forgotten heritage: the landscape history of the norwich...

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Forgotten Heritage: the landscape history of the Norwich suburbs A pilot study. Rik Hoggett and Tom Williamson, Landscape Group, School of History, University of East Anglia, Norwich.

This project was commissioned by the Norwich Heritage, Economic and Regeneration Trust and supported by the East of England Development Agency

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Introduction

Over recent decades, English Heritage and other government bodies have become

increasingly concerned with the cultural and historical importance of the ordinary, ‘everyday’

landscape. There has been a growing awareness that the pattern of fields, roads and

settlements is as much a part of our heritage as particular archaeological sites, such as ancient

barrows or medieval abbeys. The urban landscape of places like Norwich has also begun to be

considered as a whole, rather than as a collection of individual buildings, by planning

authorities and others. However, little attention has been afforded in such approaches to the

kinds of normal, suburban landscapes in which the majority of the British population actually

live, areas which remained as countryside until the end of the nineteenth century but which

were then progressively built over. For most people, ‘History’ resides in the countryside, or in

our ancient towns and cities, not in the streets of suburbia.

The landscape history of these ordinary places deserves more attention. Even relatively recent

housing developments have a history – are important social documents. But in addition, these

developments were not imposed on a blank slate, but on a rural landscape which was in some

respects preserved and fossilised by urbanisation: woods, hedges and trees were often retained

in some numbers, and their disposition in many cases influenced the layout of the new roads

and boundaries; while earlier buildings from the agricultural landscape usually survived.

Moreover, fashionable cities like Norwich were often fringed by concentrations of country

houses and landscape parks, elements of which were also often retained when areas were

developed. What is particularly interesting is that elements of the old agricultural landscape

were often preserved in suburban areas better than in the ‘real’ countryside, especially in

intensively arable areas like Norfolk, where hedges, trees and woods were often removed

wholesale in the second half of the twentieth century.

Raising public awareness of the historical importance of these ‘ordinary’ landscapes is

important for a number of reasons. It helps foster a sense of place; it adds a layer of interest

and social value to the environment experienced by the majority of the population; and it

encourages the preservation of historically important but otherwise neglected historical

features. In the case of Norwich, such ‘suburban’ areas are extensive, occupying the space

between the medieval city walls and the open countryside. The following pages describe some

aspects of the landscape history and archaeology of an area of west Earlham, on the western

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fringes of Norfolk. This project was commissioned by the Norwich Heritage, Economic and

Regeneration Trust and supported by the East of England Development Agency. It is not

intended as a complete study: had time and resources been available, more attention would

have been paid to the character and significance of the streets and houses constructed here in

the course of the twentieth century. But this pilot project does give some indication of how a

larger study might approach the landscape history of superficially uninteresting pieces of

suburbia.

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Figure 1. The Study Area, showing West Earlham to the north and UEA to the south.

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The Study Area

As can be seen in Figure 1, the study area embraces a substantial area of Earlham parish.

Beginning in the north, its boundary is defined by the line of Bowthorpe Road as it runs

south-east to join the Five Ways roundabout. It then follows Bluebell Road southwards until it

meets the south-western extent of the grounds of the University of East Anglia. The boundary

then turns west, to follow the line of the River Yare upstream towards the north-west, under

the Earlham Road bridge, before turning north again along the line of the Earlham parish

boundary, back to the Bowthorpe Road. The area so defined encompasses the UEA campus,

Earlham Park, several patches of marshland, areas of woodland and a large amount of post-

war council housing. Within the study area there are a number of significant standing

buildings, ranging from the medieval church, through Earlham Hall, to the buildings of the

UEA itself. There is also an assortment of surviving earthworks, particularly within Earlham

Park. There has never been any significant archaeological work conducted here, although a

number of discoveries have been made by chance and reported to the authorities. Now a

predominantly urban suburb of Norwich, the study area was very well mapped from the late

nineteenth century onwards, and some earlier maps also survive.

History in the Garden

People usually think of archaeological artefacts as things which are found on excavations, or

which might be recovered from the surface of fields in the open countryside, through metal

detecting or ‘fieldwalking’ – the process of carefully examining the surface of the ploughsoil to

recover pottery and other debris indicating the sites of early settlement. But finds of prehistoric

flint or pottery can also be made in the suburbs, and gardens have yielded important finds.

