The English Civil War was a time of great disturbance both to civic and religious life. The city was rocked by the largest explosion of the century – involving roughly three times the amount of gunpowder as The Gunpowder Plot! The cathedral was ransacked and left nearly derelict, its bishop roughly evicted, cathedral furniture and valuables were burned in the marketplace, and a proposal was even made to demolish the building.
Join us on this specialist tour to learn about the history of ill-feeling which led to this turmoil, and the events of those violent years.
Norwich: a turbulent city.
Make your way to the Entrance in The Refectory. Take a left, go through the shop and into the Cathedral at the western end of the southern aisle where you will find the Society steward and tour guides. The tour will take approximately 1 hr.
Please get in contact if you have mobility issues.
Daniel Defoe described a charmingly pastoral city during his tour of Britain, 1724-26. “The walls of this city are reckoned three miles in circumference, taking in more ground than the city of London; but much of the ground lying open in pasture-fields and gardens.”
We might not have so many “pasture fields” now but Norwich is still an exceptionally green city. This talk is an exploration of the many green spaces in our city from public parks to hidden gems, wildlife spaces to therapeutic gardens.
This is the first memorial lecture commemorating the work of Fred Dustin, a photographer and Norwich Society member who passed away in 2023 having recorded so many Norwich landmarks for our centenary celebrations in that same year.
Vanessa Trevelyan is a past Chair of the Norwich Society and currently Chair of the Norfolk Gardens Trust.
The English Civil War was a time of great disturbance both to civic and religious life. The city was rocked by the largest explosion of the century – involving roughly three times the amount of gunpowder as The Gunpowder Plot! The cathedral was ransacked and left nearly derelict, its bishop roughly evicted, cathedral furniture and valuables were burned in the marketplace, and a proposal was even made to demolish the building.
Join us on this specialist tour to learn about the history of ill-feeling which led to this turmoil, and the events of those violent years.
Norwich: a turbulent city.
Make your way to the Entrance in The Refectory. Take a left, go through the shop and into the Cathedral at the western end of the southern aisle where you will find the Society steward and tour guides. The tour will take approximately 1 hr.
Please get in contact if you have mobility issues.
In the last two thousand years, many languages and language varieties have been spoken and written in Norwich and the surrounding area. In this lecture, Professor Christopher Joby takes us on a journey from the language of Boudica to the many languages spoken in Norwich today. For much of this period, English in its many forms has been the dominant language in the city. However, invaders and migrants have brought new languages to Norwich including Old Norse, Norman French, Hebrew, Dutch, and, more recently, languages as diverse as Polish and Cantonese. Professor Joby examines who spoke these languages, to whom, and with what consequences.
Christopher Joby PhD, hab., FRHistS was born and educated in Norwich. He has degrees from the universities of Oxford and Durham and has lectured at universities in the UK, Netherlands, Poland, and South Korea. He has published many academic articles on the history of Dutch and other languages including English, and six monographs on contact between the Dutch language and culture and other languages and cultures in historical contexts. In 2015, he published The Dutch Language in Britain (1550-1702) (Brill), and in 2022, John Cruso of Norwich (Boydell & Brewer). He is currently writing a monograph on the history of language in early modern Norwich
Decline in religious observance and ignorance of Christian morals were widely perceived to be the cause of a surge in vice and immorality in Georgian England. Campaigns for the ‘Reformation of Manners’ failed to turn the tide and concern reached a climax with the Royal Proclamation for the Encouragement of Piety and Virtue and for the Preventing and Punishing of Vice, Profaneness and Immorality issued on 1 June 1787.
In Norwich no one could ignore the evidence of empty pews in parish churches, failure to observe the Sabbath, drunkenness and blasphemous language in alehouses and the prostitutes on the streets. On the instructions of the magistrates, local constables did their best to stem the tide. More shocking examples of vices such as domestic violence and sexual harassment occurred behind closed doors or otherwise out of sight but some were brought to light by victims’ depositions to the mayor’s court.
Since doing a post-retirement BA and MA in History at the UEA Ian Smith has made a speciality of researching and giving talks to various audiences on the history of Georgian Norwich. This talk is a revised version of a talk first given in March 2020.
