The stories behind
our street names

SAFFRON SQUARE (Harmer Road)
Saffron was once grown in Catton village and was known as “naked ladies.”
The saffron crocus, a perennial, is found locally in damp meadows and in woods. Occasionally it is used in medicine and for cooking.

ST ANDREW'S HILL (Bedford Street to St Andrew’s Street)
This is the way it was looking up St Andrew’s Street in Norwich of 1890 when it was a narrow cobbled street…packed with shops, factories and homes.
At the time, St Andrew’s dog-legged to the left beside St Andrew’s Plain and ran directly on to the road known today as Princes Street.
Access to Redwell Street and Bank Plain was via the crossroads at the top of Elm Hill.
Then the trams came along and the demolition began.
On December 17, 1899, the old horse-drawn buses ceased to run and by July 1900 more than 16 miles of tram track had been constructed across the city.
To enable the service to run, an entry into Redwell Street from St Andrew’s Street had to be engineered and so we have the irregular shape of Garsett (or Armada) House.
Among the buildings that came tumbling down was the old City Arms public house.
The name St Andrew’s Broad Street was changed to St Andrew’s Street, by the city council in 1898 and this name applies from Charing Cross to St Andrew’s Hall Plain.

ST ANDREW'S STREET (Charing Cross to St Andrew’s Hall Plain)
I wonder why the beautiful and historic church of St Andrew is so called?
Andrew was a fisherman. Our church is near the river. Is that the reason?
The church is second only in size to St Peter Mancroft among the Norwich parish churches.
The Suckling Chapel on the north side has some of the best monuments in the city.
The oldest feature of the church is the band of escutcheons on the exterior of its east end which are associated with William Appleyard, who lived at what is now the Bridewell Museum and died in 1419.

ST ANDREW'S HALL PLAIN (continuation of St Andrew’s Street)
There are just two properties listed on this plain. Garsett House (also known as Armada House) and St Andrew’s Hall – but what a wealth of history those buildings hole – one domestic and the other of religious foundation.
Along with Blackfriars’ Hall (also known as the Dutch Church) we should stand and wonder how centuries ago our forefathers, with no steelwork or ready-mixed concrete, could build such beautiful buildings
We have a lot to thank them for.
This picture of St Andrew’s Hall was taken in about 1910.
It was built as a monastic building for the Dominican or Black Friars in the 13th century. It was eventually bought by the city for £81 – the king’s men said unless they got another £152, they would take the lead off the roof – the money was eventually handed over.

ST BENEDICT’S STREET (Charing Cross)
Few details are known of the life of Benedict (c480 to c547) whose monastic rule and the monks who followed it have been so influential in the western world.
His feast day is March 21.
He was sent to Rome but he didn’t like the city life and he headed into the wilds at the age of 20 where he led a solitary life,
Gradually he organised a dozen small communities and established the monastery of Monte Cassino (so well known in the second world war).
The Norwich Priory (now the cathedral) was one of the monasteries under the Holy Rule of St Benedict.
The Norwich street named after him is steeped in history.
St Benedict’s Church was hit during the 1942 blitz when the whole area was badly damaged.
The city fathers neglected St Benedict’s following the war but it is finally fighting back.
We must preserve what is left and support the traders now operating along the street.

ST CATHERINE’S CLOSE (Surrey Street)
There is not much left in this street apart from St Catherine’s House, one of the most beautiful houses in Norwich and the East Anglian home of the BBC until it moved to the Forum. It was built by John Morse when he became sheriff in 1779, and he lived there for half a century.

ST CATHERINE’S PLAIN (Queen’s Road and Finklegate)
So much of old Norwich was destroyed when the inner ring road was built, and little remains of this historic plain. Many of the residents died as a result of the black death in the 14th century, but in the 18th century there was a bustling community here, with bakers, drapers, tea-makers and wheelwrights running businesses. There were three pubs and a church that fell into disrepair. Then the road came along and finished off much of what was left. It’s good to see that the area off Queen’s Road between City Road and Hall Road – where Lakenham starts – is still bustling with shops and pubs. And it still has a post office. Long may that continue.

ST CLEMENT’S HILL (Magdalen Road to The Boundary)
The parish of St Clement’s Colegate, included St Clement Within and St Clement Without – referring to the old city walls.
The population increased from 853 in 1801 to almost 4000 in 1861.
This was chiefly in the district called New Catton. This was constituted an ecclesiastical district and assigned to Christ Church.
This church, built in 1841 was, for a long time, known as St Clement Without.
The anchor is the emblem of St Clement, one of the Apostolic Fathers/
There was a legend that he was lashed to an anchor and thrown into the Crimean Sea. This probably accounts for the many marine dedications to St Clement.