A search of the Norfolk Historic Environment Record (HER) – the official archaeological

archive for the county - reveals that a number of important finds have been made in the study

area. Yet only one piece of deliberate archaeological work has been conducted here: a

‘watching brief’ carried out in 1993 in the area of Earlham Lodge, which revealed Post-

Medieval tile and very little else (NHER 29915). All of the other archaeological finds

discussed below have been discovered accidentally, suggesting that the potential for

archaeological discoveries within the study area is very high, and that by raising awareness of

the kinds of artefacts likely to turn up in gardens a great deal of important archaeological

evidence could be recovered.

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Figure 2. The locations of the HER entries discussed in the text.

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Figure 3. The Neolithic flint axehead from UEA (NHER 9321). 1:1.

Four axeheads from the Neolithic period (the ‘new stone age’, the period between around

4000 and 2300 BC) have been found. In 1950 a flint axehead was discovered in the garden of

7 Hanbury Close (NHER 9320) and was subsequently donated to Norwich Castle Museum

(NCM108.950). Similarly, the cutting end of a polished flint axe was discovered in the garden

of 25 Wycliffe Road in 1958 (NHER 9319). A chipped flint axehead was discovered

protruding from the footpath near to the UEA Broad in 1988 (NHER 24993). Another,

partly-polished flint axe was handed in by workmen during the construction of a new road at

UEA in 1992 and is illustrated in Figure 3 (NHER 9321). That four such axes should have

been discovered within such a small study area, none of them the result of deliberate

archaeological activity, is clearly indicative of a high level of activity within the area during the

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Neolithic period. These finds are paralleled by numerous other discoveries from the

surrounding area, all pointing towards an extensive Neolithic occupation of the river valley.

The discovery of polished examples is suggestive of a relatively high-status presence, further

strengthened by the discovery during the construction of the UEA Broad in 1977 of a

perforated stone mace-head of Neolithic or possible Bronze Age date, illustrated in Figure 4

(NHER 13215).

Evidence of Neolithic activity within the study area has been discovered at six other sites. A

flint borer was found in the woods adjacent to Bluebell Road in 1974 (NHER 9378) and an

awl was found in an area of redeposited rubbish in 1975, although only its very general

location was noted (NHER 9402). A flint scatter including cores and scrapers was found on

the surface at the Bluebell Road Nurseries in 1977 (NHER 13410), the material was

subsequently lodged with Norwich Castle Museum (NCM98.987). Further flints, including

cores, scrapers and worked flakes were discovered nearby in the spoil thrown up while digging

the UEA Broad in 1977 (NHER 13411), these too are now in Norwich Castle Museum

(NCM94.978). A number of other worked flints discovered on the UEA site were reported in

1981, including a core, scraper and worked flakes, although their precise locations and dates

of discovery are unknown (NHER 17457). Finally, a broken flint core was reported from the

area in 2001, although again the circumstances and date of its discovery are unknown (NHER

36575).

It is also possible that the giant deer antlers discovered under six feet of peat while sewers were

being dug at UEA in 1990 are also prehistoric; they were reported as such in the local press at

the time (Eastern Daily Press 21/11/1990), but the find does not appear to have been

followed up by any of the archaeological authorities (NHER 25913).

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Figure 4. The perforated stone mace-head from the UEA Broad (NHER 13215). 1:1.

The Bronze Age – the period between c.2300 and 700 BC – is also represented within the

study area, although to a much lesser extent that the Neolithic. Two tanged and barbed flint

arrowheads have been discovered. The first was discovered 1969 in a sandpit (or possibly a

golf course bunker) in the UEA area (NHER 9321) and is now in Norwich Castle Museum

(NCM363.969). The second was found in a flowerbed in 1997, although it is not very

precisely located (NHER 33057). An 8cm long Late Bronze Age copper spearhead was

discovered in the garden of 21 Wakefield Road in 1958 (NHER 9322): it too is now in

Norwich Castle Museum (NCM109.958). It is telling that all three Bronze Age artefacts from

the study area are projectile points, two arrows and a spear, all of which could conceivably

have been lost while hunting and need not represent any kind of permanent settlement.

