NORWICH SHOPS (3)

ROPES, BOOKS AND A DRAPER’S

The shop in Exchange Street c 1900.

Down the bottom end of Exchange Street was a shop of a type that has quite vanished. This was Hurn’s cord and twine merchants; its stock also included flags, bunting, waterproof covers, tents and sacks, but during the period in which I remember the shop its stock was primarily rope. This may seem not to be a shop of much interest to me, but it was essential for our growing involvement in sailing and boating, and our need for painters, halyards and shrouds. It was an old shop, having been established in 1812 by Isaac Hurn. Despite its great age, its stock was up-to-date and the rope that we bought was all of modern man-made fibres like polyester or Nylon, not hemp or sisal, though I’m sure that was available too. The shop had once been considerably larger. The block at 13 – 17 Dove Street now houses a variety of shops, including a modern pawnbroker’s (more on these shops later) but it was once occupied entirely by Hurn’s. This ornate building was actually erected under Hurn’s oversight, after a fire in 1898 had destroyed its predecessor. It was listed in the 1912 Kelly’s Directory of Norfolk as ‘Daniel Hurn and Sons rope manufactures and yachting requisites’.

Isaac Hurn

Daniel Hurn

In 1896 ‘Hurn, Daniel, (Patronized by His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales)‘ was down as ‘manufacturer of ropes twines sacks, stack cloths, sheep and lamb sheltering cloth, sail and awning covers, cocoa matting, door mats, canvas and net hammocks, bell ropes for churches, braided leather reins, bunting and flags‘. The shop moved to 36 Exchange Street some time in the first half of the twentieth century; it was still there in 1969 but it must have closed soon after.

Continuing down Exchange Street and then turning left would soon bring one into St Benedict’s Street, and about halfway along was the Scientific Anglian secondhand bookshop. This belonged to Norman Peake who is still fondly remembered by many. As a bookshop it was unusual, as you may guess (if you did not know it already) from the name.  Professor Hubert Catchpole on one of his trips over from Chicago to his childhood home of Norfolk remarked of the strange name that ‘there was nothing particularly scientific or Anglian about his stock’. It got more cluttered as the years went by, for as time passed and his stock increased, the area in which he was allowed to display it shrunk. He had a regular stock of local books, but the books were not expensive nor –for the most part- rare. You got to know your way round; nautical books were high up so you need his ladder to inspect them. His large stock of Everyman volumes was arranged in shelves up the stairs to the first floor, until the authorities decided that this was dangerous and prohibited the use of other than the ground floor.

Norman liked nothing better than to stand at the back of his shop and dispense his wisdom to his customers. You soon got to know his opinions, just by listening to him as you browsed through his books. He didn’t like Mrs Thatcher for example, nor nuclear weapons (but who does actually like them?). He had been a member of CND when that was thing to do. There was the the slightest hint of the bar room bore about him.  I preferred not to get into conversation with him; we were poles apart politically. Norman Peake never appeared to open his post, which just accumulated in the box inside his shop door. Eventually the authorities closed the remaining ground floor as a fire hazard, and that was the end of the Scientific Anglian.

Gooses’s logo.

At the end of Davey Place, almost underneath Davey Steps, was another bookshop, only this one sold new books. This was Goose and Sons Ltd. Besides selling a good range of books produced by others, Goose’s also published local books. This they had been doing since the 19^th century, although in those days they were based in Rampant Horse Street. One of the last books they published was Ronald H. Clark’s history of the M&GN railway, which came out in 1967. Although the shop was still there in 1969 it must have closed soon afterwards. It was loosely associated with another local publisher, Jarrold’s, who printed Goose’s later books. Goose and Sons was a far better bookshop than Jarrold’s was at the time. Jarrold,s has improved its stock of books since then. Goose’s was the best bookshop in Norwich; there was no Waterstones then, in fact there weren’t many new bookshops about in the city at all. There was W. H. Smith’s, which has never sold anything which wasn’t as a best-seller, and the SPCK which sold only Christian literature. After Gooses closed the Hungate Bookshop opened in Queen Street, and another bookshop opened up in Wensum Street where the Black Horse public House had been (naturally it was called the Blackhorse Bookshop). When Goose had gone the Blackhorse was Norwich’s best bookshop until it too closed. With the appearance of Waterstone’s we have entered the modern era of national chains of shops.

A shop from the earlier period of local businesses was Butchers in Swan Lane. This was a draper’s shop; it didn’t sell clothes but it was the place to go for material and haberdashery. Such shops have all gone, including a slightly more recent one in Gordon Thoday of St Stephens Street. Obviously people do not have the time or inclination to make things like garments anymore, and even if the did the price of the material would be many times that of the finished article, made by ill paid workers from places like Bangladesh or Sri Lanka, toiling away at all hours for peanuts.

Another sort of shop I had imagined was on the way out was the pawnbroker, but this has had a renaissance in these cash-strapped times. It is true that the old fashioned shop with three balls as its trade sign has largely disappeared. One such shop was G. and W. Boston in Orford Street; they were another old established business, in this case having been opened in 1856, and of course they had the three balls hanging above the door. Orford Street was the centre of the Boston business empire, all the shops in close proximity; opposite the pawnbrokers in Orford Hill was George Boston and Sons Ltd who dealt in prams (‘perambulators’), while just round the corner in Farmers Avenue was another branch of W. and G. Boston, selling clothing. They specialised in working attire like warehouse coats and chef’s black-and-white checked trousers. I think I still have a baker’s hat that I bought in fit of fancy when a young man; I have never baked so much as a currant bun, and never even intended to. I bought it there about 1971, but why I can’t now remember. Boston’s baby carriage shop (also established 1856) had closed by 1974, but  the clothing shop must have lasted until the redevelopment of Farmers Avenue  came with the building of the Castle Mall. There is a photograph in my post on Norwich Shops (1) on December 4th  2012 of Boston’s perambulator shop, taken just after closure in the 1970s.

JOSEPH MASON                                                                                                                                                        joemasonspage@gmail.com

THE BLOG FOR MEMORIES OF EAST ANGLIAN LIFE