The Norwich Road: An East Anglian HighwayHarper, Charles G. (Charles George)
History
The Norwich Road: An East Anglian Highway
Harper, Charles G. (Charles George)
England -- Description and travel; Norwich Road
Among other coaches, "Gurney's Original Day Coach" and the "Phenomenon"
favoured the "Angel," in the Market Place, while the "Times" house was
the "Norfolk Hotel," in St Giles's, and that of the "Expedition" the
"Swan" Inn. Other inns, many of them huddled together under the lee of
the castle mound, were then to be found in the Market Place and the
Haymarket and in the narrow alley in the rear that still goes by name
of "Back of the Inns." Others yet, many of mediæval age, are to be
sought in old nooks of the city. The Pilgrim's Hostel, now the Rosemary
Tavern, like the "Old Barge," belongs to the fourteenth century, the
last named still standing between King Street and the river, with
a picturesque but battered entrance. The steep and winding lane of
Elm Hill, where the slum population of Norwich stew and pig together
down ancient courts and dirty alleys, has more inns, ramshackle but
unrestored; and in the wide open space by the cathedral, dolefully
called Tombland, although it has not, nor ever had, anything to do
with tombs, is the "Maid's Head," the one establishment in Norwich
that stands pre-eminently for old times and good cheer. It is an
"hotel" now, and has the modern conveniences of sanitation and electric
light; but its restoration, effected through the enthusiasm of a
local antiquary, with both the opportunity of purchasing the property
and the means of doing so, has been carried through with taste and
discrimination. The "Maid's Head" can with certainty claim a history
of six hundred years, and is thought to have been built upon the site
of a former Bishop's Palace. Heavily-raftered ceilings and masonry of
evident antiquity may take parts of the present house back so far, or
even a greater length, but the especial pride of the "Maid's Head" is
its beautiful Jacobean woodwork. The old sign of the house was the
"Molde Fish," or "Murtel Fish," a name that antiquaries still boggle
at. It was long a cherished legend that this strange and unlovely name
was changed to the present sign in complimentary allusion to Queen
Elizabeth when she first visited the city, but later researches have
proved the change to have been made at least a century earlier, and so
goes another belief!
The "Music House," facing the now disreputable King Street, has not
for so very long been an inn. Its name tells of a time when it was the
meeting-place of the "city music," old-time ancestors of modern town
bands, but its story goes back to the Norman period, when the crypt
that bears up the thirteenth-century building above was part of the
home of Moyses, a Jew, and afterwards of Isaac, his nephew. "Isaac's
Hall," as it was known, was seized by King John and given to one of
his creatures; the unhappy Israelites doubtless, if they were allowed
to live at all, finding cool quarters in the castle dungeons. A long
succession of owners, including the Pastons, followed; last among them
Coke, afterwards Lord Chief Justice, who resided here in 1633.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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