Only three HER entries record Roman evidence from the study area. In 1947 sewage

trenches dug during the construction of the new housing estate cut through a Roman refuse

pit approximately 50cm below the surface (NHER 9323). The pit contained a number of

pieces of Roman pottery, including at least two sherd of greyware which are now in Norwich

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Castle Museum (NCM116.947). The other Roman find was made in 1964, when a copper

Roman coin of the House of Constantine was found in the garden of 31 Calthorpe Road

(NHER 9324). While the coin may be considered a stray-find, the presence of the refuse pit

probably suggests settlement in the area – presumably a small farm of some kind. A Roman

coin and a bronze hair pin with a faceted head were discovered with a metal-detector outside

Earlham Lodge in 1993 (NHER 9413)

The only Anglo-Saxon artefact to be reported from the study area is a silver penny of

Harthacnut, dating to c.1040-42, discovered in the footings for a garden wall at 107 St

Mildred’s Road in 1982 (NHER 18830).

Human remains of an unknown date were reportedly discovered by two schoolboys digging in

a sandpit in 1955 (NHER 9389). The bones were described as ‘ancient’ and given that the

sandpit lies to the extreme east of the study area, well away from the churchyard, it seems

likely that they must have pre-dated the Christian era. Another records legends of battles

associated with Bunker Hill, in the north-west corner of the study area, and also notes the

possible discovery of human remains at this spot (NHER 12290). No references are given for

these associations and there is no further discussion, but it is possible that the stories stem from

the hill’s being named after Bunker Hill, Massachusetts, scene of a famous battle of the

American Revolutionary War in 1775.

Historic Buildings and Designed Landscapes

Archaeologists are not only interested in artefacts, or even in very ancient remains, from the

Roman or prehistoric periods. They also record, interpret and seek to preserve ‘standing

buildings’. Many buildings of medieval or post-medieval date have been preserved within the

suburban landscape. In the case of the Earlham study area, there are four principal examples:

the parish church of St Mary (NHER 9326); the Church Farmhouse/Earlham Lodge

complex next to the church (NHER 9413); the dovecote on the opposite side of the road

(NHER 9414); and Earlham Hall (NHER 9412). Of these, the last two form part of a wider

historic landscape of considerable importance – Earlham Park, arguably one of the most

important designed landscapes within the Norwich area.

The church of St Mary lies at TG19030830 and is a Grade I listed building (Figures 5 and 6).

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Figure 5. St Mary’s Church, Earlham, from the south-west.

It is a small building of flint and brick, comprising a western tower, nave, chancel, south porch

and north transept. The tower is square, built of flint and red brick and has a stair-turret at its

north-east corner. There is a change of building style below the belfry stage, suggesting that

the tower was heightened, and the brick battlements are clearly a later addition. Pevsner and

Wilson (1997, 344-5) note that the north and south tower windows have internal splays

suggestive of a Norman date, but that the north tower window is now blocked. The north-

west corner of the nave exhibits stone long-and-short style quoins, a kind of construction

technique which can be of Anglo-Saxon (pre-Conquest) date, although nobody has claimed

this in this particular case. The nave, chancel and transept all have Y-tracery windows and

there is a blocked north door in the nave. The gable and outer arch of the porch have been

renewed, and Mortlock and Roberts believe that its height suggests that there was once an

upper room above it (1985, 34). The roof of the nave has clearly been lowered at some point,

evidenced by the surviving traces of its earlier line on the eastern face of the tower. The roof

is now lead, although the north transept has a tiled roof, a north door of its own and once

contained an altar, for there is a squint through into the chancel. The exterior of the chancel

is rendered, but its interior contains 14th century blank arcading and there is a blocked 16th

century priest’s door on its north side. Inside, there is a 19th century western gallery, an

octagonal Decorated font and a Decorated rood screen, served by stairs in the south-east

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corner of the nave. The lectern is made from a recycled angel from a hammerbeam roof and

there is an alabaster monument to six Bacon children, removed from the demolished St Giles

in the Fields in London and set on the north wall of the chancel.

Figure 6. St Mary’s Church, Earlham, from the north-east.

Figure 7. The southern elevation of Church Farmhouse, facing onto the churchyard.

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Facing onto the north side of the churchyard is Church Farmhouse, a Grade II listed building.

