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Heart of our city
October
6, 2003
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| The Haymarket
in the days of horse-drawn hackney carriages |
The Haymarket
and Hay Hill
IT HAS been a meeting and trading place in the heart
of Norwich for hundreds of years.
And it was called the Hay Market because it was where
the carts and waggons that brought hay into the city
for sale stood — waiting for buyers.
Back in the 14th century, Abraham de York, a wealthy
Jew, bought up a lot of the property and a Jewish community
was formed.
We are told: “Jews came to trade with the English
and Normans, settling themselves alongside the brook
in the south-east corner of the croft”.
Later on carriers’ carts brought in farmers’
wives and their daughters from the countryside all over
Norfolk who “sat at market”. They brought
along their goods to sell and generally didn’t
use stalls, but sat beside their circular baskets or
“peds”.
This was also the site of one of the regulation Hackney
carriage ranks authorised by the Norwich Board of Health
in 1858.
A place where the horses and carriage would wait for
their customers and take those lucky enough to have
a couple of pennies in their pocket home after a night
out. Hay Hill is where the Next shop stands today. It
used to be the C & A store.
Before that Lamberts had their tea warehouse on the
site and long before that it was where Riseborough’s
School for Poor Boys stood.
In Norwich of the 21st century it is still a popular
meeting place . . . and The Forum has helped to open
up that whole area of the city.
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