Thursday March 15th Visit - St Martin's at Palace Plain

Next Thursday (15th March) we will be visiting the church of St Martin at Palace Plain. Neil Blunt, Chair of the Norwich Historic Churches Trust, has kindly agreed to welcome us to the NHCT base in this church. He will talk about the ethos and plans for the Trust, which I think will be of interest. He will also tell us about the history of this fascinating church. 

As usual, we will meet at the Cactus Cafe at 10:30 before walking up to St Martin's. I said we’d be there at c11:15.

A Feast of Food & History! Sunday 23rd July

© Nick Stone, 2017 - Thanks to Nick for granting us permission
to share his brilliant 'ghost' photography.

On Sunday 23rd July Colin Howey of Magdalen Walks will be leading a food/drink themed walk exploring some of the fascinating  history, archaeology and heritage of the Magdalen Street area. 

This will last just over an hour - long enough to work up an appetite! 

Happily, we will finish the walk at the Silver Road Community Centre where members of our 'sister' group, Magdalen Eats', will be cooking up a great BBQ. 

Come along for a feast of history and food - a real taste of what the community of Norwich Over The Water has to offer!

Date: 
Sunday 23rd July.

Assembly Point: 
Sahara Café, Magdalen Street (opposite Anglia Square).

Start time and duration: 
Although the walk leaves the lovely Sahara Café at 11am I would encourage all participants to come and have a drink before we move off. Café opens at 10:30am. The walk will last no more than an hour and a quarter. 

Cost:
£5.90 per person

Payment methods:

EITHER...

You can pay in cash on the day. However, if this is your preferred option, please can you book places via Colin so that we have an indication of how many people to expect.

OR...

Alternatively, you can pay in advance via Eventbrite

An unsung hero of Norwich Over the Water; the Rev Jack Burton

   © Nick Smith, 2016

We probably take for granted now that what is old and special in neighbourhoods such as Colegate and Magdalen Street should be protected and conserved, but not so long ago this was not the case. Whilst the grand buildings within the Cathedral Close have been preserved for centuries, other streets of similiar vintage such as Botolph Street had been torn down and erased from memory in the name of post war progress.

Therefore we are lucky that a considerable amount of the everyday but historic buildings remain intact in our study area; we have a rich subject matter to do walking tours that can bring history to life. 

But this may not have been the case without the work of others, such as the Rev Jack Burton who founded the campaigning Norwich Over the Water Group in the early 1970s. At this time Norwich was in economic decline and was suffering from some of its most brutal town planning and highway schemes that had cleared vast swathes of old Norwich. The north city centre  was depopulating and the long standing industries of shoe making and printing steadily declining, churches were being abandoned, ending centuries of continual ritual and traditions of parish life. 

Amidst this spiral of seemingly terminal decline, the Rev Jack Burton started his ministry at St Georges Colegate whilst also being a local bus driver. The Norwich Over the Water Group sought to cherish the unique urban character of the area and defend it from insensitive change such as road widening of Duke Street. This highway scheme would have seen the demolition of the Golden Star and the entire row of perfectly good homes and medieval courtyard build along its east side between Colegate and Muspole Street.  

Thanks to the efforts of the Rev Jack Burton and the Norwich Over the Water Group the area survived to prosper and is now the vibrant historic yet contemporary neighbourhood we enjoy today. Yet there is no statue, blue plaque or visible mention of a modern day activist. Perhaps we need to wait for the passage of years before we can truly take stock and celebrate our unsung heroes. 

References:

http://www.norwich-churches.org/st%20clements/today.shtm

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hidden-Riverside-Norwich-Steve-Silk/dp/0857042823/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1466356704&sr=1-1&keywords=hidden+riverside+norwich

Kieran Yates 

2016

In Oscar Wilde's Footsteps...

I just Googled 'Magdalen Walks' and was tickled to find the following Oscar Wilde poem heading up the page:

Magdalen Walks

Oscar Wilde

The little white clouds are racing over the sky,
   And the fields are strewn with the gold of the flower of March,
   The daffodil breaks under foot, and the tasselled larch
Sways and swings as the thrush goes hurrying by.

A delicate odour is borne on the wings of the morning breeze,
   The odour of deep wet grass, and of brown new-furrowed earth,
   The birds are singing for joy of the Spring’s glad birth,
Hopping from branch to branch on the rocking trees.

And all the woods are alive with the murmur and sound of Spring,
   And the rose-bud breaks into pink on the climbing briar,
   And the crocus-bed is a quivering moon of fire
Girdled round with the belt of an amethyst ring.

And the plane to the pine-tree is whispering some tale of love
   Till it rustles with laughter and tosses its mantle of green,
   And the gloom of the wych-elm’s hollow is lit with the iris 

Well, maybe we can't conjure up such a rural idyll from this part of the city of Norwich, but we certainly will be exploring natural history - nature of the city - as part of our project. It's good to know that we are walking in the footsteps of poets.