(Figure 7). The core of the building is 16th century, with later 17th century alterations, and it is

constructed from flint rubble and a timber frame, although now heavily restored. It has

octagonal chimneys and the upper storey is slightly jettied (i.e., projects forward above the

ground floor) to the south. The building complex is arranged in a T-plan, the north-south

running arm being known as Earlham Lodge (Figure 8). The HER ascribes it a late-17th or

18th century date to the Lodge, which has an early 19th century eastern façade.

Figure 8. Earlham Lodge viewed from the east.

Earlham Hall lies in the middle of Earlham Park: this probably does not occupy the site of the

original manor house, which was almost certainly on the site of the present Earlham Lodge.

This was described as ‘much dilapidated’ in c.1750 by which time it had presumably become

a farmhouse. Earlham Hall itself is often said to have been built in 1642, but there is good

evidence for an earlier building in the gable wall below the dated tie-irons. Further evidence

for the existence of this early building is found inside, where its front wall and that of an

adjoining 16th century block now form one side of an internal passage. On the ground floor

this wall has been cut away so that, but for the insertion of modern steel beams, the wall

would be hanging in mid-air.

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By 1642, the date of a major reconstruction, the house had probably been in the hands of the

Houghton family for over 25 years, the previous owners (the Hobarts) having moved to their

newly built Blickling Hall c.1619. The Hall and estate were owned by the Waller family from

1657 until 1682 and by the Bacons from 1682 until 1786, when it passed to the Franks. The

Franks never lived in the house, but leased it to the Gurney family until 1912.

The building has been substantially altered since 1642 but something of its appearance can be

gleaned from two later drawings of c.1725 and 1755. It seems that wings were added at both

ends of the building, that a hall (or perhaps a chapel) was built in the position of the present

drawing room wing, and that the building was possibly widened by the addition of a corridor

along the north side. These alterations are clearest in the dated western gables where the new

work can be seen above and to the left of the 16th century gable. The old east-west roof was

truncated and a new north-south one put in, extending from the new wing over the west end

of the old building.

Figure 9. Earlham Hall by Humphrey Prideaux, c.1725.

The earliest surviving drawing of Earlham Hall was made by Humphrey Prideaux in c.1725

(Figure 9). His sketch is drawn from the far side of the Norwich-Watton road and shows the

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north front of the hall framed by an avenue and with a large block of mature trees –

presumably a wilderness – adjoining the house to the west. The house was surrounded by

fields and a dovecote is depicted in the foreground, probably the same dovecote as still stand

in the park today although moved by the artist as it would otherwise not be visible from his

vantage point. The Prideaux drawing is difficult to interpret but shows that the building had

already achieved the form that was to be more accurately recorded in the 1750s.

Unfortunately, the east end of the building (left on the picture), which is the least well

understood part of the building, is obscured by trees. However, it apparently shows both an

extension to the 1641 east wing and the existence of a kitchen (marked by massive chimneys)

on the site of the present one. Further east again is shown a 17th century barn now

incorporated into the 18th century stable block. It is possible that the corridor added to the

north side of the building dates to this period rather than to 1641. This would fit well with

what is know of Waller Bacon’s life, for having remarried childless in 1703, he took over the

house at his mother’s death in 1712, fathered four children and had an active parliamentary

career between 1715 and 1734. His family and professional commitments together could

easily have provided the stimulus to extend the building.

Figure 10. A tracing of the 1829 estate map.

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By the 1790s a landscape park had been laid out around the hall, for it is shown, somewhat

schematically, on William Faden’s county map of 1797, apparently covering an area of about

80 hectares. However, an estate map of 1829 (Figure 10) suggests that by this date, at least,

some of the southern, outer part of this area was divided into fields, some apparently under

arable cultivation, although interspersed with clumps and plantations, suggesting that this

area, although a part of the designed landscape, had more the character of ornamented

farmland than landscape park in the normal sense - indeed, there was no perimeter belt of

trees separating the ornamented farmland from the park proper. This was not an unusual

arrangement in an arable county like Norfolk (even the great Holkham Park included large

areas of arable land within its perimeter belts).

Figure 11. Earlham Park by Richenda Cunnington, 1841 (Norfolk Records

Office MS6256/T133F).

