Wanted: memories of Boulton & Paul

PICTURE the scene. It’s 1997 and a young reporter for Anglia TV is covering plans to revive a rundown part of Norwich with new flats, pubs and a cinema. The land is so contaminated that the media have to wear steel toe-capped boots, voluminous yellow overalls and safety glasses. It’s this particular reporter’s debut “piece to camera” and he looks suitably awkward, not to say ridiculous, as a result.

The soil on the site ran thick with the waste of several decades of heavy industrial use, some of it from the railway, much more from a famous Norwich name – the manufacturers Boulton & Paul. Thousands worked here over the decades. The contaminated land would become the Riverside development (pictured above) and guess who the young reporter was? The yellow uniform meant it would take me months to shake off the “tellytubby” nickname in the newsroom.

This photo from Norlink shows how huge the site was. I’ve written a short potted history of the company, but I could really do with the memories of an employee. The last guys left in 1986 so I’m hoping there are plenty of B&P pensioners out there. If you can help please email me at sanddsilk@btinternet.com.

In the meantime, here’s my first draft:

The company grew from a small ironmonger’s shop set up in Cockey Street (now London Street I think…) in 1797. By the late 1860s it had passed through several owners to come under the control of William Boulton and Dawson Paul.

A wire-netting machine on a factory in Rose Lane was one of its early innovations. It was said that the complicated equipment had to be kept going day and night simply to keep up with world-wide demand. You can see a similar machine in the Bridewell Museum in Norwich.

Boulton & Paul took the Riverside site in 1915, having been asked to build aircraft for the government during the First World War. Amid today’s bars and apartments it’s strange to think that more than 1,500 Sopwith Camels were built here. Not a bad name for one of today’s Riverside pubs I’d have thought. …Beats Norwegian Blue for sure.

After the war the company diversified into more domestic but equally bulky items – everything from chicken houses to cricket pavilions. Those posh greenhouses you see in the grounds of stately homes will normally have a small Boulton & Paul sign embossed in the wrought iron somewhere. And because Riverside had more space, the company soon abandoned Rose Lane to concentrate its efforts on the banks of the Wensum. They even helped build the doomed R101 airship. Famously, the airship crashed over France in 1930, and all hopes for airships as the transport of the future died with her. B&P was always keen to stress that no blame was attached to any of the parts made in Norwich.

The Second World War saw the company employed to make everything from factories to air raid shelters. According to historian Joyce Gurney-Read they made about £13million worth of goods for the war effort. They were also bombed by the Luftwaffe on several occasions.

The post-war years saw a slow but steady downturn which gathered pace from the late 1960s. The last workers were made redundant in 1986. The site lay unused until the late 1990s when the blueprint for today’s mix of shops, pubs and flats slowly emerged. Many of us were sniffy about the warehouse bars and the could-be-anywhere design. But, truth be told, we’re probably slowly being won round. Millions were spent both decontaminating the soil and raising the ground to avoid flood risks. What was once a miserable wasteland now hosts a supermarket, a swimming pool, a cinema and more than 200 apartments, The city council argues that it has fought off the out-of-town threat as a result. And, crucially, we can walk alongside the river from the station right down to the football ground. If that walk ever continued to Whitlingham it really would be “job done”.

* Much more on the always-authoritative HEART heritage site here.

Ferry Boat: Backpack or Backtrack?

SO it’s seven years and counting now for the old Ferry Boat on the banks of the Wensum in Norwich. The last of the King Street pubs closed its doors in 2006. Since then it’s been false dawn after false dawn.

Greene King promised a £1million refurb in 2008 but changed its mind, presumably as a result of the looming recession. Then the father and son team behind the Deepdale Farm hostel on the North Norfolk coast came up with a plan to transform it into a “Norwich Backpackers” hostel.

Alister and Jason Borthwick proposed a new building for the car park linked to the original Ferry Boat which would have included some sort of micropub. With the promise of bikes and canoes to hire this seemed a novel way of exploiting the pub’s waterside location. But again there were delays.

And now? Well now Jason Borthwick tells me that costs soared for the grey building we see on those plans. He continues:

“We approached the council to build a smaller building, keep the ferry boat building exactly as in our original plans, but with a smaller new build on the car park.  Their reaction was that we would need to start the entire process again, from scratch, basically without any reference to the original plans, while saying that a smaller building would have been preferable from day one (not something they told us).  All in all we are far from enamoured with the Norwich City Council planning department and haven't decided a way forward as yet.”

