Through glass: Norwich 1960s – part 3, churches.

Through glass

There aren’t many of churches in the Phoenix collection, but what there are are fairly interesting. A selection and also some of the archaeological dig in near the Garth at Blackfriars and the Art College, Norwich. Norwich in the 1960s Part 3 St Helen’s...

Through glass: Norwich 1963 – The Phoenix slides part 1.

Through glass

This is the first of a series of posts. These will be based around a collection of found photographs which were pointed out to me by a friend in possession of someone else I know who didn’t really know what to do with them. These were picked up at a jumble sale;...

Hidden History: The forgotten chapel

Hidden history

Ring-roads, go round and past. Nature of the beast I suppose, circling. Norwich is blessed with ever-increasing circles; from the old castle ditches and the fee to the city wall and the inner link roads, out to the proper ring-road now forming into another ripple of...

Blitz in Colour: The British Gas Light Company, Dereham Road

Colourising, The Blitz

Post-April 27th 1942,  this was the scene at the corner of Heigham Road and Dereham Road in Norwich during some kind of clear up work, probably to do with the gas supply. The whole crossroads here was badly damaged, the pub to the rear of the picture made of sturdy...

Blitz in Colour: Dereham Road Baptist Church 1942

Colourising, The Blitz

Opened in 1904. Closed temporarily in 1942 during the Baedeker Raids. Sources point at this being a result of the first raid on the Monday night; the 27th of April; this would fit the pattern of most of the bombing being of the north and north-western sectors of the...

Blitz Ghosts: Church of St Julian Norwich

Rephotography, The Blitz

One of the best known Blitz victims in Norwich, because of it’s famous St Julian thing. Hit head on by a 250kg, it was all but obliterated as you can see. Beautifully rebuilt, and a fabulous little church, even if you don’t do the whole religion thing...

Blitz Ghosts: St Michael at Thorn

Rephotography, The Blitz

St Michael at Thorn, or it was, just behind the Archant building, sort of opposite or adjacent to the shops that survived the flame-grilling of Bonds in April 1942, this is 11 years before the bombs fell in 1931. So I’m standing roughly, within a foot or so of...

Blitz Ghosts: St Benedicts Church

Rephotography, The Blitz

Quite hidden away, a poor little thing. The tower is still there, preserved like like a thick flint chimney, or a Cloigtheach except no bells ring here, It reminds me of Messines in Flanders too. It’s set in some grass just off St Benedicts Street, behind a new...

Blitz in Colour: Rampant Horse Street 30 April 1942

Colourising, The Blitz

Rampant Horse Street in the aftermath of the second night of the Baedeker raids on Norwich, The Luftwaffe bombed across the centre of Norwich using incendiaries. There were too many individual fires for the wardens to put them all out the fire spread from building to...

Blitz Ghosts: Aylsham Road

Rephotography, The Blitz

Aylsham Road, Norwich, April 1942 and nearly now. There are two pictures of the area. Both I believe taken by George Swain. The top Blitz Ghost is the first one I ever did, and the bottom one is the last. A 500kg landed here, it blew the front out of all the houses in...

Norwich: “Brightest shining of the city” – part 1

Georeferencing, Hidden history

We live here. It is easy to forget where Norwich comes from, we take our surroundings for granted; a city that has grown from virtually nothing over the last 1200 years. A scattering of people living on  gravel terraces above a bend in a river in wooden houses, living...

Hidden History: The Mousehold heath air crashes

Hidden history

It’s an odd little memorial just off the side of the Road near the football pitches near Gilman Road. I’m not entirely sure of the circumstances either. Mousehold was at the time a dummy airfield chances are that either plane could have been making that...