The core of the park covered c.35 hectares and featured a number of lines of trees. Some of

these represent relict field boundaries: when parks were laid out in the eighteenth and

nineteenth centuries, hedgerow trees were usually retained in some numbers as hedges were

removed, in order to provide an instant sylvan scene. But two lines seem to represent an

avenue running north-eastwards from the hall, serving as a main entrance. Another avenue,

not aligned on the hall, ran east-west through the north-west of the park, while a third ran

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north-east–south-west beside the river Yare. The Prideaux sketch does not show these

avenues, whereas a sketch of 1841 by Richenda Cunningham (Figure 11) depicts one of them

with young trees, suggesting that they may have been planted in the late-eighteenth or early-

nineteenth century. In addition to the main approach from the north-east, the map of 1829

also shows two carriage drives, one running directly north from the hall and one running

through the parkland to the south. The former is now devoid of trees, but survives as a very

distinct earthwork cut into the hillside (Figure 12, and highlighted in yellow on Figure 13).

Figure 12. The earthwork of the northern approach, looking north from the hall.

These features of the park had changed little by the time the Earlham Tithe Award was

drawn up in 1846 (Figure 33), but the first edition of the 6” Ordnance Survey of 1886 shows a

number of alterations to the park and the gardens (Figure 32). A perimeter belt had by now

been established along the southern boundary of the park, excluding views of the farmland in

this direction.

The pleasure grounds immediately surrounding the house are bounded by a ha ha with a

hedge planted in the bottom of it (highlighted in blue on Figure 13), probably a mid

eighteenth-century feature. More importantly, to the south and west of the house are a series

of earthwork terraces, preserved in the turf of the lawn. These are of considerable

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archaeological importance, for they seem to mark the site of formal geometric gardens,

probably early-eighteenth century date (Figure 14). Such gardens were very artificial in

character, and featured terraces, walls, and level areas occupied by lawns or parterrres –

geometric arrangements of planting and paths. Their creation therefore involved much earth-

moving, and – when their remains have not subsequently been intentionally levelled – they

can often survive, as here, as striking archaeological sites.

Figure 13. The earthworks of Earlham Park, highlighting features discussed in the text.

These are not the only earthworks associated with Earlham Hall, however. Within the park

there are a number of earthworks which relate to the landscape that existed before the park

was laid out in the eighteenth century – relics of a lost agricultural landscape. These a ‘hollow

way’ – a sunken linear feature representing the course of a lost road; and a number of old field

boundaries. Amorphous scarps in the north-west of the park relate to buildings which lined

the road and which were cleared away in the twentieth century. Figure 13 (drawn by

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Brendan Chester-Kadwell of the Landscape Group at UEA) shows the most important

earthworks which survive within the park.

Figure 14. A plan of the earthworks and ha has in the pleasure grounds at Earlham Hall.

It clearly shows the course of the hollow-way, highlighted in green, which runs from beyond

the southern extent of the park, disappears under the gardens and re-emerges to the north,

where it heads for the bridge over the river Yare (Figure 15). Also highlighted in red are the

upstanding remains of hedge-banks, remnants of the fields which existed prior to the creation

of the park: some of these may date back to the sixteenth century, or even earlier. In the far

south-west corner of the park, three trees still stand in a line on the top of one of these banks,

one of which is a massive pollarded oak with a circumference which suggests a sixteenth-

century date (Figure 16). People scarcely notice it: yet it the oldest living thing in Earlham.

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Figure 15. The earthworks of the hollow-way looking south from the hall garden.

Figure 16. Alignment of three trees on a hedge-bank in the park.

One striking feature of the park is the dovecote, which stands opposite the church at

TG19150822. It is built of brick and approximately 5m square and 9 metres high. The roof

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is pyramidal, slated and has a lantern-style opening on the top (Figure 17). The interior of the

building is lined with nesting boxes. The building is Grade II listed and both Wilson and

Pevsner (1997, 345) and the listing ascribe it an 18th century date, largely on the grounds that

a dovecote is shown to the north-east of the hall in Prideaux’s engraving of 1725, whereas the

present one stands to the north-west. This was probably an act of artistic licence on the part

of Prideaux, for the site of the present dovecote was not visible from his vantage point and he

may have altered his composition to include this important indication of status. Only manorial

lords, wealthy landowners, were allowed by law the right to erect a dovecote, so they were

proudly displayed. Sometimes they were sited close to the mansion, but here the location is

perhaps explained by the fact that the buildings is clearly visible to travellers crossing the

bridge over the river and approaching Norwich. It announced, as it were, the presence nearby

of a gentleman’s residence.

