Fishergate
Fishergate Entering Fishergate from
Whitefriars, on the north side is the site of Anguish’s
School (left) - or as it was more popularly called
the “Bluecoat” or “Bluebottle”
School. Named after its founder, Thomas Anguish (Mayor in
1611), the school occupied a house and other property
bequeathed by him for the education of boys and girls
“who have not friends to help them”. On 1st
January 1621, ten boys and two girls were the first to be
admitted, but as further bequests and endowments were
made, so the numbers were increased.Francis Blomefield, the eighteenth century Norfolk historian, giving a very full account of its foundation and extension added “this hath now no less than thirty and six poor boys who are decently clothed in blue coats and red caps”. The girls, incidentally, had in 1664 been transferred to a separate establishment at Golden Dog Lane under the terms of a bequest by Robert Baron, Mayor in 1649. The Fishergate building ceased to be used as a school in 1885 when the endowment income was allocated instead towards helping boys in secondary education and apprenticeships. For the girls a school of Housecraft had been set up in 1864 at Hospital Lane, Lakenham. In the mid-1930s the schoolhouse itself (the southern wing of the building facing Fishergate) was removed in order to widen the road, the master’s house with its substantial brick porch being cleared away over thirty years later. |
 Further along the street,
on the south side, St Edmund’s Church still stands,
having recently had its fabric restored after a long
period of redundancy and neglect. Opposite is the
entrance to the southern half of what was formerly
Peacock Street. The northern half (isolated by the inner
link road) retains the old name, but this section is now
known (inexplicably) as Blackfriars Street. The
Blackfriars’ original site was in Colegate on the
other side of Magdalen Street, while much of their later
premises survives as St Andrew’s and
Blackfriars’ Halls on the south side of the river.No 49 Fishergate (right), which stood at the corner until road works were carried out in 1936, was the Tiger inn. Writing only three years before its demolition, Ralph Mottram described it as being “well kept by its admirable owners, and [with] other frontages shows what the street was once like”. It was a Tudor building of three storeys, both upper floors being jettied, and with beams exposed at first floor level. Upon its closure the licence was transferred to the Oval public house on Dereham Road. Text and photographs Copyright © G.A.F.Plunkett 2004 |