Redwell Street
Redwell Street Redwell Street connects
Elm Hill to Bank Plain, near to which was Clement
Court. When in 1957 the Norfolk News Company extended
their London Street premises northwards and eastwards,
the houses in this court, along with others facing
Redwell Street, were demolished. Until then the courtyard
entrance, which was closed by an iron gate, had an
ornamental grille set in the arch, with the keystone
above inscribed “Clement Court 1816”.On the right-hand side of the court, just beyond the passageway from the street, stood a house of the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century. It was chiefly this house that gave the yard its picturesque appearance, enhanced as it was by two dormers peeping from the roof and by a rather ornate doorway. Flanked on either side by pilasters with Corinthian capitals, the door was sheltered by an overhanging canopy resting on two carved wooden brackets. Further up the yard a one-storey building had since 1743 been used as a ballroom and dancing academy by Francis Christien and his son Edward; they were succeeded by Francis Noverre. During the latter half of the nineteenth century it was a chapel, and it later served as the laboratory of the city analyst from 1900 to 1947. From the historical point of view, though, the court’s chief claim to fame is now to be seen declared by the following inscription above its present entrance: “Near this spot on 6th September 1701, Francis Burges published the first number of the Norwich Post. The first English provincial newspaper.” Text and photographs Copyright © G.A.F.Plunkett 2004 |