Princes Street

To the north of St Andrew’s Church are St Andrew’s and Blackfriars’ Halls, once the nave and chancel of the great church of the Dominicans or preaching friars.

Adjacent to this, at the junction of St Andrew’s and Princes Street, is Garsett House, formerly known as Armada House. This is a timber-framed building of three storeys, each upper floor having a considerable overhang, with the top floor supported at its northwest angle by an ornately carved wooden bracket. That formerly supporting the first floor was unfortunately cut away at some time unknown, but in 1946, when some replastering became necessary, the great corner post from which it projected was brought to view, together with remains of Tudor windows.

The surviving bracket has carved upon it the date 1589, the year after the Spanish Armada, an event commemorated by a plaque depicting a galleon, moulded in plaster, on the modern south gable wall.

This wall had had to be built up when in 1898 part of the south wing was cut away to permit the construction of a road taking the new tramway line from Bank Plain and Redwell Street into St Andrew’s. At the same time, and for the same reason, the adjoining City Arms public house, a building of somewhat similar age and appearance to that of Garsett House, was cleared away. The regret felt over its loss was tempered slightly by its bringing into public view the mediaeval Suckling Hall.

Records of early owners of the Garsett House site include John de Norweigh and John Pirremund. They were succeeded in 1373 by Adam Bass, who in 1385 left it to his wife Agnes. In 1495 Robert Dilham owned it, followed by William Crane in 1505. In 1570 the Langoll Rents showed Robert Gartside (or Garsett) occupying this tenement. An Alderman at the time of his death, on 18th March 1611, he is probably the same as Robert Garsted, a tailor, admitted to the freedom of the city in 1558, and Robert Gassett, Sheriff in 1599. He and his family are commemorated in St Andrew’s Church by a mural monument which has his bust carved in marble, together with small effigies of his son Robert and daughter Elizabeth.

Not much else is known of the history of the house until we come to the nineteenth century. In 1864 the wife of G. C. Kerry had a school here known as Sunderland House. Later came Alfred Kent, a solicitor, who was succeeded by his son Ernest, also a solicitor and well-known local antiquary. Ernest Kent left the building on his death to the Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological Society, who have adapted the first floor as their library and headquarters.

In the early 1880s the ground floor was let to Dr William Guy, the public vaccinator, and in the society’s library may be seen a scurrilous cartoon from Daylight, an independent local weekly journal; in it Dr Guy and another person are seen standing in front of Garsett House, in the window of which appears the legend “Shortly to Let. Vaccination Station and Disease and Death Factory”. The late Miss Clara Leeds, who was a granddaughter of Dr Guy, once assured me that he was in fact a most kindly and gentle man, and this cartoon caused him considerable distress.

At the corner of Elm Hill and Princes Street, almost opposite Garsett House, stands the timber-framed mansion (left) built by Richard Mann nearly four hundred years ago. Its southern and eastern elevations are both depicted in the margin of James Corbridge’s map of Norwich; it is now probably the only one of the mansions so illustrated still to be surviving, at least in recognisable form. Later residents here included Robert Bendish, Alderman, Sheriff in 1663 and Mayor in 1672, whose wife gave to St Peter Hungate Church its Communion plate in gratitude for her recovery from a serious illness. Robert died in 1693 and was succeeded by Mordecai Hewitt, a merchant; then Hewitt Elwin, who in 1719 sold the house to John Reeve, also a merchant. Corbridge called him “Capt. Jno. Reevs” and shows a balcony at first-floor level above what is now a corner shop. This was for many years a drapery establishment kept by Miss Shedden, but is now a baker’s and confectioner’s.

Following the demolition of the adjoining and comparatively modern 2 Princes Street, the building has had its western gable rebuilt. This, together with conservation work carried out on its timber framework, will, it is hoped, ensure its continued existence for many years.

High up on the wall of No 16, are two (but formerly three) parish boundary plates, a feature to be seen dotted around the city at various points. Two hundred years ago, when each parish was responsible among other things for the maintenance of its poor, the exact demarcation of boundaries was very necessary. This was especially so in a place like Norwich, where the boundaries of some three-dozen parishes interlock like an intricate jigsaw puzzle. In 1934, when a count was taken, 173 of these leaden plates were still found attached to buildings, with seventeen others in museums or in private hands.

The oldest parish mark, not a plate but an inscribed stone, in set in the front wall of the Coach and Horses public house in Bethel Street, marking the boundary between St Giles and St Peter Mancroft parishes; this is dated 1710. The latest one is for St Benedict and is dated 1854. An unusual one for All Saints’ parish declares, “A.S.P. ends here. 1778”. Others include symbols of the parish saints, such as an anchor for St Clement and a knife for St Bartholomew. Of the two still here in Princes Street one dated 1834 is for St Peter Hungate; the other, dated 1777, is for St George Tombland. The one now missing was also for St George and dated 1828. None of the three was marked with a symbol.

A little further east again along the street is No 24, a Tudor building restored in 1932 by local architect Cecil Upcher for the Cornhill Insurance Company. The work included among other things the construction of a dormer in the roof and the stripping of the plaster from the front of the first floor. This brought to light the original timber frame with its infilling of bricks laid in herringbone fashion.

The wooden lintel (pictured) above the front door, although ancient, is not an original feature; it came from l5 Fyebridge Street, formerly the residence of Edmund wood, a grocer who was Sheriff in 1536 and Mayor in l548. In the spandrels of the arch are his arms and those of the Grocers’ and Mercers’ companies.

According to Edward Tillett in his account of St George’s parish, this and the house next door at No 26 were formerly one property, a tavern with the sign of the Horse and Groom. First mentioned in 1784, it received four years later the sum of 6s 1d from the churchwardens “for repairing windows...broken in doing repairs to the Church”.

No 26, by the way, was restored by Mr Upcher in 1956; a 1ong Tudor window frame was found and left in position. The front of the building had been “modernised” in Georgian times, with sash windows and a pillared doorway.

Facing this property until demolished in 1939 was Sussex House (right), 17 Princes Street, a timber-framed house believed to have been built about 1500. Its first floor overhung the pavement by about a foot. About a century after its building two sturdy dormers were added to give light to the root space, and further alterations were made about 1700 by the insertion of sash windows and a new doorway of wood, consisting of narrow panelled jambs from the top of which projected large carved brackets. These stood out sufficiently to support an elliptical hood or pediment placed immediately below one of the first-floor windows. This and adjoining property lying behind houses on Tombland were all cleared away to extend a shoe factory. In its turn this too was pulled down and was replaced in 1974 by the present shops and offices, built in a style rather more sympathetic to the old character of the street.

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