Figure 17. The Earlham Park dovecote from the north-west.

Earlham Park is thus full of archaeological and historical interest, with a wealth of fine trees of

eighteenth-, nineteenth- and twentieth-century date. The Earlham estate was owned by the

Waller family from 1657 until 1682, and from the Bacons 1682 to 1786, passing then to the

Franks; but the latter family never lived at the hall, and much of what we see in the park today

was the work of the Gurneys, who leased the hall throughout the nineteenth century, and up

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until 1912. It was they who, in the early part of the twentieth century, created the Rose

Garden to the east of the house, and the rockery/bamboo garden beside it, both of which

survive in good condition.

One other interesting feature of the park is of even more recent date. In the north-west

corner, at TG19050823, are the remains of a Spigot Mortar (or Blacker Bombard)

emplacement dating from 1940, set into an earthen bank and covering the strategically

important bridge across the river Yare (Figure 18). These weapons, which fired a 20lb high-

explosive mortar, were widely deployed by the Home Guard during WWII. The remains

comprise a concrete plinth with an embedded steel mount, on which the mortar would have

sat. There would have been a pit dug around the plinth, in which the operators would have

sat, but this appears to have been since filled in (Figure 19). There are very few examples of

these emplacements in Norwich, making this one particularly important.

Figure 18. The Earlham Park Spigot Mortar emplacement.

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Figure 19. A reconstruction of a Spigot Mortar in action.

The ‘Everyday’ Landscape

As already noted, the ‘everyday’ landscape of the suburbs is hardly noticed by historians and

archaeologists. The evolution of the different kinds of house in the West Earlham area cannot

be discussed in detail here, although a subject of immense interest and importance. What can

be discussed, however, is how this landscape developed over time, from the early nineteenth

century onwards.

Using the 2006 Ordnance Survey Master Map as a base-map, the following map sheets have

been used to ‘regress’ the area – that is, work backwards in time to show which features

originated when. In essence, this succession of maps allows us to peel back the layers of the

landscape, almost like excavating an archaeological site. The maps used were:

DATE SCALE SHEET 2006 1:10,000 MasterMap 1995 1:10,000 TG10NE 1982 1:10,000 TG10NE 1971 OS 6” TG10NE 1957 OS 6” TG10NE 1951 OS 6” LXIII SW 1938 OS 6” LXIII SW (Special Emergency Edition) 1929 OS 6” LXIII SW 1919 OS 6” LXIII SW 1887 OS 6” LXIII SW

Figures 21 and 23 to 31 show the steps of the map regression, using the modern ‘MasterMap’

(the digital on-line map produced by the Ordnance Survey) as a base and working backward

until all of the present landscape features are accounted for and ascribed a rough date of

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origin. On each map blue represents rivers and standing bodies of water, roads and tracks

are dark grey and buildings are shown in light grey. The features highlighted in red on

each map are new features – i.e., those which were not on the next earliest map in the

regression sequence: thus, for example, a feature coloured red on the 2006 map would not

have been shown on the 1995 map. As the sequence progresses backwards through time

those features which have already appeared in red, i.e. which post-date the current map, are

highlighted in green. The features highlighted in yellow on the 1971 map are those which

were only had their positions sketched onto the previous map of 1957, as they were then in

the process of being built. Likewise, on the 1957 map those same sketched features are

highlighted in yellow, whereas properly plotted new features are coloured red. Yellow is used

in the same way on the 1951 and 1938 maps, again where certain features were merely

sketched in by the surveyors.

Figure 20. The University Village photographed from the air in 1963, showing the original

buildings of the University, Earlham church in the foreground and the Earlham Park dovecote to the right.

Figure 21 shows the modern Ordnance Survey ‘MasterMap’ of the study area, with features

not present on the 1995 map highlighted in red: it is immediately apparent that the period

1995-2006 saw the construction of a large number of new buildings to the east and north of

the UEA campus, as well as a handful of buildings within the core of the university campus.

North of the Earlham Road, which divides the study area into two halves, a substantial

development comprising the University Village and a housing estate had also occurred, on the

site of what had been a part of the original university campus (later the ‘University Village’:

Figure 20). In addition to these major developments, it can be seen that a number of new

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houses were added to the streetscape during this period, in some cases representing rebuilding

on older sites, in others the slotting in of new structures between existing buildings.

