The stories behind
our street names

PAINE ROAD (Skelton Road to Witard Road)
People may think this road was named after Norfolk-born Thomas Paine, the Rights of Man author, but it wasn’t. This road remembers Joseph Paine, a powerful and wealthy man, who lived in Norwich during the 16th century.
Joseph Paine was Sheriff of Norwich in 1654 and in 1660, when he was Mayor, he went off to visit Charles II with a voluntary gift of £1,000 – and was knighted. In 1659 he had acquired Strangers Hall – the museum. He was a rich hosier by trade but also a man with a warm heart helping many different charities and good causes.

PALMER ROAD
He was the boy from the Norwich slums who rose to become a working class hero — one of the great Socialist firebrands of the 1920s and 1930s. And when Herbert Palmer died at the age of 90 in 1962, thousands mourned this remarkable revolutionary who was respected — and feared — by his political opponents.
More about Herbert Palmer

PARKER ROAD (off Park Lane)
Do you know anyone a little too fond of sticking their beak into your business? If so you may well at one time or another have called them a Nosey Parker. If so you have followed in a glorious local tradition because the original Nosey Parker, whose snooping gave the insult to the English language, was Norwich born and bred.
More about Matthew Parker

PARMENTER ROAD (South Park Avenue)
Born way back in 1589, Adrian Parmenter, a grocer, was Sheriff of Norwich in 1632 and Mayor in 1641. The Excise office was at his house in Hog (now Orford) Hill. He was a leading Parliamentarian and his home was attacked by Royalists in 1648. Poor old Parmenter came to a sad end — he was bitten by a mad fox in 1663 and died.

PATTESON ROAD (Waterloo Road to Aylsham Road)
The powerful Patteson clan played a major role in Norwich life for centuries — and the name of Steward & Patteson still raises a smile across the city and county. The S&P brewery provided work for generations and gave us a range of some of the finest beers in the land.
More about the Patteson family

PECKOVER ROAD (Pettus Road)
Roundhead Matthew Peckover was a Norwich worstead weaver and was made sheriff in 1634 and mayor in 1645.
Matthew, who lived in the Parish of St George, Colegate, was an active Roundhead and was on the committee that looked for reasons to take over the estates of “delinquents and papists”.
He was married twice, first to Priscilla, daughter of John Fairfax, master of the Great Hospital in Norwich.
They had a daughter, Mary, who went on to marry Matthew Marcon who was mayor in 1665.
Afterwards Matthew married Elizabeth, daughter of Edmund and Mary Quarles.
She died in 1651 and his son William died in 1654.

PELHAM ROAD (St Clements Hill)
Good John Pelham was a long-serving and popular Bishop of Norwich — at a time when the important post brought great power and influence.
A highly intelligent man, he was born in 1811, the second son of the Earl of Chichester, and educated at Westminster School and then Oxford.
He arrived in Norfolk as the Rector of Bergh Apton in 1837 and served until 1852.
During that time he was made Honorary Canon of Norwich Cathedral and Chaplain to the Queen.
John served in Hampstead and St Marylebone before taking over from Bishop Hinds in Norwich in June of 1857 and went on to serve for more than 30 years. He was said to have “ruled the diocese with satisfaction to the great body of the clergy” — a gentle and hard-working man who was very keen on helping to set up church schools. John left in 1879 and went to live in Thorpe where he died suddenly in 1894.

PENN GROVE (Aylsham Road to Vicarage Road)
It was appropriate that when Philadelphia Lane was dissected, one portion became known as Penn Grove.
It was said that the American nation was born in Philadelphia and that William Penn founded Philadelphia — a community based on Quaker beliefs.
Penn drew up plans for complete religious toleration, for accepting all classes of immigrants and for trial by jury.
A sight to be seen in America is the 37ft statue of William Penn on the tower of City Hall Square, Philadelphia.

PETERSON ROAD (Bignold Road to Blomefield Road)
When Norwich was one of the most important cities in the land it had a silver lining, and one of the greatest silversmiths of all was a man called Peter Peterson. For most of the Middle Ages until about 1700 Norwich was England’s second city — and it was a wealthy one.
More about Peter Peterson

PETTUS ROAD (South Park Avenue to Peckover Road)
“His good name was well known in all the towns of England” …that’s what they said about Thomas Pettus when he died in 1597. Thomas had been sheriff of Norwich in 1566 and 1590 and the first in his powerful family to get municipal honours. His first son, Sir John Pettus, followed in his footsteps, becoming even more wealthy, and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth.
More about Thomas and John Pettus

PHILADELPHIA LANE (Angel Road to Penn Grove)
In the early years of the last century, this area was simply known as Philadelphia — that was before any of the houses had street numbers.
Philadelphia, USA, has a feeling of being in England, its narrow streets tucked away behind larger squares.
Even the “Liberty Bell” which summoned the citizens to hear the declaration of independence was cast in Whitechapel.

