LION AND CASTLE YARD is off Timber Hill near the centre of the city; the Lion and the Castle are the motifs which appear on the Coat of Arms of Norwich, and the name was used for three or four public houses in the city. There is now none left. The Lion and Castle pub on Timber Hill was at number 27; it closed in 1925. The building was a victim of Hitler’s bombs during the war. On the 27th to 29th of April, 1942, two 250 kg bombs fell in Timber Hill, damaging the Particular Baptist chapel and Valori’s fish and chip shop. It also hit the Gardener’s Arms. These bombs damaged the row of houses numbers 22-29 Timber Hill as well. These were later demolished. This space which was left was used as a car park for decades, but has now, after 70 years, been purchased for redevelopment.
Only these three buildings were left in Lion and Castle Yard after the 1942 raid.
Lion and Castle Yard extended south from this block of properties, and the only surviving buildings in this yard are the row of 17th century cottages that are pictured above. These are currently (2013) used as a beauty salon. The further one of these cottages (number 4) is one of the few properties in the City to retain a thatched roof. (When the building was listed in 1972 the roof had been replaced by corrugated iron, but it has since been re-thatched.) Apparently there are three other thatched buildings in Norwich; the “Barking Dickey” in Westlegate is one of them and it is only a few yards away from Lion and Castle Yard, down All Saint’s Alley. This was formerly a pub called the Light Dragoon, and it got its nickname because the dragoon’s horse on the signboard looked like a donkey! (In Norfolk dialect a ‘barking dickey’ means braying donkey.) At the licensing sessions held Monday 23rd August 1858 the renewal of the licence was refused on the grounds that the house was devoted to immoral purposes! In 1969 the building was the local branch of Deacon’s Bank, and more recently it has been Casaccio’s Coffee Shop; I am unaware of its current occupant. In 1912 it was the shop of Arthur Kemp, greengrocer. Before the Second World War there were two other thatched buildings nearby, the Thatched Theatre in All Saint’s Green and the Boar’s Head pub in Surrey Street, but these were both also bombed out of existence in the 1942 Blitz.
These pictures of Lion and Castle Yard are what I took in 1969. Nobody appeared to take any interest in the place fifty years ago. The whole area was very neglected right up until the Norwich Preservation Trust restored the buildings in 1996. There is a plaque which reads: This small building is formed from two of the very few surviving cottages built in the 17th century and once common in the city. One has been restored with its original roof of reed thatch. They may have been lived in by weavers. From the 14th to the 19th centuries Norwich was famous for its textiles – “Norwich Stuffs” – of woollen cloth worsted and silk made on looms in the weavers’ own houses.
This cottage was a warehouse belonging to the ironmonger Harry Tyce, way back in the early years of the 20th century. “Tyce, Harry, bar iron & steel merchant, wholesale and retail ironmonger, saddlers’ & coach ironmonger & oil and colour merchant, 19 St Peter’s street, Mancroft; Davey steps, 18 Davey place & Castle st. T.N. 397 ” [From Kelly’s Directory of Norfolk, 1912.]
Although it had long stood empty in 1969, the building still had Tyce’s old signboard on the wall. The name on the door was slightly more recent, because not only was it in better condition, but the name of the firm had been changed to H. Tyce and Son. In fact the shop in Davey Place finally closed in 1959 with the retirement off Harry Tyce’s son. (I was ten in 1959 and I ought to remember it but I don’t.) The business was started in 1750 by John Browne (mayor of Norwich in 1798) and descended to the Tyce family. It was, when it closed, the oldest firm of ironmongers in the city. His stock in trade in 1912 was principally bar iron, oils and colours. Bar iron (in other words wrought iron) has been replaced by mild steel in general use. All ‘wrought iron’ gates and fences are today actually made of mild steel. But whether it is iron or steel, it isn’t the kind of thing you buy in a city centre shop any longer. Oil and colours referred to the ingredients for mixing you own paint from linseed oil and pigments. This before tins of paint first appeared on shop shelves in about 1880. The sign must have been at least fifty years old when I took the picture fifty years ago. Harry Tyce used to have larger premises in Lion and Castle Yard before most of the properties there were demolished.
In 1912 two of his products were saddles and coach ironmongery. There was still good business to be done in such equestrian equipment, and Harry Tyce was by no means old-fashioned before the First World War. In fact he was up to date enough to have a telephone number (T.N. in the Kelly’s entry); number 397. To have a phone in 1912 marked you to be someone special. Norwich Union had a telephone of course, but only one. In 1912 the Post Office became the monopoly supplier of telephone services in the UK, a position it retained for 70 years. The overwhelming majority of businesses had neither a telephone nor even a telegraphic address. There has been an incredible increase in telecommunications in the past hundred years. I wonder how many computers Aviva ( Norwich Union as was) now has? At least one for every employee, and each of then has a mobile phone as well, not to mention access to the company phone.
Bonds of Norwich is a name which even now echoes down the years. Although this is now the Norwich branch of the John Lewis chain it retained its old name for some time after John Lewis took it over, finally losing it in 2001. I have already referred to the Thatched Theatre in All Saints Green; this later became the Thatched Restaurant belonging to Bonds Norwich store. The Thatched Restaurant was destroyed along with the rest of Bonds department store during an air raids of 1942. Bonds was started in the 19th century just round the corner in Ber Street, when a family from the village of Ludham bought a draper’s shop. It grew and grew with its reputation for quality goods; it soon spread into All Saints Green, where John Lewis still stands. It remained a family firm with the Hindes clan, a name from the female side of the Bond family. The family remained in control until finally selling out some forty years ago. Eric Hinde, the husband of Marjorie Bond, was Lord Major in 1951 following on from my Aunt Ruth’s term of office. I was at school at Farfield (Gresham’s) with Eric Hinde’s youngest son Stephen. He was a year or so older than me and did not stay into the 6th form.
In 1962 the Hindes opened a branch of Bonds in Dereham. This was not included in the sale of the Norwich branch to John Lewis in 1982. It remained independent for a few years more, although the name was changed to Hindes, and it finally left the family when Nicholas Hinde retired in 1989. CLICK HERE for more details on Bonds.
The Barking Dickey in its greengrocer days.
In about 1865 three Curl brothers from East Winch arrived in Norwich to set up in the drapery business. East Winch is a small village near Kings Lynn. To begin with they were in partnership with another name from Norwich’s retail past, Mr Bunting. The establishment was at the corner of St Stephens, where Marks and Spencer now have their store. The partners split up after a few years, and while Bunting’s store developed on the St Stephens site, the Curl brothers expanded onto the opposite side of the road. This was Rampant Horse Street, the site of the historic Rampant Horse Inn until Curls occupied almost the entire block.
Curls is another name from Norwich’s past. The store is now a branch of Debenhams, and although it was originally in the same place as it is now, all through my younger days the whole block was a car park – another casualty of the blitz. Earlier, during the war, it had been a static water tank for use by the firemen in case of incendiary bombs; Curl’s shop had burned down in the heavy raids of 1942 –the same raids that had destroyed Bonds and damage the shops in Timber Hill. Curls store was finally rebuilt in 1956, when it could move back to its old position. From 1942 for 16 years it had been reduced to a much smaller but highly regarded shop in Westlegate.
Curl Brothers, Rampant Horse Street, decorated for Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee.
JOSEPH MASON
joemasonspage 
Excellent detail in this.
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