Norwich memories
Here are memories of Norwich and the local area. You can start now: Add your own Memory of Norwich or a Norwich photo.
The Waggon & Horses
From 1942 to 1960, I lived at the Waggon & Horses Pub next to the Samson. My memories are as a young boy listening to the sounds of all the big bands that played at the Samson. The kitchen staff used to open their windows at night so the music flowed across to my bedroom window. Samson nights were one of the weekly highlights in Norwich, then. And they laid on a late night Bus to get you home!
Royal Hotel And PO
ref w46672. The PO is the second building on the right with the columns. The nearer brick building is The Agricultural Hall. The old Cattle Market was behind this. Anglia TV set up studios in this building and renamed it Anglia House.
POW Road Norwich
The wide area in the foreground is actually Agricultural Hall Plain. Prince of Wales Road starts in the background. Roads are quite rare in Norwich - they are mainly streets, lanes, plains and gates.
Love of my Life
I was stationed at RAF Coltishall and earned money working weekends at the Heartsease Pub on the Heartsease Estate where the Norwich footballers drank!
I met a lovely girl called Joy Collings who lived in Portersfield Road, and fell madly in love and we became an item. Unfortunately, due to a posting to Berlin in 1968, absence did not make the heart grow fonder for Joy and we broke up. I will always remember her with love and affection for she stole my heart like no other woman has since.
John Stroud, now an ex-pat on the Costa del Sol.
Family Memory
My father's grandfather used to own Brundall Gardens, he has some photographs of us standing on the steps with great-grandfather holding me when I was a baby, he also has photographs of my brother who is a year older than I in the gardens with the stone statues. My father being the eldest son would have inherited the house and gardens. Unfortunately his grandfather's second wife sold it and it now a housing estate.
Loves First Kiss
This is the park where Sam and I had our first kiss! xx
The Blue Room
I was having a pint in The Blue Room pub [now The Compleat Angler] on June 10, 1962 while waiting for my train to depart from Thorpe Station to Shippea Hill for my return to RAF Mildenhall. In walked 'the love of my life' with her mum...we dated until my return [Nov. 5, 1962] to the US for military discharge. We lost contact [no available telephones or computers then] and we made contact once again in August 2009...we married on Sept. 11, 2010 and are now living in the USA.
Charles Barlow 1813
My great great great grandfather, Charles Barlow was baptised in St Michael at Thorn 13.6.1813, the son of Samuel and Elizabeth (nee Stark). His uncle was James Stark, Norwich School of Painters, and his grandfather was Michael Stark, Chemist and dyer of Norwich, formerly Fife Scotland and his grandmother Jane Elizabeth Ivory. At age 21 Charles was convicted for stealing a silver ring and gold pin and sentenced to 7 years in Australia....this is my first visit to Norwich and I sit here now typing this......I will be back. If you have any info or connection to this family tree I welcome contact at lisa4training@hotmail.com. would love to find family from this tree.
Early Years
Too much to say, so in brief: lived on Wolfe Road, played on Mousehold, fireworks night great and sledged on cardboard in the summer and sledge in the snow; watched the soldiers in Brittania Barracks and them lowering the flag just outside the main gates in a railed enclosure long gone; horses at Nelson Barracks at the bottom of Ketts Hill; collected old newspapers which I stacked on old pram wheels which I took to Warmingers by the river to get pocket money; stood on Carrow railway bridge to watch the steam trains, and Derek Warman's father was a signalman so sometimes we went to the signal box, that box has now gone; was photographed by the EDP with Dennis Mathews; watching the old knife sharpener on Brittania Road - still have the photo; used to swim in the rivers around Norwich, no Health & Safety then, we had to use our own common sense; the Heartsease was an open field, saw the first house and at the end of... Read more
Memories of Norfolk
Family Ancestors
Doing a bit of computer research looking at my mother's family and think I have traced back her father's family to the 1841 census, which shows her Great Great Grandfather, John Payne, living in Lakenham at what looks like Grove Place, Terry Street (census difficult to read). His occupation , again difficult to read, looks like "waiter" but his son, my mum's great grandad is listed as an apprentice brushmaker. Generations of the family then went on to be brushmakers. Was this a well-known trade in Lakenham at the time? Does anyone have any information about the Payne family - did they originate from Lakenham?
Hearts Cruisers
This boatyard belonged to my grandfather, Geoffrey John Hart (the gentleman standing at the back of the picture) and the young man in the front of the picture is Jack Ayton Hart, his son. The other son also worked there and his name was Dick. As children my mother, Yvonne, and my brother and myself all played here and learned to swim here too. The boatyard stayed Hearts Cruisers for many years after my grandfather sold it.
Hearts Cruisers
This gentleman is my grandfather Geoffrey John Hart. He owned and worked the business, Hearts Cruisers, with his two sons, Dick and Jack, and we spent many a happy hour there. In those days you could swim in the river as pollution was almost non-existent. Uncle Dick's many descendants are now mainly living in New Zealand but pay regular visits to the area to see where their family originally lived. Uncle Jack moved down to Sussex and his daughter Jane and her family now live in Barcelona. His son Peter's family are in this country.
Miss Bee
Santa Lucia Hotel was owned and run by Marion Olive Barkway, better known as Miss Bee. Marion was my grandmother and we used to visit every Sunday afternoon to help out with evening meals. When I was small I remember standing on the sun terrace fishing and gazing out onto the river. As I grew, I got into canoeing and used to keep my canoe there climbing over the wall to get to the river. Marion had a succession of dogs, alsations and daschunds - Judy, Kelly, Amber. Marion never left the hotel apart from the occasional shopping trip. She was always very happy and evenings she would enjoy sitting in reception and chatting with guests arriving and returning often laughing with them. Marion had the upmost respect of her staff. She would always seem to appear from nowhere if I stopped to speak (chat the girls up as a young lad) - kind of guess she was young once as well and still far too sharp for me. Marion... Read more
Nursery School
Looking at the picture I think you turned left and my nursery school was on the right hand side, was it St Christopher's? I can remember seeing the fighters at St Faiths, must have been swifts, hawks, hunters, this must have been about the 1950s.
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