This piece of wall on Edward Street in Norwich is just to the rear of Access to Music. It’s has puzzled me for years, it’s clearly a relict piece of something. What has always seemed odd about it is the angle compared to the road line – it juts out almost into the path. I’ve snapped away at it over the years meaning to try and work it out. so this time I made an overlay of the 1885 map and a modern aerial, and it’s clearly a wall from a range of buildings which stood behind the previous version of what is now Cactus Jacks, which previously had been the Queen’s Arms. The pub or cafe we know now dates to 1960 despite its look, the previous incarnation is recorded as far back as 1839, but may well predate that as not all pubs had proper licences, or were in fact often not legitimate and records can be incomplete. In some instances and I suspect the case here is, it started as a shop and then obtained a license.
Before Edward Street existed this was Minns Yard, it led nowhere other than towards the huge crape factory which straddled where the road is now. The yard was named after John Minns; the first listed legitimate licensee of the Queens Arms. He was a wine and spirit merchant, and a grocer, the Minns family ran it for three generations from 1839 to 1894 . The yard had a different trajectory, angled more towards where the junction of New Botolph Street is now although the entrance is the same position. This piece of wall aligns with the angle of the yard rather than the road.
It’s also composed of flint rubble, brick and other inclusions which does beg the question about where that material came from, and was it either All Saints church opposite the opening under the corner of Cowgate, the city wall, or St Margaret’s church now under Throckmorton Yard, or none of the above, which is the basic fucking joy of conjecture.
Map indicate the wall I’ve marked which does seem to have a buttress, and the wall has a vestige of one in the middle, but it’s an inexact science so it could be one of three. Why it was left and protected in the midst of all the concrete going up around it I don’t know, but I’m glad it was for some reason.
