Colegate
Colegate Off Colegate, near
Magdalen Street, and almost hidden away at the end of an
alley, is the Old Meeting House (left), tenuously
surviving in a part of the city where depopulation has
occurred. Its history is a fascinating one; I suppose it
really started in l580 when Robert Browne, considered as
the founder of Congregationalism, visited Norwich. He,
together with Richard Harrison, began a campaign on
behalf of New Testament principles, which soon brought
together a gathering of likeminded people, but after a
year of persecution they were compelled to go abroad.
Nothing more is heard until fifty years later; in 1638
the Rev. William Bridge, rector of St Peter Hungate and
curate of St George Tombland, was ejected and fled to
Holland as a result of Bishop Wren’s enforcement of
Roman Catholic principles. After two years he was able to
return with other exiles and in 1644 the church at
Norwich was instituted. The Rev. Timothy Armitage became
its first minister.At first its adherents met in private houses, afterwards in a granary in the old Black Friars’ monastery, and then in a house in St Edmund’s parish, which was fitted up as a chapel. At last in 1693 the present building was erected, and it has remained very little altered since that time. Of brick and tile construction, it has a south facade supported by four Corinthian pilasters, with a double row of early sash windows, a central sundial, and an entrance at either end. Its interior is galleried, and although the seats have been remodelled the pulpit is original, as is the clock. Among other furniture is a pulpit chair belonging to John Cromwell; he was a cousin of Oliver Cromwell and was minister here in 1645. At first there was no organ; all hymns were started by a pitch-pipe which the church still has – it also retains the singing-master’s stick. Modern items include mace and swordrests, secured on a board on which is painted the city arms and lettering recording the Lord Mayoralty of Councillor Charles Watling in 1938. Faced with mounting maintenance costs, the congregation agreed in 1975 that the City Council should take over the building and its graveyard on a 99-year lease at £1 per year rent. In the meantime services of the Congregational persuasion continue to be held here on the second Sunday afternoon of each month other than January and February. |
  Having spent some time at the old Meeting House, we cannot pass by the neighbouring Octagon Chapel (above) without a glance. When the Black Friars came to Norwich in 1226 they chose this site for their first home, but in 1307 they acquired the property of the Sack Friars, whose order had just been suppressed, in the parish of St Peter Hungate. However, after a serious fire in 1413 they had to return to their Colegate site, where they remained until 1449, by which time rebuilding was sufficiently advanced to allow them back into their premises on the south side of the river. |
 The chapel now occupying
the site was designed by Thomas Ivory for the English
Presbyterians, and the first stone was laid on 25th
February 1754 by, Dr John Taylor, the congregation’s
minister since 1733. A book by his grandson John,
continued by his son Edward and published in 1848, gives
the early history of the Norwich congregation and
describes the chapel thus:The building is an Octagon, the
roof being supported by eight fluted columns of the
Corinthian order, which were marbled by an eminent artist
from London. The ceiling is a dome, supported by eight
arches resting upon columns, divided into corresponding
compartments, and ornamented in the centre by a boldly
projecting flower. The pews are all wainscot, and the
staircases solid blocks of oak. None of the pews were
allowed to be lined; and a resolution was passed at a
vestry meeting protesting against the interment of any
corpse within the building, a recommendation which has
been scrupulously attended to up to the present time.
During the building of the chapel, divine service was
performed at the French Protestant church... The difficulties encountered by the building committee when selecting an architect are recounted in the chapel minute books and have been described at length by Stanley Wearing in Norfolk Archeaology Volume 21. The Octagon chapel is now used by the Unitarians as their place of worship; past members of the congregation include such eminent names as the Opies, Martineaus and Mottrams. Facing up nearby Calvert Street from the south side of Colegate is the Merchants Tavern, formerly the Black Boys, and adjoining it to the west was Black Boys Yard (pictured) where, in a building at the rear, during the first half of the nineteenth century, Miss Sarah Ann Glover held her school. She was an excellent teacher, but her chief claim to fame was her invention of the Norwich Sol-fa system of music notation on which John Curwen’s Tonic Sol-fa was largely based. Miss Glover’s father was the rector of St Lawrence’s church and formerly preserved in a room above its porch, but now transferred to St Peter HungateChurch museum, is a curious instrument, which she is said to have used when teaching her pupils. It consists of a long narrow mahogany box containing a drumstick and a number of pieces of glass, the latter attached to two pieces of string to enable them to give forth various musical notes when struck. Text and photographs Copyright © G.A.F.Plunkett 2001 |