ST CRISPIN’S ROAD
(inner ring road between Barn Road and Barrack Street)
Much of old Norwich — homes, shops and factories — was destroyed to build this stretch of the inner ring road, but at least it was given a name that means something.
St Crispin is the patron saint of shoemakers — a trade that played such a large part of the development of the city.
There was a time when thousands of men and women were employed in the shoe industry at various factories, big and small, dotted around the city.
Made in Norwich was a symbol of quality. City footwear was sent all over the world, but then the world hit back by sending millions of cheap shoes to our shores.
We couldn’t compete and slowly but surely most of our factories closed. It was the end of an era. A way of life for generations of Norwich men and women was finally over. The emblem of St Crispin is a shoe or a last, and his feast day is October 25.
The child superstar William Crotch, who went on to become a great artist, composer and musician was born in this parish, at Green’s Lane, in 1775.
It was said that at the age of two he could play God Save the King on an organ built for him by his parents — and crowds would gather outside his home to listen to him practising. Aged four, he went to London and gave recitals — even entertaining members of the Royal family. By the time he was 22 he became a professor of music at Oxford and was the first principal of the Royal Academy of Music at the age of 47.
He had to resign from the academy because he was caught “kissing and cuddling” a girl student, but he went on to teach music and paint pictures.
William died in 1847, never fulfilling the great promise he had shown as a child, but most of us know one of his pieces of music — the Westminster Chimes heard on the radio and used in many clocks.

ST EDMUND'S CLOSE (Hellesdon Road)
Hellesdon Church is dedicated to St Mary while the church at Costessey is named after St Edmund.
This king and martyr (841-869) was said to have been chosen as king of the East Angles while still a boy. In 869, the Danes took up quarters at Thetford and Edmund led his troops against them.
One account says the king was captured at Hoxne, Suffolk, where he was tied to a tree and shot with arrows till his body was ”like a thistle covered with prickles.” His body was enshrined at Bury St Edmunds (St Edmund’s Borough) where the great abbey was founded in 1020.

ST FAITH'S LANE (Prince of Wales Road)
St Faith’s seems to have been a corruption of St Vedast. There was a Synt Vayst Lane in 1549 and in time this became St Faith’s Lane.
The church of St Vedast came to be known as the church of St Vedast alias St Faith. This name appears in the 16th century.
The lane was also known as Freres-Went from the Austin or Greyfairs who had property nearby.
In the 16th century there was a “certain foot pathe going from the church of Marshe to St Vedast … which was the way for the inhabitants of Rotton Row to go to the church of St Mary of the Marsh.”
Raturn Row, later to become Rotton Row, stood on the west part of the south end of Tombland and later this area became known as Popingay Corner.
Hundreds of years ago this was where many of the Norwich weavers lived. They were proud and independent people who hated others taking up their trade.
There was once a riot that followed when the Court of Guardians ordered that two looms should be put up in the workhouse.
In the fight, Richard Knockolds threw sulphuric acid in the face of John Wright, a master manufacturer, of St Faith’s Lane.
Knockold was a family man with five children but he had been known to start fires.
His family and friends attended the trial. Knockolds was contrite but the judge sent him to the gallows and a large crowd gathered to watch him meet his maker outside Norwich Castle.

ST FAITH'S ROAD (from Mile Cross Lane)
One of the ways to the villages of Horsham St Faith and Newton St Faith… one of the old city boundary marks was known as the St Faith’s Cross.
Horsham, the larger of the two villages, once had an annual cattle fair which continued for three weeks. It also had a factory with 15 looms where people weaved silk and more than 50 people were engaged in the manufacturer of horse hair seats.
A Benedictine Priory was also here and later the St Faith’s Union had its own workhouse, the old House of Industry.
A grim place, it was built in 1805 and was home to 200 men and women.
Today the site is better known as the St Faith’s Crematorium.

