The stories behind
our street names

MAGDALEN STREET, CLOSE AND ROAD
WE HAVE the sinner turned cathedral builder to thank for this name, which in other places is pronounced “Maudlin” but in Norwich is “Mag-da-len.”
More about Magdalen

MAGPIE ROAD (St Augustine’s to Magdalen Gates)
ONE for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl and four for a boy . . . magpie.
There was a time when there were four Norwich pubs named after the black and white bird.
It was said the sign could be a corruption of maggoty pie: “Roundabout, roundabout, maggoty pie. My father loves good ale, and so do I.”
Talking of pies, it was in 1629, when the city sent herring pies, an ancient right, to King Charles I.
The King was not pleased. He believed they had “gone off”.
Those responsible promised to be more careful in future.
It is suggested that the former name of the Magpie pub was The Weighing Chains, a reminder of the old weighbridge at the pub where wagons were weighed before entering the city at Magdalen Gates.

MAID MARION ROAD (Ipswich Road)
WITH all these names around in Tuckswood you would expect to see Robin Hood and his merry men riding across Marston Marshes most weekends.
And among them would be a merry maid by the name of Marion.
Robin is supposed to have married Matilda, or Maud, daughter of Robert Earl Fitzwalter, better known to us as Maid Marion.
She took the name after joining her hubby in the forest and it was intended to show she was formerly leading a spotless maiden life.
After Robin’s death she retired to Little Dunmow Priory and was poisoned by a jealous former lover — nasty King John.

MANBY CLOSE (Rider Haggard Road)
A NORWICH road pays tribute to an eccentric and brilliant Great Yarmouth man who saved thousands of lives but died in poverty. Captain George William Manby is forgotten today, as he was neglected during his lifetime. As a prolific and public-spirited inventor, he deserved better but was his own worst enemy.
More about Captain George William Manby

MANSFIELD LANE (Lakenham)
NAMED after William David Murray, fourth Earl of Mansfield, who was better known as Lord Stormont. Along with Sir James Scarlett, later Lord Abinger, he was Conservative member for Norwich at the first Parliamentary election after the passing of the 1832 Reform Act. He was returned again in 1835, when a riot took place in the Market Place, and the 7th Hussars were recalled to put down the disturbance.

MALTHOUSE ROAD and LANE (Rampant Horse Street)
A CORNER of Norwich that has been knocked about a lot in recent times . . .
First it was a multi-storey car park and now it is being changed again as part of the massive Chapelfield development.
The name recalls the old malthouse, where barley and other grain was prepared or dried for brewing.
Let’s hope Malthouse Lane will look much more attractive in future.

MARGARET PASTON AVENUE (Mile Cross Road)
Margaret Paston loved to write and somehow many of her letters survived over the centuries to provide us with a graphic account of life in the turbulent 15th century.
More about Margaret Paston

MARINERS LANE (Ber Street)
So many streets were wiped away.
Shops, factories and pubs were destroyed — it was if they had driven a stake right through the heart of a thriving city community.
At one time thousands of men, women and children lived in the “village on the hill” between King Street and Ber Street in Norwich.
More about the 'village on the hill'

MARKET AVENUE (Castle Meadow to Golden Ball Street)
TODAY cars have taken the place of the cattle that once used this route in and out of Norwich.
Cattle were walked to Norwich from Scotland as far back as the 17th century and were sold on Norwich Hill.
As many as 40,000 of these “Scottish Runts” as they were called came here to “grow monstrously fat”.
Later, Irish cattle also came to Norwich Market, where they were shod with little iron plates for their long journey from Liverpool.
These Irish cattle, like the Scottish Runts before them, were bought by Norfolk graziers, sent out to the marshes and then brought back to the bullock yards before being sent to Norwich Market as “fat cattle”.

MARKET PLACE
Norwich already had a market by the time the Normans came a conquering but it was at Tombland. By 1300 it covered a large area from the Guildhall to St Stephen’s church. The most striking feature was the Market Cross. The second one – built between 1501 and 1503 was a magnificent 70ft high structure which stood for 200 years before being torn down. From public hangings to freak shows, the Market Place was where the action was but by the end of the 17th century it took on a more sedate feel with the arrival of toffs and stagecoaches. In the 19th century the market we know today started to take shape. At the end of the First World War, the council bought up the stalls and hired them out to soldiers coming home from France. It was the first step towards the big reorganisation that took place when the grand City Hall was built in the 1930s.

