The Site and Anglo-Saxon Norwich

NORWICH y THE TI:-'1E of William the Conqueror Norwich was one of the THE SITUATION AND SITE Bthree or four most important cities in England. For over seven hundred years it retained this position and for considerable The Cit," of l\:orwich lies on either bank of the River Wensum, just periods was second only to London. To seek to explain its long pros abm-e its confluence with the Yare. The site is such as has often helped a perity is to realize how little is known of the economic history- of ,Eng town to prosperity: at a low crossing point on a navigable river, some land. Explanations of a very general kind, trite yet compelling, are wa,' inland but with easy access to the sea. At present Norwich is some indeed at hand. :\ natural route-centre with good communications by twenty. miles from the North Sea. But it is clear that at.some time the flat land and excellent communications by water, Norwich had a rich hinter alluvial lands of the valleys to the east were under water so that the site land and b\" the fourteenth century was a manufacturing centre of much of the town stood near the head of a great estuary. From the first century more than local importance. So far, so good; but the more precise AD the water began to recede and by the later Roman period mean sea explanation of the city's function and success in any particular period is level rna," have been about what it is now, though there was more open not at present to be had. The greatness of Norwich ends in the late water near the mouth of the estuary than at present. The sea continued to Hanoverian period as it begins in the late Anglo-Saxon, mysteriously. recede until the later thirteenth century but thereafter rose once more.3 Norwich has been very well served by its local historians; others have The precise chronology of the recession of the estuary is uncertain; the given it less than due attention. l From early in the nineteenth century effects of that recession so far inland as the Wensum valley are little Norwich ceased to be of major national importance: the principle on studied; and the century in which there was first an important settlement which economic historians have worked is, vae rictis. at Norwich is uncertain. It follows that discussion of some of the geo In the darkness which obscures the histor~" of Korwich two things graphical determinants ofthe city's rise has to be tentative. show clearly. One is how ear0' the city developed; the other is how Land communications were in general good. Although Norwich's remarkable its environment was. Norwich was very big b\O 1066. This is relationship to the Roman road system is not yet fully understood, it is certainly true of its area. But what is more, the cit~o in the reign of the possible that it was at a nodal point. 4 The principal medieval road from Conqueror was probably more populous than it was in the reign of Norwich was that to London Ilia Thetford, Newmarket and Ware. Richard II and not impossibly more populous than it was in that of Modern road maps ofeastern Norfolk show numerous roads converging Henry VIII. There is at least a plausible case for supposing of Norwich, on Norwich which do not merge with one another before they reach, or as of much of England, that the most important economic developments approach very near to, the city. Such a configuration indicates heavy before the Industrial Revolution took place in the late Anglo-Saxon traffic from many places round about. That the pattern is an old one period. The most obviously remarkable thing about the environment of appears, for example, from the numerous bridges over the Yare south of Norwich is the densit,o ofits population. By the time of Domesday Book Norwich and from a map of Mousehold Heath of 1588 which shows the area ofeast Norfolk surrounding Norwich looks as if it was the most several roads from places to the east and north-east running very close populous part of rural England. The rise of Great Yarmouth in the early together but converging only in or near the city.s Middle Ages ensured that this area contained not one, but two great Korwich lies at a point where areas of different soils meet. 6 To the towns. Nowhere else in medieval England were two places of such im east lie the alluvial flats which Defoe described as 'a long tract of the portance so close together. The history of the city must be seen as part richest meadows and the largest, take them altogether, that are anywhere of that of a quite extraordinary area, linked to it above all b~o the water in England' and which were by the time of Domesday extensively used ways of the Yare, the Waveney, the Ant, the Bure and the Thurne. 2 for grazing. 7 The remainder of the environment is of clay, loam, sand and gravel, overlying chalk. The northern segment, the 'Loam Region', has lighter soils than the remainder with considerable stretches of sand and gravel, one of which runs north-eastwards from Norwich, forming 1 Kirkpatrick and Hudson were scholars who desenoe, though they have hardly until recent times an area of heath and common about six miles by three received, national rather than merely local recognition. Much of what is written ~10usehold Heath. To the west and north-west lie areas of heavier soil, below depends heavily on their work and that of Blomefield. In addition to fertile and in the past probably carrying much timber. Until the eight Kirkpatrick's published works his notes, and extracts from and summaries of his unpublished works, in Norfolk Record Office ::\lss 5 and 45 3 and Rye 9 and NCM 2 I (f) have been used. Among modern scholars I am particularly indebted to Miss Barbara Green, Keeper of Archaeology at the Castle ::\luseum, Norwich, whose generosity is one of the many exemplary things about that museum. She has sup plied me with a great deal ofinformation and I owe a lot to discussions with her. 3 J. ::\1. Lambert and others, Afakinf', ofthe Broads (Royal Geog. Soc. 1960); C. Green, I am similarly obliged to Mr Alan Carter, whose archaeological '.,"ork for the Antiquity, xxxv(1961), 21-8. Norwich Survey is making discoveries of fundamental importance for the early 4 The Roman roads on map I are based on the OS map of Roman Britain (3rd edn) history of Norwich. Miss Rachel Young, formerly Deputy Director of the Norwich and ex. inf. 11iss Barbara Green. For such roads within Norwich see below p. 2. Museums, very kindly read a draft of the present paper and made helpful sugges 5 For land communications see also below p. 2 I ; for the map of I 5 85, Streets, I 19. tions. Mr A. B. Whittingham and Mrs H. Dunn have supplied useful information 6 J. E. G.Mosby, The Land ofBritain (Part 70): J\"orfolk(1938). and comments. 7 Defoe, Tours (Everyman edn 1962), i, 63; Lambert, op. cit. 141; Regesta iii, no. 175 2 For water communications see below pp. 20- I. for extensive sheep-rearing on these marshes in the early 12th century. Copyright text NOR\\"ICI-I eenth centun~ there was a contrast between the largeh~ pastoral agricul Bridge going westwards towards St Benedict's Gates and on is known. ture of this 'wood and pasture' area and the largeh' arable agriculture of The course of any north-south road or roads there may have been is a the lighter soils of the 'corn and sheep' area to the north. 8 ~of\vich had matter for guesswork. The most likely crossing points for such roads are good arable land, even~ kind of grazing, timber, fish, chalk, flint and iron Fye Bridge and Coslam·. In I 896 there was found a massive timber cause fairly near at hand. 9 It is likely that its development as a centre of way, a hundred yards long, linking the higher ground on either side of regional trade was aided b,' its position at the meeting point of areas the river at Fye Bridge. If, as is possible, this was Roman, then a major whose various soils and resources led to economic specialization. Roman road ran here. But the causeway remains undated and such faint The cit" gre\\' up where gravel and chalk plateaux and ridges approach evidence as there is suggests a late Saxon date. Two Roman roads may the Wensum valle,'; a site of a kind which often proyed attracti,~e to have run to Norwich from the south. One could ha,~e come from the early settlers. The southern plateau has a yery steep eastern slope which neighbourhood of Venta, crossing the Yare at Trowse. 13 Another could almost reaches the river. Streams, of which the most important was have come along the line ofthe later London road ria Thetford and would probably the later Great Cockey, ran into either bank. The ease with presumably have crossed the Yare at Cringleford. The framework for which the river could have been crossed and the availabilit\, of the \'alle\' h,'pothesis about north-south Roman roads through :\orwich is thus set for settlement would have depended on the water-level; at present there b\~ two possible crossing points on the \V'ensum and two on the Yare. 14 is little precise knowledge of its fluctuations.

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