Market Place and Guildhall Hill
Market Place and Guildhall Hill The
Guildhall for over five hundred years was the seat of
local government in Norwich. Until the Municipal Reform
Act of 1835 this had been sufficient for the purpose, but
from that time onwards the duties and responsibilities of
the Corporation began to grow. Order was kept by the new
police, who first appeared in public on lst March 1836.
Ten years later powers were delegated to the Watch
Committee to appoint a fire brigade of six men, whose
business it was to attend all fires in Norwich with the
Corporation engine; this came to be housed in the old
felons’ room of the Guildhall, requiring a doorway
of suitable width to be constructed on the north side,
leading to Guildhall Hill.The flint-faced wing adjoining to the south of the Guildhall was built in 1861 a cost of £800 in place of the eighteenth-century brick porch and other outbuildings. Designed by Thomas Barry, the city architect, the new wing provided offices for the Town Clerk and Chief Constable, as well as a waiting room and two cells. |
 This
accommodation did not long suffice, and in 1876 the Oxford
Hotel (above) on the west side of the market opposite
the Guildhall was purchased. By degrees the entire block
was absorbed, and as Corporation business grew still
more, mansions in St Giles’ Street and elsewhere
were adapted and a “tin hut” (left) for
the police was provided on the site of the old Butchery.In the meantime, in 1898, the fire engine had been moved to new headquarters in Pottergate. Although in that same year the council passed a resolution recognising that something more would have to be done, and plans were even drawn up for new offices on the east side of St Peter’s Street, time and again the decision to build was deferred. Nevertheless, bit-by-bit property was acquired on a site opposite to that originally proposed, between St Giles’ and Bethel Street, and plans were drawn up for a range of new buildings on this large site to accommodate all the Corporation’s many services. The new fire station in Bethel Street was completed in 1934, and four years later King George VI and Queen Elizabeth came to Norwich to open the City Hall. At the time the design of the latter did not meet with unqualified approval - the comedian Norman Long likened it to a marmalade factory. (A year or so previously somebody else had compared the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon to a jam factory.) The clock tower was picked out for particular criticism partly because of its estimated cost and also because of fears that it would dwarf the Guildhall. Nevertheless, nowadays the building has come to be accepted as a worthy enhancement to the municipal centre of Norwich. |
 The
clock bell did not escape its share of the
criticism, being referred to as “death knelly”
because of its deep sound. I was fortunate in being able
to photograph it immediately on its arrival in Norwich on
20th June 1938, before it was unloaded and hoisted up to
its belfry. It weighs 55 cwt 25 lb (2.8 tons) and has a
diameter of 65.5 inches. The inscription reads
“Gillett and Johnston Ltd., Founders, Croydon. City
of Norwich, 1937”. |
 Just
a month before the arrival of the bell the time ball
on the battlements of the Castle, made redundant by time
signals broadcast over the radio, had been dismantled. It
had been used for the first time on 10th August 1900,
much against the wishes of the museum curator, James
Reeve, who feared that the daily detonations might
endanger the structure. Exploded electrically from
Greenwich at 9 a.m. GMT, it worked by electro-magnet and
detonator, with the current coming via the GPO. Its
operation necessitated an attendant climbing up daily to
rehoist it, a duty carried out some years before his
death in 1934 by Arthur Harmer. A man of many parts,
Arthur was also caretaker of Churchman House, city
mortuary keeper and one of the liveried attendants
accompanying the Lord Mayor when he travelled in the civic
coach to official functions. |
 As
we have mentioned the coach it may be of interest at this
point to quote a resolution of the City Council passed on
11th October 1911, which explains how the city came by
it:Resolved
on the report of the City Committee that the Lord Mayor
has presented to the city for the use of future Lord
Mayors the coach which was used on the occasion of the
visit of His Majesty George V to the city on 18th June
last, together with liveries for the servants and State
harness for a pair of horses, that the very hearty thanks
of the Council be given to the Right Honourable the Lord
Mayor (Alderman Sir Eustace Gurney) for his great
generosity in presenting so handsome and interesting an
equipage to the City. Sir Eustace was Lord Mayor in 1910-11, with Mr H. P. Gould as Sheriff. Stored in a coach house at the Strangers’ Hall, the coach went out of use during the Second World War, but it was restored to duty in 1950 after a call for its reappearance had been made by Basil Cozens-Hardy, a former Sheriff of Norwich. An initial difficulty was soon overcome when a local firm of brewers agreed to lend, free of charge, two powerful grey horses and their driver as and when required. |
 On
the north side of the Market Place is Guildhall Hill,
where Nos 6-9 still present one of the best examples of a
Queen Anne mansion in Norwich. No 9 was for many years Rossi’s
gold- and silversmith’s shop, four generations of
that family having carried on the business there. George
Rossi, the founder of the business, was born in Italy and
fought under Marshal Soult in the Napoleonic Wars, but
when he was eventually released from the army he did not
return home and instead somehow found his way to Norwich.
The business closed in March 1936, when Mr Theodore
Rossi, who had been associated with it for fifty-four
years, decided to retire.In the Norwich Castle museum is a drawing dated 1799 by Robert Dighton depicting this end of the Market Place. This building is shown with all its original shop fronts of which that at No 9 survived until a few years ago. After Mr Rossi’s retirement the premises were taken over by Prince’s Tea Rooms, and while the old shop front was retained the three curious semi-circular window heads were obscured by a fascia board and neon sign. So it remained until 1973 when the premises again changed hands, the interior then being remodelled and the old front removed |
 Market Place March
1938:-Text and photographs Copyright © G.A.F.Plunkett 2004 |