Magdalen Street

In 1957 when the Civic Trust agreed to undertake with the City Council a joint project for improving the appearance of some given area in the city, Magdalen Street was selected as the most suitable for the experiment. Only the length extending from Fye Bridge to Stump Cross was to be tackled, containing (as it still does) such a number of buildings of architectural character and having so many historical associations. Perhaps, too, the future development of the area further north between Magdalen Street and Botolph Street was envisaged. Whether or not this was the case, less than ten years later the bulldozers had moved in and land was cleared in preparation for the construction of the Anglia Square precinct.

Connecting the southern end of Magdalen Street to Fishergate is Thoroughfare Yard (above) - its name no doubt deriving from the fact that unlike most other Norwich yards, this one “leads somewhere”. Now lined by commercial property, it was formerly a quaint alley with Nos 4-9 on its north and east sides and No 11 in the corner opposite presenting nice examples of architecture of about 1680 apparently, although there were some indications that they might have been Tudor, altered some generations after they had been built. Most were of brick and flint construction and all were of two main storeys with lath and plaster dormers presenting a typical Norwich gabled skyline. The house on the east side behind the public house had on its side wall three plates marking the boundary of the parishes of St Edmund and St Clement. All were cleared away in April 1936, as part of a slum clearance scheme, it being well nigh impossible to recondition them economically.

Nos 28-32 Magdalen Street, on the southern corner of Golden Dog Lane, are examples of old dwelling houses converted into shops: No 28 with a dormer in the roof, the other two without. No 26 (pictured with 28-34), an extension of this row, was named Thirtle House after the Norwich artist who during the early years of the nineteenth century had a shop here. Born at a house in Elephant Yard, Stump Cross, the son of John (a shoemaker) and Susanna Thirtle, John Thirtle junior was baptised at St Saviour’s church on 22nd June 1777. At about the age of twenty he went to London, where he learnt the trade of frame making, and on returning to Norwich after a few years he opened a print shop at 26 Magdalen Street. Carving, gilding and frame making as well as picture restoring were also undertaken, and he soon enlarged the business to include the sale of his own pictures and miniatures. He was a founder member of the Norwich Society of Artists, which had John Crome as its leader, but after a quarrel between members he seceded in 1815 to join a rival group under Stannard, Ladbroke and Sillett.

In his later years weakness of the lungs brought an end to his outdoor sketching activities, and he died at the age of sixty-two on 30th September 1839. His wife Elizabeth, a sister of John Sell Cotman’s wife Ann Miles, outlived him for many years, dying at the age of ninety-five on 23rd February 1882. The business, which had been carried on at Magdalen Street up to the time of Thirtle’s death, was taken over by William Boswell, another well-known name in the local art world. Thirtle House was pulled down in the late 1930s and a modern shop was erected in its place.

Facing St Saviour’s Lane, at Nos 44-48 (above) is a grand eighteenth-century mansion, comprising house and shop. Now known as Sackville Place and incorporating a modern office block at the rear, it was until recently the premises of Smith and Sons, wholesale and retail druggists.

It possesses one of the best doorways of the period yet remaining in the city, similar to one at 18 Colegate and constructed, it has been suggested, to designs by Thomas Ivory. Above is a Venetian window, that is, a window of three lights, the central one wide and arched, the side lights about one-third the width and covered by an entablature. This type is convenient when a large window is necessary, as it maintains the scale, which would be broken by a large undivided window.

While massive pilasters and cornices also contribute towards a very dignified frontage, the chief feature from an antiquarian point of view is the contemporary shop front. Seen in its original form in my photographs, the shop has since been reduced to a little over half its width to make a covered passage leading to a side courtyard. To do this the two right-hand bays (a door and a window) were turned 90° to form a side window looking out on to the passageway.

Stump Cross, the name now given to the area opposite St Saviour’s Church, perpetuates the memory of a stone cross that stood at the erstwhile junction of Magdalen Street with Botolph Street. Known in Henry VII’s time as “Guylding Cross”, it probably obtained its name following its partial destruction. Although in 1673 £20 was ordered to be given to the inhabitants of the parish to rebuild it, the historian John Kirkpatrick noted fifty years later that

There is a piece of the lower part of the shaft of a stone cross now lying upon the top of St Saviour’s churchyard wall next the lane leading to Rotten Row [i.e. Peacock Street] which is about a yard long and I suppose is part of the old Stump Cross.

