Tombland
Tombland
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The doorway here consisted of a pair of Ionic pillars supporting an open pediment. A pair of doors opened from the centre and folded back, and above was an elliptical fanlight with “rising sun” motif. A flight of four stone steps gave access, guarded by a light handrail on either side. The city’s loss was Norfolk’s gain, for the doorway was re-erected in a contemporary building, West Bradenham Hall, by Mr P. D. Penrose. Happily, in the late 1990s the sash-window in No 27 was removed, and replaced by a doorway similar to the original, my photograph here helping the architect. Its temporary absence emphasised how important such a feature is in the facades of houses of this period. A number of important buildings have occupied this side of Tombland at different periods of its history. Here for instance, built some years before 1066, stood the Palace of the Saxon Earls. After the Conquest it was handed over as part of the endowment of the Priory, and some parts of it were still standing by about 1300. Later known as Rotten (or Ratten) Row, the houses here were destroyed in 1507 by a fire which started somewhere near the Popinjay inn on the western corner. |
Text and photographs Copyright © G.A.F.Plunkett 2004 |
View from Cathedral Spire.
On the south side of Tombland is a
typical row of eighteenth-century three-storey red-brick
buildings. Of these, the middle one, No 27, had its central
doorway removed in the mid-1930s and replaced by a
sash window.
At the eastern end of this row, where No
26 (Cambridge House) now stands, the Recorder of
Norwich, Sir William Denny, erected early in the
seventeenth century a building called Stonehall. Parts of
this were retained when Cambridge House replaced it
during the early part of the Georgian period. Alderman
Jeremiah Ives (Sheriff 1782, Mayor 1786 and 1801), who
lived here in 1783, is believed to have been responsible
for adding the present imposing portico. Otherwise it
remained little altered until 3rd May 1945, when fire
entirely gutted the interior. Fortunately the outer walls
remained virtually intact and it was possible to effect a
reconstruction, preserving the old facade and thus
retaining the Georgian character of this end of Tombland.