obnoxious traffic fumes.
But there was a time when the air was full of the sweet
smell of herbs.
More about FINKELGATE
FISHERGATE (Fye Bridge
Street)
A street name from the time of the Danes and it means
just what it says — the “gate” or street
where the fish from the sea was landed.
This was the home of fishermen of Toke who, in the pre-Norman
days, held the township of Toke Thorpe (St Clement’s).
Along the street came pilgrims to the Church of St Edmund,
where various relics were on display, including a piece
of the shirt of St Edmund said to be preserved in a
crystal box!
St Edmund’s was one of the churches of the early
found-ation that escaped the disas-trous fire in the
11th century.
FISHER’S LANE (St
Giles Street to Pottergate)
ORIGINALLY, fish were landed from the river nearby with
its three small islands.
But more than a century ago this name brought chill
and despair to many . . . this was where the Norwich
Board of Guardians doled out money to the unemployed
and destitute.
To go to Fisher’s Lane pleading for help was just
one step better than being forced to take yourself off
to the Bowthorpe Road workhouse.
Hard times — I doubt if most people realise that
the once dreaded Fisher’s Lane ever existed.
FITZGERALD ROAD (Cranage
Road)
Both Edward Fitzgerald, a poet and translator, and Dr
Cranage, the one-time Dean of Norwich, were men of literary
fame.
FOSTER ROAD (Brightwell
Road)
Sir William Foster was Mayor of Norwich in 1844 and
this road was probably named after him, but there was
another famous Foster. The Dominican Friary at St Andrew’s
and Blackfriar’s Hall in 1472 housed an anchoress
— a woman who elected to live the life of a recluse.
Her name was Katherine Foster who lived — so they
said — enclosed in a cell.
FOULGER'S OPENING (Ber Street)
For centuries, bustling Ber Street was a place where
hundreds of families lived and was packed with shops
and factories. Long before the days of street numbering,
Horatio Foulger kept a shop in the street so people
would say: “I live up the opening near Foulger’s
shop.” Nowadays it is a sheltered housing scheme
where people live out their days in pleasant and peaceful
surroundings.
FOWELL CLOSE (Earlham)
HANNAH Gurney, of Earlham Hall, married Thomas Fowell
Buxton (later Sir Thomas) in May of 1807.
This was the first Gurney wedding with bridesmaids and
one of the sisters said: “The house was overrun
with bridesmaids in muslin cloaks and chip hats. At
dinner were my father’s 15 children and four grandchildren.”
Fowell stood 6ft 4in and was affectionately known as
“The Elephant.” He became a partner in the
big brewing company of Truman, Hanbury & Co, of
London.
In April of 1820, four of their children died within
five weeks.
After such an overwhelming tragedy, they moved to Cromer
Hall and, after a life dedicated to helping others,
Fowell died in February 1845.
FREEMAN SQUARE (Old Palace
Road)
ROBERT Freeman, a worsted weaver, was sheriff way back
in 1673 and mayor in 1680, while John Freeman was sheriff
in 1691 and mayor in 1703.
Years ago, you had to pay tax on your windows.
That is why you can still see that many of them have
been bricked up. Back in 1703, John — a man worth
a bob or two — was one of the largest window taxpayers
in St Giles. He had to fork out for 20 of them.
Of course, there are still things that money can’t
buy . . . one of them is the honour of being made a
Freeman of the City of Norwich.
Today, each individual Freeman can say with pride, as
was said nearly two thousand years ago: “I am a
citizen of no mean city.”
FRIENDS ROAD (Cunningham
Road)
ANOTHER road linked to the powerful Gurney family of
Earlham Hall.
They were staunch Quakers, which was the popular name
for the Religious Society of Friends.
Two reasons for the name Quaker are given.
George Fox (1624-91), the founder, made Judge Bennet
quake at the name of the Lord when he was before magistrates
in Derby in 1650.
Another is that it was given because they trembled and
shook at the intensity of their religious experiences.
In the 17th century it was the practice of the Friends
to mark goods with a fair price.
As a result the Quaker merchants became known as fair
and reliable and people were prepared to deposit their
money with them for safe-keeping.
Hence the rise of Gurney’s bank, later to join
with Barclays.
FYE BRIDGE STREET
A STREET steeped in history that officially runs from
Fishergate to the premises which used to be the Jack
of Newbury — now a restaurant.
Roughly from Fye Bridge to St Clement’s Church,
it was originally known as Fivebriggigate or Cueria
de Fyebrigge.
More about FYE BRIDGE STREET
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