St Paul’s Square
St Paul’s Square
A rookery
of disgraceful tenements in St Paul’s has been
demolished under the Artizans’ Dwelling Act, and a
colony of trim cottages erected in their place. This
improvement cost the city £10,000. Writing thirty years later, however, Mr F. T. Hibgame said: The most picturesque square in the whole city at that time [Norwich Fifty Years Ago] was St Paul’s, which showed a complete square of singularly quaint half-timbered houses. It looked very much then as no doubt it did in mediaeval times; but alas the jerry builder came along, down came all the old houses, and in their place arose dozens of hideous red-brick cottages, all exactly like one another, without a single thing to redeem their innate ugliness. |
Part of the site of the church was later absorbed into the inner link road, and the remainder was converted into a small public garden and children’s play area after levelling and removal of any human remains. Dedicated jointly to St Paul the apostle and St Paul the first Christian hermit, the church was of ancient foundation; the lower part of its round tower possibly of Norman origin. It formerly possessed an octagonal belfry, but this was taken down in 1819 and replaced with a shallow coping of white brick and stone. It was also about this time that two of its three bells were sold, one to Postwick, the other to Witton, two churches only a short distance apart. |
Most of the furnishings were modern, but there was a fine parclose screen occupying the easternmost bay of the arcading, formerly a chapel of St Mary; the screen had perpendicular tracery with arms and initials in shields above the doorway. Another portion of this screen had been used to close the tower arch at the west end of the nave. The historian Francis Blomefield identified the initials C. L. on the screen as being those of Christopher Lestrange, who had contributed towards its cost, and E. D. as those of Elizabeth Drury, who had also contributed and who was buried in the chancel in 1445. The font was octagonal, with narrow traceried recesses in the stem and a quatrefoil on each side of the bowl. The interior of the church had been renovated and repaired in 1921 and again in 1933, when the organ was overhauled. The building had not always been so well kept, however, as we learn from certain notes made by William Utten, the eighteenth-century public notary. In 1773 he recorded that the very path to the north door was overgrown with weeds, probably a matter of indifference to an indifferent parish, and that the drainage was from the graveyard to the church. Inside, the walls were green and filthy with pavements bad and rain coming into the vestry. Five years later he was still reporting that the pavements, doors, seats, walls and windows were all “wretched”. The gallery was out of repair and its removal was recommended on safety grounds; the tower was “bad” and the churchyard walls falling down. |
Text and photographs Copyright © G.A.F.Plunkett 2001 |
Barrack Street formerly continued
across Cowgate, terminating at Peacock Street. On its
northern side stood St Paul’s Church with its
round Norman tower, gutted by incendiary bombs in the
early morning of 27th June 1942; after standing as a
roofless ruin it was demolished ten years later, despite
pleas that the tower should remain. Of the square
surrounding the churchyard, William White in his Norfolk
Directory (1883) wrote:
Nos 23-33 Barrack Street (right)
were contiguous to the south side of St Paul’s
Square and but a few yards away - perhaps the photograph
will allow us to make our own judgment as the houses
themselves were cleared away just before the Second World
War.
The remainder of the building, which
consisted of a nave without clerestory, a north aisle and
a rib-vaulted south porch with chamber above, was largely
late fifteenth century in style. A small apsidal chancel
had been added in 1870.
Apart from its architectural merits,
this church was of particular interest in that originally
it served not only the parish but also a hospital for
poor strangers, vagrants, sick and impotent folk. Founded
between 1118 and 1145 (over a century before its sister
institution, the Great Hospital) it became known as
Norman’s Spital from a monk of that name who was one
of its earliest masters. In 1571 it was occupied as the
city bridewell, but this use ceased after 1583 when
William Appleyard’s old house in St Andrew’s
was converted to that purpose. Claude Messent recorded in
1934 that certain remains of old walls and re-used
materials in later buildings could still be seen to the
south of the square, but all was finally swept away by
the construction of the inner link road in 1970.