St Mary’s Alley
St Mary’s Alley
Perhaps its most notable resident was Thomas Osborn Springfield, Sheriff in 1827 and Mayor in 1829 and again in 1836, when he became the first Mayor under the new charter. Born in 1782, he rose from being a small watch and clock maker in Colegate to becoming the head of a large firm of silk manufacturers with establishments in both Norwich and London. After a somewhat colourful career in local politics he died on 24th April 1858, aged seventy-five and was buried in the Rosary cemetery. His likeness, painted by Philip Westcott, is one of the many civic portraits in the city’s unrivalled collection, mainly housed in St Andrew’s and Blackfriars’ Halls. Text and photographs Copyright © G.A.F.Plunkett 2004 |
Since being bisected by
the inner link road, Pitt Street, which runs parallel to
St George’s, has had its southern section renamed as
part of Duke Street. On its western side St Mary’s
churchyard forms a pleasant open space, once overlooked
on the north by a mansion occupied earlier in the century
by the Norwich branch of the Boot and Shoe
Operatives’ Union. Built in the eighteenth century,
the three-storey house of brick and pantile construction,
with a comparatively modest-looking pedimented doorway,
was typical of the period.