‘A rich thriving industrious place ...’

The city of Norwich has been a destination for generations of tourists. Here are a few impressions of the City recorded by visitors over the centuries.

Thomas Baskerville, 1681

‘As to Norwich, it is a great city, full of people the chief market-place of this city…. vastly full of provisions…..where I saw the greatest shamples for butcher’s meat I have ever yet seen, and the like also for poultry and dairy meats, which dairy people also bring many quarters of veal with thief butter and cheese, and I believe also in their seasons port and hog-meats…. And such kings of people as sell fish….viz. crabs , mackerell, flounders, very cheap, but lobster for sea fish and pile or jack for river fish were dear enough. Thye asked me for one pike under 2 foot, 2s and 6d and for a pot of pickles oysters they would have a shilling. Here I saw excellent oatmeal which being curiously hulled looked like French barley with great store of gingerbread and other edible things…….

Baskerville commented thus on the Duke of Norfolk’s palace in what is now Duke Street. ( it is ) seated in a dunghole place ………..though it had cost the Duke already £30,000 in building…. Hath but little room for garden and is pent on al sides both on this and the other side of the rive with tradesmen’s and dyers’ houses.’’

Celia Fiennes, 1698

‘The whole Citie lookes like what it is, a rich, thriving, industrious place’

A Tour through England and Wales, Daniel Defoe, 1723.

'If a stranger was only to ride thro' or view the city of Norwich for a day, he would ... think there was a town without inhabitants ... ; but on the contrary, if he was to view the city, either on a Sabbath day, or on any public occasion, he would wonder where all the people could dwell, the multitude is so great: But the case is this; the inhabitants being all busie at their manufactures, dwell in their garrets at their looms, and in their combing shops, so they call them twisting mills, and other workhouses; almost all the works they are employ'd in, being done within doors.'

The Journal of Marchioness Grey, 1750

‘I was disappointed in not being able to see any of their Manufactures at Norwich. I expected to have seen some kind of Public buildings for carrying them on, or large work-rooms belonging to the several weavers, but there is no such thing, and the workmen I was told all have their separate looms in their own houses; and mounting up into a Garret to see a single loom was not worthwhile….’

Report of the Assistant Commissioners for Hand Loom Weavers (1839 – 40)

‘And had thoughts of the men of Norwich had not been absorbed in party politics; long before now, the town would have had an efficient police force and the majesty of the law would have attained respect; enterprising men would then have ventured to establish machinery in their manufactures, which they have not dared to do. The probability is that, under such circumstances, the vast space of ground now empty within the wall; and much land in the vicinity would have been covered with buildings’ and the population, instead of being 60,000 or 70,000 would have been 120,000 or 180,000; the ground would be yielding a rent at many times what it does at present; there would have been many more opulent manufacturers and tradesmen of every description, and Norwich would have been one of the chief places in the empire…...’

Journal of an excursion to Yarmouth, Norwich, Cromer etc by R Marten, 1825 NRO MC 26/1.504x

‘We then walk'd about the large City & came by St. Giles' Church into Heigham, and called on Mr. Grout who permitted us to go through his important Silk Manufactuary (elsewhere described as one of the largest in the country, employing 800 persons). The works are in several floors and the winding, twisting, of bobbins etc. are by Machinery moved by a beautiful 20 Horse Power Engine. These operations are watched and conducted by more than seventy females, some so young as 7 to 8 years of age. These are on their feet from seven in the Morning till Eight in the Evening watching the threads, repairing the broken [threads] & seeing that all go[es] on well occasionally supplying Oil when wanted to prevent evil from friction ‑ Only that they have 1/2 an hour to breakfast & an hour for Dinner ‑ And these little Girls earn some 5/‑, some 5/6 per week. We then were shewn the winding into warp, the subsequent Beaming, & the reeds for the Weaving, and were informed that a yard wide Crape has in that breadth 2560 single twisted threads of silk. We then saw one of the female superintendants at her Crape loom and afterwards the Turner’s shop where nine men were employed in preparing Bobbins etc for the Factory here & the much larger which Mr. Grout is now erecting at Yarmouth. The silk used here is principally from Bengal but part was the white silk from China.

…..Seeing a loom going in a private House as we passed we asked the woman, who was weaving Norwich crape, and learned that she could, by close application weave eleven yards each day, but we omitted to ask her earning by that work.’