The council says it’s keen to get the site developed having given the original  scheme permission in July 2011.

“Since then, we have advised the applicant on a number of occasions what would be needed to take a revised scheme forward. The latest draft scheme is significantly different from the one approved and so cannot be built under his current consents - this is clear under planning law, which we are bound by.”

So for now we’re back to square one. Whatever the rights and wrongs, I fear a key riverside property will continue to look unloved for a few more years yet.

* Why a King Street pub is so important here.

* More on the 2011 Norwich Backpackers scheme here.

Kett’s Heights: Norwich from on high.

I FINALLY made it up to Kett’s Heights last week, and instantly felt embarrassed that I’d never made the effort before. For a start there’s this excellent panoramic view over Norwich. Second, a wonderful sense of peace and quiet. And third, well if you’ve got a historical bone in your body, then Kett’s Rebellion of 1549 simply makes more sense from up here. Robert Kett’s massive rag-tag army of rebels were ranged across the high ground from Mousehold Heath to what we now call Thorpe Hamlet. From here, it’s easy to imagine them making camp. From here they held the high ground. From here, in their thousands, I can imagine them feeling pretty invincible.

* Full details on Kett’s Rebellion here.

Wanted on the Wensum: a nickname

IT DOESN’T feel like Norwich does it? But this is the view that greets you just downstream of Carrow Bridge these days. Anyone know if these flats have got an official name yet? Like The Shard or The Gherkin, the building needs a nickname too. The air-conditioning unit? The silver something?

The first decent day of the year meant the Wensum was just crying out to be canoed upon. I did the old “ride & hide” trick to paddle from New Mills down to Trowse and then bike back to the car. I’m out of shape. The shoulder muscles are killing me.

But the weather got warmer, the sky got bluer, the grey wagtails got yellower. After a long cold winter, it was great to be out on the river again.

Cow Tower: Zak to the future

I’M A big fan of Cow Tower in Norwich, but here’s how not to take a photo of it.

It’s a late 14th century “artillery blockhouse”. In other words a free-standing tower which used to be full of soldiers and guns. But the trouble with taking a photo from here is that you have no idea why such a defence would have been needed in this part of the city.

The answer – of course – is location, location, location. Just beyond this photo lies the River Wensum. And while much of the rest of medieval Norwich is protected by walls, the river was pressed into service as a natural moat in this north east corner …with Cow Tower providing a bit of belt and braces. So the best place to take a photo is from the other side of the river to put the whole thing in context.

Which is why it’s so disappointing to walk round to Barrack Street to discover that the town planners didn’t quite have their historical heads on, when they gave Zaks planning permission. Incidentally this whole section of Norwich is dripping in medieval history, most notably due to its connections with Kett’s Rebellion of 1549. The rebels swarmed down from Mousehold Heath. At one point during that crazy destructive summer Cow Tower took direct hits. If Zaks wasn’t there you would be able to see the damage. In the future we will look after vistas like this a bit better. Won’t we?

So we try a bit higher. There must be a good shot from the lower slopes of Mousehold Heath. After all its height is why they had to build the tower so high in the first place. But no, the Zaks roofline ruins that angle as well. You still can’t see the Wensum. So in the end the only way to get a photo with a proper sense of history is to head down to Petch’s Corner and look straight ahead.

You’ve lost the height, which is a shame. But at last you can see the Wensum and appreciate the tower’s strategic position on a bend.

So it’s this final shot you’ll get to see in the book. …But I just wanted to let you know that I had thought about it first.

A fine village in a fine city - but no pub

I’VE MOVED on now to the tricky subject of Norwich Cathedral. Tricky in that people write massive tomes on this magnificent building and I don’t think I can justify more than about 700 words.

There’s an impressive amount of proper history here of course. A humdinger of a city versus monks row culminating in a 1272 riot which saw at least 13 people die. The dissolution of the priory in 1538, the ejection of the bishop during the Civil War and a near escape during the WW2 bombings.

I think the key is to see it as part of The Close ..which of course runs down to my all-important river. The sheer ambition of its founder Herbert de Losinga all those years ago is impressive. He set out to appropriate a truly massive site – 42 acres in all. Nine hundred years later it survives in its entirety.