PILLING PARK ROAD (Morse Road to Wellesley Avenue)
This recreation ground was presented to the City of Norwich by Mrs Joseph Pilling, of Manchester, in memory of her father, Jeremiah Woodrow, who was a Freeman of Norwich. It was opened in June 1929 by Princess Mary.

PITT STREET (from St Augustine’s)
The second “t” was added in the 18th century. This street once led to the common pit or refuse dump occupying the disused churchyard of the demolished Church of St Olaf, King of Norway and Christian martyr.
Before that St Olaf’s Street had been known as Toolet Street.

PLUMSTEAD ROAD (Kett’s Hill)
This road runs between the Plumsteads, Great and Little — the places where the plum trees once grew They were once two small villages off the beaten track – a world away from dank and dirty Norwich.

PORSON ROAD (Manby Road)
The good people of Porson Road, Heartsease, are living in a road named after the celebrated Greek scholar Richard Porson. He was born back in 1759 in the Norfolk village of Ruston on Christmas Day. The son of a parish clerk, he went from Eton to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he had a brilliant career. In 1792, he was elected regius professor of Greek at Cambridge and in 1806 was made librarian of the London Institution. He died in September 1808 but his memory lives on in Cambridge and Norwich. The Porson Prize is awarded annually to undergraduates of Cambridge for the best translation of a passage of English poetry into Greek verse.

POTTERGATE (Maddermarket)
Once one of the longest streets in the heart of Norwich — and the ancient home of the potters or pot makers. Mystery had surrounded this ancient quarter that was flourishing even before the city walls were built in the 13th century.

Then, in the 1960s, when the place was being knocked about, archaeologists at last found one of the original kilns. And they discovered it just in time. Most of it had already been destroyed by the excavations on the site of the old Corn Exchange in Exchange Street. But there was enough of it left for the experts from the Castle Museum in Norwich to confirm that it dated back to between 1000 and 1100. Before they found the kiln, they uncovered a great many Thetford Ware wasters — pots distorted by bad firing. Thetford Ware was the type of pottery made in the 11th and 12th century.

Just before the discovery, Barbara Green, of the Castle Museum, and other archaeologists searched for a kiln on the site of the old fire station in Pottergate where the council built shops and flats. Although they found plenty of wasters, there wasn’t a kiln — then the breakthrough came in 1964. And it confirmed that Pottergate once had the main kilns for supplying Norwich and that the name did not simply describe a street where pottery was sold.

There had also been a place called “ye Potteres Pit” and over the centuries it was called Potteregate or Potteresgate.

Historian R H Mottram thought the ancient track that once led to the pit had been stopped up when the city walls were built.

In the 18th century, Pottergate was said to be one of the longest streets in Norwich — it continued through Lobster Lane and Bedford Street to join London Street.

Over the years it has been attacked by planners. Properties that should have been renovated were allowed to rot and then knocked down. But Pottergate has survived.

The gate part of the street name comes from the Danish meaning “street”.

PRINCE OF WALES ROAD
The building of Prince of Wales Road proved to be a remarkable piece of engineering, a grand boulevard that swept into the city centre from the majestic Thorpe Station. At the time of the construction it had become obvious that a new route must be made to and from the station and Yarmouth Road.
More about Prince of Wales Road

PRISCILLA CLOSE (Cunningham Road)
Priscilla — described as a “faint bird of paradise” — was one of the younger members of the powerful Gurney family of Earlham Hall.
During the Napoleonic invasion scare John Gurney ordered that four carriages should be kept constantly at
the ready outside the hall.
Priscilla wrote: “As soon as we hear of the news of their arrival you will imagine us setting off poste haste for Ely, as my father thinks this is a very safe place, being so completely surrounded by marshes.”
In 1811, she is recorded in the books of the Norwich Quakers as an approved minister which gave her the right to speak at meetings.
In 1819, she became ill and the symptoms were described as “raising blood from the lungs”.
She lingered for a while and her good friend Amelia Opie wrote: “I hope the warm weather and great care will make this faint bird of paradise tarry among us a while longer.”
Priscilla died on March 21, 1821.

PURLAND ROAD (Churchman Road)
He was a real character was Thomas Purland and a leading member of the Chartist movement and their struggle for a better deal in Norwich between 1839 and 1842.
Purland was a working class rebel at a time when times were hard for thousands of families of Norwich.
While the city did have a number of very wealthy citizens, the majority were living in grinding poverty in appalling conditions.
Purland was a man who wanted to make a difference. A radical, he worked as a master weaver and, as such, was a freeman of the city.
He was a controversial and colourful speaker at the Common Halls of the Freemen where large crowds gathered to listen to him.
But, in 1839, when Purland spoke at a Chartist meeting in favour of repealing the Corn Laws, his comrades turned him.
These meetings were not for the faint-hearted. This one almost turned into a riot during which Purland was attacked and knocked out.
He went on to sue his assailants but they threatened him more harm and in the end he was afraid to leave his house for fear of being beaten up — or worse.

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