MARLPIT LANE (Dereham Road)
IT recalls area of land on which marl was found or spread.
Marl consists of clay mixed with calcium carbonate and it was spread on sandy soil by the Celtic inhabitants of Britain before the Roman occupation. Its value was realised and its use revived during the 17th and 18th centuries. It was reported that Marl was introduced into Norfolk “more generally as an ameliorater of land” in 1748. But the map-maker Blomefield said marling of land in Norfolk was used in King John’s time and also during the reign of Richard II.

MARRYAT ROAD (Heartsease)
AHOY there me hearties!
Captain Frederick Marryat was a larger- than-life old sea dog turned writer who settled down to become a Norfolk farmer.
In his early years he was a man of action, never happy, unless on board a man-of-war travelling the high seas in the name of the British Empire.
More about Captain Frederick Marryat

MARSHALL ROAD (Bolingbroke Road to Boundary Road)
JOHN Marshall was a wealthy warehouseman who was born at 21, White Lion Street, Norwich, in 1796.
He received the Freedom of the City in 1817 and became mayor in 1828 and then again in 1841.
For some years he lived at Lakenham Terrace, but he left Norwich in 1843 and went to live at Leeds.
He died at his home, Horsforth Hall, in 1870, but was brought back to Norwich to be buried at the beautiful Rosary Cemetery.

MARTINEAU LANE
MANY famous Martineaus — originally French-speaking strangers of Norwich — made their mark in the world. Harriet and James were the most famous.
But this lane is named after Dr Philip Meadows Martineau (1752-1829), one of the most distinguished surgeons of his time who gave half a century of service to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital.
More about Dr Philip Meadows Martineau
IT was the good Dr Martineau of Bracondale Woods who they named this road after . . . but it was Harriet who put the name on the map. A Cinderella who became the nation’s queen of journalism and one of the few women of her time who competed on equal terms with men. A true pioneer.
More about Harriet Martineau

MENDHAM CLOSE (Lakenham)
In December 1855 Wace Lockett Mendham was elected town clerk of Norwich. Well known as a Liberal, it was said of him: “Previous to his appointment, he might have been a warm partisan, but in his office, he most certainly concealed his political feelings and acted with strict impartiality.”
Wace married Miss Tillett, a sister of Mr J H Tillett. He died in July 1876 and is buried in the Rosary Cemetery.

MIDLAND STREET (Dereham Road to Heigham Street)
A NAME that recalls the glorious days of the railway station on the line affectionately known as the “muddle and go nowhere”. Up until 1907 this was called Tinkler’s Lane . . . then the name was changed because it was a handy route to the terminus of the Midland & Great Northern Railway.
More about the City Station

MILTON CLOSE (Southwell Road)
BEFORE the First World War it was called Milton Street in Lakenham and was made up of small tenements where many people lived in grinding poverty.
In 1910, C B Hawkins, in the social survey of Norwich, wrote:
“Lakenham, St Marks, is, without exception, the unhealthiest parish in Norwich. Here the houses have been tumbled together, with a care or forethought, in such a hurry that the streets have not even names to them but are known by mere numbers – Rowe 21, etc.”
And he went on: “They were built between 1811 and 1821. Although at the time it must have been absolutely open country, there is one whole street in which the houses on one side have no through ventilation.”
Then old houses were swept way and the new look Milton Street emerged as Milton Close. It was named after John Milton, the English poet (1608-1674). He wrote Paradise Lost and then Paradise Regained.

MONS AVENUE (Britannia Road)
A NAME remembering a place that became a bloody battleground at the start of the First World War — where young men said later they had been protected by angels.
More about the battle at Mons

MORSE ROAD (Pilling Park Road to Supple Close)
ALL those living in this road should raise a glass to the man it was named after — one of our brewing giants. George Morse was also the first man to be both Mayor and then Lord Mayor of Norwich — and a top mountaineer.
More about George Morse

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