A ramble over the premises discloses nothing more of really ancient date, but does reveal something unexpected, in the splendid long room on the first floor of the buildings stretching down the yard. It dates from about 1760, and is, architecturally speaking, a noble room, of moulded ceiling and panelled plaster walls, with a raised platform at one end, surmounted by a Chippendale shield with coat-of-arms greatly resembling that of Caius College. It is now degraded to the position of a stock-room, piled with hams, sacks, and biscuit-boxes, but keeps its distinction throughout adversity, and is a reminder of times when the “White Swan” was the centre of Norwich social life; when balls and assemblies were held beneath its roof, and the original “Theatre Royal,” nursery of much dramatic talent, was established here. At the “White Swan” those pioneer players, the “Norwich Company of Comedians, servants to his Grace the Duke of Norfolk,” as they humbly styled themselves, began their performance. At that time the play began at 7 p.m., but the doors were opened at 5. An hour earlier than that, the servants of the playgoers were sent to keep the seats, which were not highly expensive. The highest price was half a crown for a box; and the pit, then fashionable, cost only two shillings. When such prices ruled, the actor’s lot was not exactly luxurious, and stage-furnishing was quite a negligible quantity. But dramatic art was never higher than then
XLVIII
It has been already remarked how winding are the ways of Norwich, and it is indeed only with difficulty those once in it can find their way out. If it were required to turn a very pretty compliment to Norwich, here we have the most obvious foundation for one. But we must on to the coast, and take the City only incidentally, as its mazy streets are threaded on the way to the Aylsham road. It is by no means slighting Norwich so to do, for the City has been described in a short impressionistic sketch at the close of that companion volume to this, the “Norwich Road.”
From St. Peter’s, across St. Giles’ Street, by the back of the Guildhall, to Charing Cross is the most interesting way. This Charing Cross does not in the least resemble the place of the same name in London, and obtains its title from quite a different source. No “chère reine” gave this name, which is a corruption of “Sherers’ Cross,” a wayside cross so styled from the sheermen or cloth-cutters who once inhabited this quarter. It was demolished in 1732.
GATEWAY, STRANGERS’ HALL.
Here, fronting on the narrow street, is the so-called “Strangers’ Hall,” one of the most deeply interesting places in Norwich; what, in fact, is nothing less than a well-preserved specimen of a mediæval merchant’s house. We do not, in this England of ours, lack churches and cathedrals, palaces, castles, and mansions of the great, to show us how we worshipped, and how kings and nobles housed, in days of old; but we are very sadly lacking in remains of the houses built for, and occupied by, the wealthy traders of anything from five to two centuries ago. We know comparatively little of the way in which the Mayors of our great towns lived, and thus the accidental preservation of this house, built by a mayor of Norwich, and inhabited by and added to by a long succession of such worthies, is particularly instructive. The oldest portion is the crypt, used anciently as cellarage and store-room, built probably by Roger Herdegrey, who was a Member of Parliament in 1358, and Bailiff of Norwich two years later. After passing through many hands, the property came, about 1490, to Thomas Cawse, mercer, twice Mayor, and twice the chosen representative of the City in the Council of the State. From him it came to Nicholas Sotherton, mercer, who seems to have rebuilt the greater portion. In 1610 his family sold it. Already the house had acquired the name of the “Strangers’ Hall,” for Sotherton, under the patronage of the Duke of Norfolk, had warmly welcomed the Flemings, refugees from Holland under the Spanish domination, and had given those strangers the use of his house. Although they did not reside here, and probably did not use it for any great length of time as the central meeting-place of their community, it has, singularly enough, retained the name under many changes. Francis Cock, grocer, and Mayor in 1627, resided here, and built the great staircase in the Hall, together with the large oak-framed oriel window; and another Mayor, Sir Joseph Paine, followed him, and made alterations for his own comfort and dignity in 1659. He was the last of that long line, and when he died, in 1668, the history of the old place becomes obscure. Early in the nineteenth century, however, we obtain a glimpse of it as the Judges’ Lodgings, but thenceforward the old relic fell upon neglect, and would have been recklessly destroyed for rebuilding had not an enthusiastic and public-spirited citizen purchased it in 1899. It still bears the misleading name of the “Strangers’ Hall,” and no one sufficiently impresses the visitors who pay their sixpence a head for being shown over it that the building is a rare and splendid specimen of the domestic surroundings of the wealthy and cultured traders who made Norwich prosperous in old days.
THE STRANGERS’ HALL.
Sotherton lies, with many another worthy citizen, in St. John’s church, Maddermarket, or other one of the many churches—“steeple-houses” the Quakers would call them—set so thickly about Norwich. Where Gibson lies, who in those old days set up the neighbouring water-fountain, I know not; but surely his spirit must be unquiet since the ornamental portion of it has been built into the wall of Bullard’s brewery, and the water of which he was so proud cut off. No longer can one drink here, but Gibson’s very excusable little crow over his work may yet be read:—