Streets of Norwich – St. John Maddermarket

Part of my Streets of Norwich project….

For some reason that I’ve never fathomed out, I’ve always liked this street, which is dominated by St. John the Baptist, Maddermarket Church and its sprawling churchyard. The name of the street is derived from the time that madder, which is a root that produced a red dye, was sold from the north end of the churchyard in the thirteenth century. From then on, the name has stuck and this street connects St. Andrew’s Street with Pottergate. More on the church in another post though…..

The building on the left is number 21-23, two buildings constructed in the seventeenth century which have been two separate shops for some time, with the left-hand side property having once been a pub.

I’ve been intrigued by this graveyard on the right-hand side, as it’s raised up and I know that in York and in other cities this was simply because they kept trying to put burials in the space they had, and the ground level rose. However, the church itself is also higher, because it was fitted into a limited amount of land. But, having written that, there was an archaeological dig which found bodies from the seventeenth century underneath now what is the above road, so the graveyard was once lower.

I hadn’t noticed this until today, it’s a water pump from the nineteenth century which is made out of iron and is now missing its handle.

A view down the street towards St. Andrew’s Street.

Another thing that I haven’t noticed before, this notes where the Golden Lion public house was located between 1783 and 1965. It was also the location of Golden Lion yard, which was also swept away when the pub was demolished.

This is where the pub was. Replaced by yet another bland and generic building. Although to be fair, there’s a photo of the pub here and it didn’t look that exciting either. But I prefer the look of the pub.