Botolph Street
Botolph Street Botolph Street derived its
name from the former church of St Buttolph the Abbot, of
which the historian Francis Blomefield said it
“stood more south in Magdalen Street, not far north
of Stump-cross (right); its churchyard abutted
east on the said street, and west on St Buttolph’s,
commonly called Buttle-street; and is now the
White-horse-yard”. He also added “1505, Will
Stephens; he died rector [of St Botolph’s church]
and was the last the church had; for in 1544 it was made
a private property by Henry VIII, who granted it to Will.
Godwin; and in 1548, the church being quite demolished,
the parish was united in form to St Saviour’s, with
which it now continues”.From Anglia Square it is difficult now without the aid of maps to pin-point exactly the site of various buildings which formerly lined Botolph Street. The street itself, from Stump Cross to the northern end of St George’s, was finally closed to traffic at the end of March 1969, by which time most of the demolition to create the square had taken place. |
 Perhaps chief among the
businesses affected was that of Roberts the Printers at Nos
30-34 (left). First established on a different site
in 1902, the firm had since 1949 been occupying what Dr
Nikolaus Pevsner described as “the most interesting
factory building in Norwich” built in 1903 as a
clothing factory for Chamberlins. “There was”,
he added, “little in England, and indeed in Europe,
quite so functional and unfussy then. Yet it is by no
means purely utilitarian.”Its architect was A. F. Scott, the nineteenth century founder of the firm bearing his name. He was also responsible for a more prominent building in the city, Buntings the drapers (now Marks and Spencers) at the corner of St Stephen’s and Rampant Horse Street. A much older building lost in the Anglia Square development was the King’s Arms public house at No 38 Botolph Street, at the eastern corner of Calvert Street. On its gable end in large iron characters were the letters “I” and “C” and the date “1646”, now preserved in one of the Norwich museums. Built of brick with a narrow stringcourse marking the first floor level, the house had pantiles at the front, with old English plain tiles covering the roof of the Calvert Street wing. Text and photographs Copyright © G.A.F.Plunkett 2004 |