ST GEORGE'S STREET (St Andrew’s Street)
This is an ancient Norwich street that is finally being given the future it deserves . . . it is being transformed into a haven for pedestrians, cyclists and tourists.
More about St George's Street

ST GILES'
Hark hark, the dogs do bark, the beggars are coming to town…and through the City Gates at St Giles’ to the church, dedicated to the patron saint of cripples, they made their way. This was an old saying when the poor people living on the streets arrived at this handsome church, with its great 120ft tower, the tallest in Norwich, seeking help.
More about St Giles'

ST GREGORY’S ALLEY (Pottergate to St Benedict Street)
An historic thoroughfare – this old right of way was possibly the bed of a stream and later a processional way round the fascinating church.
In 1597 a wooden spire covered with lead was erected on the tower and this was the only spire in Norwich, apart from the cathedral. It was damaged in a gale in 1806 and part of it was taken down.
A spectacular funeral took place in 1812 when thousands of people turned out to watch as James Parsons, a farrier employed by vet Richard Watson, was buried with full “veterinary and Masonic ceremonies.”
The farriers and the masons were all dressed in their full regalia and Parsons’ favourite horse was covered in black velvet. The headstall and bridle were adorned with white roses – a symbol that he was a bachelor.
The church was a centre for the arts for many years and now there are plans to open it up again – let’s hope it works. It is a sin to see this church locked up.

ST LEONARD’S ROAD
The remains of a Norman priory and conventual church dedicated to St Leonard stand at the corner of Gas Hill and St Leonard’s Road.
Seven or eight monks were there before the cathedral priory was completed. In about 1538, the Earl of Surrey took it over and built a magnificent house within the precincts – but Kett and his rebels put paid to that in 1549.

ST MARGARET’S STREET (St Benedict’s Street to Westwick Street)
In the middle ages there were as many Margarets as there were Victorias in the 19th century – today the name isn’t so popular.
St Margaret comes fifth in order of the number of church dedications in Norfolk with more than 50 – outnumbering St George.
St Margaret of Antioch was regarded as patron saint of women in childbirth.
This is one of three churches in this area.

ST MARTIN’S ROAD (Oak Street)
St Martin was a popular chap having several roads – some ancient, others more modern, named in his honour.
The parish of St Martin-at-Oak a century ago was full of poor people who lived in rows of humble yards and alleyways.
Among the many pubs in the area was the Jolly Skinners, and at one time its landlord was the famous Norwich prize-fighter Licker Pratt.
It was a rough area but there was little trouble in his pub. No one wanted to get on the wrong side of Licker!
In the early part of the last century, the corporation nursery was in St Martin-at-Oak.

ST MARTIN AT PALACE PLAIN (from Palace Street)
This is part of the tragic route from the city to the Lollards Pit where people were burned.
St Martin at Palace Church was built by Sir Thomas Erpingham, who lived nearby. The painter John Sell Cotman also lived on the Plain.
Bishop Alnwick’s gate at Palace Plain (and Bishop’s House) are on the Plain.
In the days of the building of the gate, Palace Plain was then part of an area known as the Liberty of the Prior who had jurisdiction over it, both civil and criminal.

ST MARY’S PLAIN (Duke Street to Oak Street)
The home of the attractive thatched Pykerell’s House and a number of churches.
The church, dedicated to St Mary the Virgin, was built in 1477, against an Anglo Saxon Tower.
In the 1890s the area was described as a “region of noxious courts and alleys” and in 1905 the church was said to be under attack from “stone throwing urchins”.

ST MARY’S ROAD (Aylsham Road to St Martin’s Road)
In the reign of Edward III,
five Lazar houses existed in Norwich, where people who
were suffering from leprosy
were looked after.
There was one house “without” the St Augustine’s gate, called the Hospital of St Mary and St Clement.
The site was later occupied by the Infirmary Asylum and this road commemorates this benevolent work.
The house was supported by the contribution of the inhabitants and travellers. The present road was made up by the corporation in 1905.

ST MATTHEW’S ROAD (Rosary Road to Riverside Road)
It was in November 1889 that the city council decided to buy land so the route known as Kissing Alley could be widened.
The work went ahead in 1905 and it was named after St Matthew . . . the kissing was over.

ST MILDRED’S ROAD (Taylor Road)
Have you a Mildred in the family?
If so, remember her namesake who lived in about AD 700.
Mildred, the daughter of an Anglian ruler, lived on the Welsh border, but was sent to a nunnery in France when she refused an offer of marriage.
She returned to England and entered the convent at Minster in Thanet.
She became Abbess and died there “leaving a holy memory of gentleness and kindness, and a comforter to all in affliction”.
May her modern namesakes be so remembered.
This road was named after St Mildred’s Court, the London home address of the world-famous Norwich prisoner reformer – the face on the fiver – Elizabeth Fry.

ST STEPHEN'S STREET (Red Lion Street to St Stephen’s Road)
When the controversial scheme to re-develop St Stephen’s in Norwich was finally given the go-ahead the developers didn’t mess about – they moved in and demolished buildings that had been around for centuries.
More about St Stephen's Street

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