Figure 22 highlights the features that appear on the 1995 Ordnance Survey map, but which

were not shown on the 1982 map. It can clearly be seen that the period 1982-1995 saw no

new building within the area of the West Earlham housing estates, while the UEA campus saw

the addition of an athletics track and a number of new buildings were constructed in and

around the core of the University. This period of relative stasis follows a period of more

intensive development, as can be seen from Figure 23, showing the features constructed

between 1971 and 1982. A large number of the buildings of the modern university campus

were constructed during this period and the UEA Broad was dug out. Within the West

Earlham estate a number of garages and several blocks of flats were also constructed.

Figure 24 shows the new features which appeared in the study area between 1957 and 1971, a

period which saw the construction of much of the housing in West Earlham and also the

beginning of the UEA campus. As noted above, all of the housing highlighted in yellow on

this map had appeared on the 1957, but only as sketched outlines of where the houses would

be, not as fully-surveyed features. Similarly, Figure 25, showing features constructed between

1951 and 1957, indicates that by the time of the updated survey the road network of the new

estate had been laid out and the first rows of houses completed, in the north-west corner of the

study area. Figure 26 shows features constructed between 1938 and 1951 and highlights the

beginning of construction of the road network in West Earlham, along with some of the first of

the council houses (these are shown on the map of 1938 but only schematically, as sketched

outlines). This figure is complemented by the 1946 vertical aerial photograph of the study

area (Figure 27), taken by the RAF, which captures the moment at which the road pattern

first began to be laid out. It also shows the pattern of field boundaries which existed at this

time, and also the municipal golf course, opened in 1932, which occupied what was to

become the site of the UEA campus.

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Figure 21. The Study Area in 2006, highlighting in red the features which had appeared

since the 1995 map was drawn.

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Figure 22. The Study Area highlighting features of the 1995 map which were not shown on

the 1982 map.

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the 1971 map.

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the 1957 map.

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the 1951 map.

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the 1938 map.

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Figure 27. The 1946 vertical aerial photographic survey of the study area.

The various maps presented here show clearly that the vast majority of the built environment

within the study area was constructed in the post-war period, between 1946 and the late 1950s

in the case of the housing estates and from the 1960s onwards in the case of the UEA campus.

Moving earlier in time, the pace of change is noticeably slower: we are now dealing with the

gradual development of an essentially agricultural landscape. Figure 28, showing features

appearing in the landscape between 1929 and 1938, thus show little change, other than the

proposed areas of new housing (again sketched in rather than fully surveyed by the OS).

Figure 29, showing features appearing between 1919 and 1929, show little change, other than

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in the gardens lying in the immediate vicinity of Earlham Hall. Figure 30, showing features

built between 1887 and 1919, only highlights the construction of a couple of new houses.

Figure 31 highlights the buildings within the study area which predate the 1887 OS map in

red. It also highlights those areas which have remained essentially undeveloped since 1887 (in

pink). The 1887 Ordnance Survey map itself is shown in Figure 32.

This is not the earliest map to show the entirety of the study area, however, The Earlham tithe

map of 1846 is reproduced in Figure 33; Figure 34 shows the same map, but with the modern

Ordnance Survey MasterMap of the study area superimposed upon it. This demonstrates

that despite the extensive urbanisation of the study area, a number of features and common

boundaries have been preserved: in particular, most of the large patches of woodland in the

study area survive, while the original course of Larkman Lane survives as a footpath, running

within a hollow way, which runs behind a row of houses in the centre of the study area.

Moreover, it is also apparent that the layout of the principal roads established in the course of

the twentieth century, and many of the principal property boundaries, either replicates, or

had their alignment strongly influenced by, the pattern of field boundaries and features in the

earlier, agricultural landscape.

‘The Fields Beneath’

The survivors from the old agricultural landscape fall into two broad categories: the remains

of old field boundaries (hedges and hedgerow trees); and woodland. Few of these features are

of any extreme antiquity. In the middle ages, and perhaps as late as the seventeenth century,

much of the land in the area was farmed as ‘open fields’, in which the holdings of individual

farmers took the form of unhedged, intermingled strips. These fields were probably enclosed

gradually, in piecemeal fashion, but – typically for the area – many boundaries were then

realigned during the agricultural revolution period, to make the kind of tidy, rational farming

landscape demanded by fashion. Some earlier boundaries survived, however, especially on the

sides of public rights of way like Larkman Lane.