Were he to return here today there would be little left for him to recognise, apart from the church; even that has lost half the height of its tower since his time. Botolph Street itself (or at any rate its southern half) has disappeared altogether, its site having been covered in 1970 by the modern shopping precinct of Anglia Square, while the St Crispin’s flyover constructed a year or two later led to the disappearance of more old property.

This included No 53 Magdalen Street where, early in 1934, workmen stripped off the plaster from the front of the upper storey to reveal the original early seventeenth-century half-timbered construction. Between some of the uprights the brick infilling was laid in herringbone fashion, while between the others the bricks were laid horizontally.

The Dolls’ Hospital at No 62 on the opposite side of the way was another victim of the alterations. This was of the seventeenth century and timber framed, but here the smooth plaster facing of its jettied upper storey had been retained. Two large dormers gave light to the attic, the roof of which had largely retained its somewhat moss-grown covering of old English plain tiles.

Barclay’s bank, a red brick neo-Georgian building of pleasing design, stood at the Botolph Street junction facing south along Magdalen Street, while behind it, facing both streets, was Frank Price’s popular drapery store. North of this was situated the White Horse inn and its yard. The inn (seventeenth century and later) had its two main storeys built of brick, and an attic storey partly covered with pantiles and part with English plain tiles. It was the last of the old buildings to be razed to create Anglia Square.

White Horse Yard provided a convenient short cut between the two streets, and Nos 92 and 94 Magdalen Street, with a passage leading to Hacon’s Yard at the rear. The last two shops together formed a two-storey building of brick and pantile construction, plastered and colour-washed, with dormers giving light to the roof space. Considered to date from the seventeenth century, they were listed as Grade 3 under the Housing Act of 1949. The developers had considered the possibility of their preservation in order to retain some of the character of that part of the street, but they were not the right size for a modern shopping unit and their retention would have presented other architectural problems, so down they had to come too.

Facing Anglia Square from the opposite side of Magdalen Street, Nos 77-85 formed an interesting block of three-storey timber-framed Tudor buildings. Their first floors projected slightly above the pavement, but only this and the low ceilings of the ground-floor shops gave the passer-by a clue as to their real age. No 77 was formerly the Rose tavern, but perhaps this was not its original name as it adjoined the Woolcombers Arms Yard. Scheduled as a building of architectural or historical interest, the building was badly damaged when on 10th July 1972, an accidental fire swept through the upper floors. So much damage was caused that it was deemed unsafe to carry out a reconstruction and a few weeks later the whole site was cleared.

Also destroyed by fire, but on a different occasion and through a different cause, was Hurrell’s shoe factory at 96-100 Magdalen Street. It was early in the morning of 2nd August 1942 that a small number of enemy raiders showered incendiary bombs as well as a few high explosives over the city during the course of a short, sharp raid. Fires were started in several places, but commercial property such as this was most affected.

Hurrell’s factory was housed in an impressive building. The cement rendering of its street facade was modern and effectively disguised the fact that here beneath the surface was a mansion built during the Georgian era. One of its most notable past residents was John Staniforth Patteson, Sheriff in 1811, Alderman in 1820 and Mayor in 1823, the house having come to his father with the purchase of Beevor’s brewery. Brewing was the family business and from it grew the well-known firm of Steward and Patteson, since acquired by Watneys.

After the war Hurrells rebuilt the factory in red brick and in modern design on the old site, but its existence was comparatively brief. It was acquired along with much adjoining property and demolished to make way for the Anglia Square shopping complex at the end of the 1960s. The new entrance to Edward Street now occupies the site.

Further up Magdalen Street on its eastern side is a little seventeenth-century building, formerly the White Lion inn. At the back of its yard, until demolished in a clearance scheme in the late 1930s, stood an L-shaped block of Tudor houses, Nos 3 to 8 inclusive, forming with the backs of the Magdalen Street properties an open square somewhat larger than the average Norwich yard. In 1934 when demolition was beginning to threaten they were described as being well built and comfortable and having the appearance of a group of almshouses. Although it was suggested that they could be made quite pleasant if back-to-back houses in Gillings Yard were pulled down to give through ventilation, they were not to be spared and the council flats of Magdalen Close were subsequently built on this and the adjoining area.

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