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George Plunkett follows on from his first book 'Disappearing Norwich' with a second collection of strolls around the old city. This time he takes us around the old wards of Conesford, Mancroft and Wymer, and branches out to cover Norwich 'over the water' and out beyond the city walls.

Again, the book is well illustrated with the authors own photographs taken during the 30's, 40's, and 50's, this time including a few buildings that are still with us. And like the first book, intermixes delightful tales of events and people from the past with the history of the buildings themselves.

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This is a remarkable collection of photographs showing the many changes in Norwich over a span of a hundred years, from the 1850's to the 1950's.
Most of the photographs were taken by local photographers George Swain and his father, and cover not only the streets and alleys of the city but also events, sports, and travel; as well as the bombing of the city during the war.

There are many books of Norwich in old photographs, all of which are interesting. But this collection is truly unique.

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This book is not a history of Norwich as such, but a series of 21 tales of personalities and events. Included are tales of Lady Emma who defended the first wooden Norwich Castle against King Williams forces in 1075, Herbert de Losinga, the founder of Norwich Cathedral, and tales of Margaret Brown, Sir Thomas Browne, John Chrome and Father Ignatius. There are stories of Queen Elizabeth the first's visit, the riots of 1272, the suffering of the Quakers, trouble in the workhouse and the textile industry.
These stories are intermixed with slightly less familiar ones like the Great Flood of 1878 and the story of Chapelfield Gardens.

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Frank Meeres has been an archivist at the Norfolk Record Office for the past 25 years. In this book he weaves a magical mix of the documented and archaeological evidence into a story, not only of the growth of the town, but also of the people, rich and poor, who over the centuries have created our fine city.
The book is well illustrated with maps, drawings and photographs, many of them being published for the first time, and with the ample referencing of sources provides an authoritative yet very readable history of Norwich.

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In 1931 a young eighteen year old, George Plunkett, acquired a camera and started snapping away. Over the years he has taken over 5,000 photographs, many of them of buildings and streets that have now disappeared or changed beyond recognition.

In this book the author takes us on 6 walks through the Norwich of his younger years with tales of the streets and houses, and some of the people who occupied them.
A really delightful book that tells so much of our city's history in such an easy way that you can imagine yourself strolling along the streets as the author tells his tales.

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There is one book that is rarely out of the local top ten best sellers list - this one.
Jarrolds have an international reputation as quality publishers of town and area guides, and it is only appropriate that the guide to their home city should be so popular.

In this small 32 page book the finest color photographs are intermixed with old etchings and paintings to give a potted guide to the historic side of our great city.

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Norwich Cathedral's magnificent roof bosses are one of the great hidden glories of medieval art. Over 1000 of these carved and painted keystones perch in the high stone vaulting, where they were placed between 1300 and 1515. In quality and quantity Norwich's bosses are among the most impressive in Europe, while in their native arrangement they are entirely without parallel in the medieval world.

Situated some 80 feet up from the floor of the Cathedral, the bosses of the nave and the transcept are too distant to have been fully appreciated by worshippers over the centuries. Until recently their character and detail has been discernible to only a dedicated few from special vantage points or through telescopes and binoculars. This book brings them to the general public through photographs, introduced and fully described in a scholarly text.

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In 1870 Norwich had two pubs for every day of the year and a few left over!
By 1939 it was one pub for every day of the year, and by the time John Riddington Young wrote this book the total was down to about two hundred. Today, of course, the figure is much smaller.
In this book the author describes a seies of 'pub runs' through the streets of Norwich in which he visits nearly a hundred pubs. As he makes his way from pub to pub he tells tales of the pubs he visits and the the past inns and taverns that have long disappeared.

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George Nobbs is not a man to mince his words. He cared passionately about what was happening to Norwich during his lifetime, and the destruction of the old city.
In 1971 he put pen to paper to write this book - a short history of Norwich plus a gazetteer of all the streets and yards in the city.
In this thin book he gives us a wealth of detail on the background to the changes in the second half of the 20th century, and who was to blame!

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Although this book is the 'City of Norwich Plan 1945', it represents the results of a decade of surveying and planning. The rebuilding of the city began in the 1930's with the demolition of the old buildings in and at the back of the market place for the building of the present City Hall - a project that was never actually completed!
However, that didn't stop the planners from coming up with their plans for what I can best describe as 'a brave new world'. Sorry about that, but looking at some of the schemes in this book reminds me of the infantryman's dream in the 'War of the Worlds' - with extra wide roads cut through the heart of the city and a massive viaduct over the Wensum at Bracondale.

But the book is also a source of information on the population growth and expansion of the city in the previous years.

The book, as originally published, contained in the back cover pocket, a large double sided map with the central area on one side and the County Borough area on the other. It's interesting to note the number of buildings marked as 'Scheduled by the Ministry of Works as National Monuments' or 'Of major interest' that have been destroyed since 1945.
The book is now considered as rare. I have seen odd copies on sale over the years, but most have been missing these maps.