Essential Hotels > England > Norfolk > Norwich

Norwich is one of England’s most attractive medieval cities, and in addition to being the county town of Norfolk in East Anglia, it is also the administrative, cultural and retail capital of the area. It is a city with very much its own personality and character, due in part to its relative isolation, yet it is far from the insular and ‘local’ place that is often portrayed; Norwich is home to a dynamic and forward-thinking university – the University of East Anglia – and enjoys a vibrant arts and entertainment scene.

Further, it offers a bustling nightlife, with a good mix of traditional and younger, funkier venues, giving the city a broad appeal to all ages. Norwich also combines a pleasant situation in the heart of characteristically flat countryside, which is full of intriguing little villages, windmills and of course the Norfolk Broads National Park. What’s more, access to London and the south-east by road and rail are relatively straight forward.

Norwich, according to legend, was built on a man-made earth mound raised by human hands over the grave of an old heathen king, whose tomb sits deep within it. Certainly there is little but anecdotal evidence of the habitation of the area upon which Norwich now stands until the medieval era.

During the Roman occupation of Britain a settlement was built at Caistor St Edmund, a few miles to the south, but little is known about Norwich itself until the 10th century when the town of ‘Norvic’ began to appear in the records. The settlement benefited from its useful location on the River Wensum, along which wool was transported.

Norwich was granted the status of a city in 1194, and by 1404 it had appointed a mayor, two sheriffs and aldermen to run its affairs. Norwich continued to grow during the Middle Ages, and remained an important textile manufacturing centres until the 19th century. Throughout this period the region became home to immigrant workers of many nationalities, most notably Spanish and Belgian, and this era also saw an unusually large number of churches built in the city, the largest of which is St Peter Mancroft which was built between 1430 and 1455.

Norwich is also unusual in that it has two cathedrals: the magnificent Norman Cathedral, one of the finest Anglican Cathedrals of its type in the world; and St John the Baptist Catholic Cathedral with its superb neo-Gothic architecture.