Tag history

The Tale of the Wensum Dipper

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I have told the tale of the Wensum Dipper in the past, but that piece was written a while back now, and since then some new details and images have come to light in a massive collection of images and information about the history of Norwich, kindly given to me by another Mile Cross Resident, which has helped to shed some more light on this peculiar episode. For those of you who didn’t read the original piece, written way back in 2018 (have I really been running on for that long now? Mad), the story was fairly straight forward: A mix up with a set of points at the exit of the railway yard at City Station meant that a locomotive pulling a long train ended up in the murky waters of the Wensum. I managed to fill in some of the gaps with some living recollections, a bit of local knowledge, including some fine research by my good friend and fellow Mile Cross lad (and one of our Norfolk Railway Heritage Group experts) John Batley, and a little bit of educated guesswork. Now knowing more detail, it seems that we had got some of the finer details spot-on with some of our educated guesses, which is always comforting to know.

The scene of the accident, captured in this wonderful, early image of the distinctive A-Frame bridge.
Continue reading “The Tale of the Wensum Dipper” →

The Bells of St Mary, Coslany ring out across Mile Cross

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Not long after Mile Cross had completed it’s first and second waves of house-building and providing this new housing estate with over 8,000 people, it was decided (by the Bishop of Norwich) that all of these new residents needed a bit more god in their lives. God would be shoe-horned into the new estate via the medium of a shiny, new church situated right on our doorsteps. The building of a new church is by no means a cheap venture so it was decided (once again by the bishop of Norwich) that a fundraising appeal for this new church would be sent out with haste.

Continue reading “The Bells of St Mary, Coslany ring out across Mile Cross” →

Curiosity leads to unexpected stories from my little corner of the Drayton Estate.

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A quiet corner of the Drayton Estate as seen from the once-empty 3 Pinder Close

A while back I wrote a piece about a house just around the corner from mine that had stood empty for a few years (click to read). This house had barely been modernised over the years, and the more I delved into the history of this one particular house, the more interesting it became. Often is the case when researching your local history, following your nose often leads you down historical alleyways that you never expected to end up in, and more often than not, they end up being more fascinating than you ever could have imagined. And it’s this kind of follow-your-nose research that the MX100 research leads, myself included, had been teaching our fellow citizen researchers as we encouraged them to dig for interesting snippets of the estate’s history for the recent Mile Cross 100 project. Another part of this process was also asking for the public to provide us with their own stories about Mile Cross.

Continue reading “Curiosity leads to unexpected stories from my little corner of the Drayton Estate.” →

Mile Cross Photographic Walks and Mile Cross Story Finders.

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This is just a short entry to let you all know that I am still here. I realise that it’s been quite a while since I’ve written anything (for this website at least) but that doesn’t mean I’m no longer involved or engaged. Over the last few months I’ve been spread quite thin with various Mile Cross related projects; I’ve written a piece about the trees here in Mile Cross for the Norfolk Gardens Trust Magazine (downloadable here soon), I’ve been writing pieces for the new Mile Cross Newsletter, “mileXchange”, which hopefully you read after it dropped through your letterbox recently (if you live in Mile Cross, that is), the second issue should follow shortly. I’ve also been helping to come up with ideas on how to use the soon-to-open community space named the “mileXchange” in the former Draytona Bakery shop on Drayton Road. On top of all that, I’ve also spent a considerable amount of my spare time as one of the lead researchers for the “Mile Cross 100” project which in 2023 will celebrate the Mile Cross estate turning one hundred years of age.

MX100 logo.

We aim to celebrate a Centenary of Mile Cross by creating a play, a pageant, a website and a book about Mile Cross, so there will be lots to look forward to in the next few months, some of which we’re hoping residents or former residents of Mile Cross can get involved with.

Continue reading “Mile Cross Photographic Walks and Mile Cross Story Finders.” →

History underfoot and hints of what was here before.

