Author The Mile Cross Man

A century of council housing in the City of Norwich.

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With the 100th anniversary for the first ever council-built homes appearing in Norwich approaching quickly, along with the fact that I’ve been contacted by various people from the City Council to the national and local press to offer up my opinions, I thought I’d better type something up about this interesting and important anniversary and take a look back over the last century of social housing right here in Norwich. Before I start proper I’d better mention that some of this info has been taken from (and in some cases corrected) the centenary section on the City Council’s website, which I’ve sorted into a crude chronological order, added to, and worded in my own way; a lot of which I’ve also already written about previously during the last three years of this blog.

As I’ve touched upon – frequently – before; by the end of the First World War in 1918 there was a huge demand for housing in the cities and towns throughout Britain, the problem becoming so large that it was now an unavoidable one for the British Government. By 1919, Parliament had passed an ambitious Housing Act, or the creatively-named: “The 1919 Act” (also known as the ‘Addison Act’) which promised generous subsidies to help finance the construction of up to 500,000 houses within a three-year timescale.

Continue reading “A century of council housing in the City of Norwich.” →

Mile Cross disturbs the neighbours – Heigham.

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I haven’t written anything in a while as my head’s been in a bit of a muddle, but after popping out out for an evening walk with the kids a week or so back, a few bits and pieces of an old puzzle began to form in my head. We’d ended up just over the water from Mile Cross and in a little play-park situated in the corner of quiet and secluded green space that is probably missed by the majority of Norwich as they drive on past. I was sat on a swing hidden from the last dregs of the rush-hour traffic under the suspicious gaze of the tower of St Bartholomew’s. When I say tower; I mean just the tower, as that is all that remains of this former village church; and when I say gaze, I mean that I could literally feel the eyes of the surviving grotesques staring at me from the top of the nearby tower.

Ever feel like you’re being watched?

MC8 Continue reading “Mile Cross disturbs the neighbours – Heigham.” →

Mary Jacobs, now and then.

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Reduced 75 Valpey

Just a brief entry to show that I haven’t disappeared completely. I’ve had my fingers in far too many pies of late and haven’t had time to concentrate on one thing long enough to form anything coherant enough to form one of my usual long and rambling entries.

This merging of two photographs – or ‘Ghost’ image – is of a Mary Jacobs, standing at the gate of her recently acquired Valpy Avenue home.

Back then – for reasons unknown to me – the area in which all of the houses South of Drayton Road and to the West of Havers Road were referred to as ‘The Drayton Estate’ and not Mile Cross, even though they were built by the same builders and on the same piece of purchased farmland as the rest of the estate.

It’s likely that before moving into this house Mary would have lived in one of the yards and slums around (or not too far from) the area that is now known as Anglia Square.

These new houses must have been a dream come true to former residents of the slums; they had fresh, running water; loads of space, big gardens for growing fruit and veg, indoor toilets and this particular row, a fantastic view of the Wensum Valley, complete with regular Steam engines puffing through the middle of all that scenery – a far cry from the unsanitary conditions, gloom and squalor, typical of those old and cramped yards closer to the city centre.

Mary passed away in 1938, but her family remained in this home for many years after.

Original image supplied by Mary’s Granddaughter, Susan McClarence, who informs me that her sister was born behind those very walls.

Until I can find the time to write something a little more in-depth, thanks for looking.

Stu.

Lady Jane

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It was and a cold and miserable November day in Norwich during the later stages of World War Two (November the 24th, 1944). Clouds were hanging heavy and grey over Horsham St Faith’s Airfield and the European Air War had been put on hold – briefly – by this heavy cloud-cover which was stretching out far across the continent. Sitting patiently upon the airfield’s aprons were a collection of freshly-fuelled American B24 Liberators, waiting for the all-clear to head off up and into those murky skies above Norfolk. The young American airmen crammed into these large bombers must have been feeling fairly relaxed, for today they wouldn’t be putting their lives in danger by heading out across the North Sea and deep into enemy airspace; instead, they were about to take advantage of the bad weather and head off up into the low-hanging clouds above Norfolk for some much-needed low-visibility flight training. Continue reading “Lady Jane” →

M&GN Hellesdon Station, Closed and then reopened. Sort of.

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Seeing as I’d previously written three separate posts about Hellesdon Station in various states of its transformation and that I kept spotting parts of this multi-part story being shared about the world wide web, I thought it would make sense to amalgamate them all into one blog post to tell the whole story of this fascinating, lost Railway Station:

Tucked just out sight and not too far from my Mile Cross home is a little corner of Norfolk that I’ve always had a real soft spot for: Hellesdon Station.

MXHell3

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The Inner-Link makes its mark and the end of City Station.

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Going on from the last piece I wrote at the end of 2018 about Anglia Square, I was recently reminded of a Saturday afternoon back in 2011 when we were working on the Norwich City Station site as part of the Friends of Norwich City Station (FONCS) project. An elderly gent had come along to view our progress and he had brought along with him an envelope containg a handful of old negatives that he’d taken when he was younger. He said that they may be of some interest to us and kindly allowed me to borrow them, I just wish I could remember his name.

After I’d had them scanned I could see that they were taken throughout the 1960’s and were all taken in and around the City Station area, whilst the roads and buildings were being cleared in anticipation of the answer to all our dreams: The Inner-link Road. This road was about to be laid right through some irreplacably-historic parts of old Norwich, almost encircling the entire city as it went, like a really crap version of the City Wall. It was also going to go right over the top of the now-closed railway terminus made famous by the much-missed Midland and Great Northern Railway, the remains of which us dipsticks decided to try and dig up some half a century later.

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Anglia Square

The Mile Cross Man 29 Comments

CAN_8216sIf you’re from Mile Cross or from anywhere in the northern parts of the City, chances are you’ll be more than familiar with the shoppers’ delight that is Anglia Square. It’s been a bit of a magnet for generations of North Norwich folk and often used as an alternative to heading all the way into the City to get your supplies. If – like me – you are one of those people to have visited Anglia Square more times than you’d care to remember, chances are you’ve been walking a well-worn route southwards, and you’ve been treading your way there in some very old footsteps. Those Roads (and the paths that preceded them) have been well trodden for centuries and the land on which Anglia Square currently resides is the original and oldest part of the human settlement we now call Norwich. Continue reading “Anglia Square” →

The 25th head to the coast. Almost 100 years ago.

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As I mentioned in my previous blog entry about how the 25th Scouts came to reside in Mile Cross some 70 years ago, I’d been kindly allowed to borrow a couple of their fantastically-aged photo albums to see what I could find and share them with you lot.

The following fantastic images are what interested me the most, mainly due to their locality.

The eldest of the photo albums they have in their possession was a battered-looking, leather and string bound item, literally jammed full of photographs of the Scouts heading out to various camps and events around the country; starting in 1919, one year after they’d formed a century ago. I’ll go through some of the more interesting photographs from the collection below and put a little bit of detail under each image for you:

off to Mundesley 1919a

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The 25th get their new Scout Hut

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This Saturday (24th November, 2018) I was invited along to the Centenary celebrations of the 25th Norwich Scouts. Seeing as both my children attend the Cubs and Scouts here and the fact there was free tea and cake to be had (as well as a chance to bend the ear of the Mayor) it was a bit of a no-brainer, so we thought we’d pop along to see what it was all about.
It was a pleasant couple of hours, the kids seemed to enjoy themselves with plenty of activities to keep them entertained and the flowing tea, coffee and cake helped to keep the nattering parents placated. Unfortunately the Mayor failed to show up in the end but the Sheriff managed to make it and she was there doing her bit.

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