Heigham Grove
Heigham Grove Just beyond the site of St
Giles’ Gate, on the south side of Earlham Road, is
Heigham Grove, a picturesque wooded slope on which stood Heigham
Grove House, purchased for £3,200 in April 1925, by
the City Council for conversion into the City Maternity
Home.The estate was originally designed by a Mr Adams, stonemason, of Chapel Field Road, and was an interesting example of the Gothic revival which became manifest during the early part of the nineteenth century. The house itself resembled an Elizabethan manor, having a projecting porch extending through both storeys, battlemented parapets, crow-stepped gables and a slim octagonal buttress at each angle terminating with a lofty round finial. The walls were cement rendered, the finials and cylindrical chimney shafts being moulded with geometrical designs. To complete the picture, grotesque heads formed label stops on either side of certain of the windows. |
 The grounds were also
fitted up in a sham-antique style. Surrounded by a lofty
battlemented wall of brick, complete with massive iron
gates and supporting pillars, they contained a
“folly”, a “ruined” Gothic arch, and
at the top of the slope adjacent to the house was a
square brick clock tower of three stages
surmounted by a small wooden bell-cot and weathervane. It
is said that at one time a series of busts of Roman
emperors provided further adornment.A certain brick pillar, which marked the boundary between Heigham Grove House and No 1 Heigham Grove, was the cause of some dissension between the two neighbours Joseph Gray (who had purchased No 1 in 1831 and to whom the pillar belonged) and Henry Chamberlin. The former agreed to leave the pillar uncoloured as it “would disfigure his [Mr Chamberlin’s] arch entrance to have part brick and part coloured”. Several years later (in 1853) when Mr Charles Winter was the occupant of Heigham Grove House he coloured the pillar, thinking it to be part of his property. In consequence Mr Gray “with his [Mr Winter’s] knowledge...placed a stone in it on the west side marked ‘J. Gray 1831’. Adams, stonemason, made and fixed it”. The boundary wall with its heavy iron gates was removed when Earlham Road was widened at this point, and on 27th June 1942, Heigham Grove House itself was destroyed by enemy action; an air raid warden, Mr Thomas Bright, unfortunately lost his life. Text and photographs Copyright © G.A.F.Plunkett 2004 |