So as a close you’ve got a cathedral, a school, and a community. (“A Fine Village in a Fine City” said the Dean back in 1976. Thanks for that Mr Very Reverend.)  Pull’s Ferry used to protect a canal which ran up to the cathedral. And I’ve just been reading some stuff on how The Close used to be full of dodgy alehouses. But by the mid 18th century there were just the five. The Ferry House, The Gate House, The Black Jack, The Three Cranes and the Garden House. There’s a challenge for CAMRA. Reinstating a boozer into the genteel world of The Close …and calling it traditional.

St Andrews–more than just a hall

I’VE JUST completed my “Over the Water” chapter, meaning that I’ve moved south of the river for the first time into the heart of Norwich. My first job here is a potted history of the buildings around St Andrews Hall. I’ve probably got a bit carried away – 700 words and counting. Here goes:

Up in Yorkshire at Rievaulx Abbey and over in Wales at Tintern, tourists flock to see the splendid ruins of buildings destroyed by the aftermath of the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

Here in Norwich we have a set of very similar buildings which survived that same 16^th century trauma. But because the St Andrews Hall complex comes complete with roof and windows, very few people seem to realise its importance.

OK so the busy city centre location in Norwich doesn’t quite compare to the desolate splendour of Tintern et al, but nevertheless my main point holds: while the vast majority of monasteries and friaries were plundered and pillaged after Henry VIII made his fateful decision, the clever burghers of Norwich managed to buy these buildings en bloc for the city. And as a result St Andrews offers historians the most complete remains of a friary in the country.

As many as 60 Dominican friars once lived here. Pre-reformation, these so-called Blackfriars were just one of a a number of monastic orders in the city. Elsewhere the Carmelites, the Franciscans, the Benedictines and the Augustinians also enjoyed huge influence. But with the exception of the Benedictines at the cathedral, don’t think of them as monks hidden in cloisters. Most were “mendicant friars”. In other words people who preached their faith and begged for alms on the streets. This is Terry Adkin’s summary from the Norwich HEART website:

“As well as teaching the local people the friars also had schools for educating their own members, preparing them for ordination to the priesthood.  Many of the friars attended the universities at Oxford and Cambridge, whilst some studied at universities on mainland Europe.  Their schools in Norwich were of a very high standard and attracted scholars from other parts of the country and Europe.  A future pope, Alexander V, himself a Franciscan, attended the Norwich Greyfriars‘ school before going on to Oxford.  The friaries had extensive libraries, and many of the Norwich friars became authors of international repute.”

That whole religious and cultural landscape was shattered in the 1530s when Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries. Within a generation many grand buildings simply disappeared; the land re-used by new owners, the stone re-used by new builders.
So all the more credit to the city fathers who saw the way the wind was blowing and moved quickly . Specifically quoting the importance of the Blackfriars’ city centre location, they asked Henry VIII for permission to buy it to 'make the churche a fayer and large halle, well pathed, for the mayor and his bretherne... for their common assemblyes...” The king agreed and the rest is civic history.

The nave of the friars’ vast church became The New Hall, a venue for feasts and courts. Now called St Andrew’s Hall, it is best known for its music and beer festivals. The chancel of the church at first became a municipal chapel. Now called Blackfriars Hall it’s used for concerts, conferences and banquets.
The buildings which survive today sprang up from the remains of a fire in 1413. By then, as historian Helen Sutermeister says, “it is clear that the furnishings of the church had departed far from the austerity advocated by St Dominic himself.”
To the north of the nave lay a cloister with the full panoply of monastic buildings; a kitchen, a chapter house, a frater (refectory) and dorters (sleeping quarters). Many of those buildings survive within the Norwich University of the Arts campus.

A central tower above the old nave and chancel fell down in 1712. According to Sutermeister it was “octagonal, crocketed, faced with freestone and decorated with armorial bearings …the most elaborate part of the whole building.”
It’s a strange but wonderful building to wander around in today. (And remarkably you still can normally wander around it, even if it isn’t formally “open”.) Mostly civic, with a whiff of the spiritual it is a strange amalgam. But take your pint at a beer festival or your seat at music festival and it really does come alive. St Andrews is one of the buildings that truly makes Norwich special.