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The wandering wonderer. I’m often wandering about Norwich with my camera in hand and my head in two separate places, usually the same space but in two completely different time-zones. No, not like you used to see in those 1980’s movies where some Fleet-Street shyster dressed in a suite that needed a volume control, who has three or four clocks on the wall behind him showing New York, London and Japan whilst he arrogantly barks down a mobile phone the size of a breeze-block. My head can be found wandering and wondering through and across completely different sets of decades, or floating between completely different centuries.

Continue reading “History underfoot and hints of what was here before.” →

An old farmer’s lane gets me wondering.

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I wrote a piece some time ago now about the names of the roads here on the old estate and the possible/probable thinking behind them, and there’s one road in particular that stands out for me above the rest. It stands out not because it’s named to echo the memory of a famous person who once frequented the streets of Norwich eons ago, or out of some sort of pride-fuelled 1920’s civic duty. This particular road name is purely a nod to what was here, in this exact spot long before the estate and its rows of lovely new houses appeared on the scene. This is a lane where the path has been well-trodden by footsteps for centuries. This particular road formed part of a much-longer road than it does now and occupies the southern-most stretch of the only road that cut from north to south across what we now call Mile Cross. Other than the two main trunk roads (Aylsham and Drayton) that now border the estate as they head in and out of old Norwich, it’s probably the oldest road on the entire estate. The road I’m talking about is a short little road, now closed off at one end, just next to the entrance the nineties Lidl Supermarket on Drayton Road, and it’s named “Old Farm Lane”.

Old Farm Lane, seen from the bottom. Looking North.
Continue reading “An old farmer’s lane gets me wondering.” →

Aylsham Road. A window into the lives of a Mile Cross Family in the early 1900’s

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As often happens, I stumbled upon a fascinating old photograph taken in my neck of the woods being shared on one of the many local history Facebook groups and it really caught my attention. The photograph was of a family proudly standing outside a large-looking house on Aylsham Road, not too far from the city end. Being the inquisitive sort of chap that at I am, I have often wondered about this particular area and the small collection of homes along here that once backed on to what is now Clapham Wood and the former Putty Pierce’s Lime kiln site. Continue reading “Aylsham Road. A window into the lives of a Mile Cross Family in the early 1900’s” →

A ghost redone, redone. And a point, laboured…

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I don’t normally dedicate a whole blog post to just one photograph, particularly one not taken inside Mile Cross, but this one has some history with a bit of a rant attached, and because the blurb for the original photograph on Flickr started to resemble a blog entry in itself, I thought I might as well drag it out a little for the sake of my sanity. Read on. Continue reading “A ghost redone, redone. And a point, laboured…” →

A walk through old Mile Cross

The Mile Cross Man 19 Comments

Seeing as I’m stuck at home 23/7 and slowly losing my sanity due the boredom, I thought  I’d put together a little photographic tour of Mile Cross using some of the old pictures from some of the previous blog entries. Walk with me on an imaginary tour of Mile Cross, just bear in mind that you’ll need to gloss over the fact that the timeline is all over the shop and that the route is a bit nonsensical. 2020 has been a nonsensical year so far anyway, so it should be easy enough to tag along. Continue reading “A walk through old Mile Cross” →

H.M.S.O. Sovereign House.

The Mile Cross Man 17 Comments

I’ve been banging on about Anglia Square for some time now, mainly because it’s been hanging in the balance for what seems like an eternity but also because the scales of its future are now about to tip one way or another – but don’t worry – I’m not going to go off on one again about it all as I’ve written more than my fair share of opinions about the development lately. This will just be a fairly simple post put together to share some (actually, a load of) fantastic images taken of the area on which Anglia Square was built as Sovereign House reached for the sky back in the late 1960’s.

These pictures were kindly provided by Reg Walker, a former H.M.S.O. employee and guardian of the HMSOldies website who I had the fortune of meeting whilst being part of a film shot inside the abandoned Sovereign House back in 2012. To me this is a brilliant collection of high-quality images that offer us a fascinating insight in to what we currently refer to as Anglia Square and I’ll add a few notes to some of the images to highlight some of the interesting details that can be spotted if you look a little closer. Continue reading “H.M.S.O. Sovereign House.” →