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the 1929 map.

35


the 1919 map.

36


the 1887 map.

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Figure 31. The Study Area showing buildings which predate the 1887 map in red and

highlighting areas which have remained undeveloped since 1887 in pink.

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Figure 32. The 1887 Ordnance Survey map of the study area.

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Figure 33. The Study Area as depicted on the Earlham tithe map of 1846.

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Figure 34. The Earlham tithe map with the modern OS MasterMap overlaid.

Field Boundaries.

The field boundaries shown on the OS 6” of 1887 survive to a remarkable extent within the

West Earlham area. Sometimes the hedges have gone, but lines of tree remain: good examples

include the oaks along on the eastern side of the southern section of Wilberforce Road, once

the southern part of Larkman Lane; the oaks along Scarnell Road; and those (some more than

250 years old) on the southern side of Earlham Green Lane. Sometimes, only single trees

mark the line of a lost boundary, like the oak on the north side of Earlham Green Lane, or

that which stands on the corner of Taylor Road and Enfield Road.

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In other places, fragments of actual hedges remain. The central section of Larkman Lane

survives, as already noted, as a sunken footpath – a ‘hollow way’. It is lined with fragments of

ancient hedge, containing wych elm and hazel, as well as a number of large oaks. The

northern section of Larkman Lane (i.e., what we today call Larkman Lane) is bounded by a

rather purer hawthorn hedge, of relatively recent date (but nevertheless, predating the housing

here); and other field hedges survive in part along Bridge Farm lane and beside the alley

running parallel to Calthorpe Road.

Most of the hedgerow trees are of eighteenth or nineteenth-century date but some much older

examples also survive, such as the massive oak pollard at the junction of the Earlham Road

and Bluebell Lane (at the Five Ways roundabout).

The extent to which these fragments of the old field pattern remain in West Earlham is

remarkable, and it would be interesting to see if this is paralleled elsewhere in the Norwich

suburbs.

Woodland

The extent to which woodland has survived the process of suburbanisation is also surprising.

Indeed, virtually every area of woodland and plantation shown on the OS 6” of 1887 remains

to this today, albeit sometimes in degraded condition. Particularly striking in the modern

landscape are Long Grove, along the southern edge of Earlham Road, dominated by beech

trees; and the southern belt of Earlham Park, mainly oak and invasive sycamore. More

complex are the interconnected Twenty Acres Wood and Bunkers Hill, still remarkably intact

within the housing of West Earlham and a valued recreational resource. These are not areas

of ancient woodland but late eighteenth century plantations. They still retain elements of their

original planting: beech and oak with girths of three metres or more; sweet chestnut with

girths of as much as four metres; and sycamore with girths of 2.5 metres. There are also some

phenomenal examples of Scots pine, again with girths in some cases of three metres. There is

no trace of a coppiced understorey (unless the scattered examples of hazel represent its

remnants) and large areas are occupied, typically, by invasive sycamore.

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Figure 35. The location of the trees discussed in the text.

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The Way Forward.

This report is not intended to be a systematic and detailed study of the landscape history of

the Earlham area. In particular, as already noted, a more comprehensive piece of research

would pay more attention to the social history of the twentieth-century housing itself.

Nevertheless, we believe that the work presented here shows the extent to which the suburbs,

superficially uninteresting as they may be, are in reality packed with historical interest. How

might such work be taken further? Given adequate funding, we would aim to do the following.

• Extend the study to other parts of the Norwich suburbs.

• Compile a series of reports, written in an accessible style, which would be sent to the

relevant community groups. These would clearly indicate the features of historical

importance in each area, worthy of enhancement, preservation and (perhaps)

interpretation.

• Undertake a number of public lectures and walking tours to highlight the significance

of each community’s landscape heritage.

• Encourage closer links between local residents and the Portable Antiquities Scheme,

with a view to encouraging the recognition and reporting of garden finds.

• Send copies of reports to the city council planning department, to raise awareness of

the historical importance of the Norwich suburbs.

forgotten heritage: the landscape history of the norwich...

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