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
1
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
2
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.
3
Figure 1. The Study Area, showing West Earlham to the north and UEA to the south. 4
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 postwar 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 PostMedieval 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.
5
Figure 2. The locations of the HER entries discussed in the text. 6
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 7
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).
8
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 9
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).
10
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 northwest 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 11
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. 12
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.
13
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 14
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.
15
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 16
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 earlynineteenth 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 17
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 earthmoving, 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 18
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 sixteenthcentury date (Figure 16). People scarcely notice it: yet it the oldest living thing in Earlham.
19
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
20
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
21
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 highexplosive 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.
22
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 2006 1995 1982 1971 1957 1951 1938 1929 1919 1887
SCALE 1:10,000 1:10,000 1:10,000 OS 6” OS 6” OS 6” OS 6” OS 6” OS 6” OS 6”
SHEET MasterMap TG10NE TG10NE TG10NE TG10NE LXIII SW LXIII SW (Special Emergency Edition) LXIII SW LXIII SW 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 23
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 24
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.
25
Figure 21. The Study Area in 2006, highlighting in red the features which had appeared since the 1995 map was drawn. 26
Figure 22. The Study Area highlighting features of the 1995 map which were not shown on the 1982 map. 27
Figure 23. The Study Area highlighting features of the 1982 map which were not shown on the 1971 map. 28
Figure 24. The Study Area highlighting features of the 1971 map which were not shown on the 1957 map. 29
Figure 25. The Study Area highlighting features of the 1957 map which were not shown on the 1951 map. 30
Figure 26. The Study Area highlighting features of the 1951 map which were not shown on the 1938 map. 31
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
32
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.
33
Figure 28. The Study Area highlighting features of the 1938 map which were not shown on the 1929 map. 34
Figure 29. The Study Area highlighting features of the 1929 map which were not shown on the 1919 map. 35
Figure 30. The Study Area highlighting features of the 1919 map which were not shown on the 1887 map. 36
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. 37
Figure 32. The 1887 Ordnance Survey map of the study area.
38
Figure 33. The Study Area as depicted on the Earlham tithe map of 1846.
39
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.
40
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.
41
Figure 35. The location of the trees discussed in the text. 42
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.
43
