and was no common fellow, mark you, but
"Of gentell blood, more worthy merrit,
Whose brest enclosed an humble sperryt."
NORWICH MARKET PLACE.
Although the calendar of saints is a long one and more than sufficiently lengthy to have provided each one of the Norwich churches with a patron, yet so popular were some saints, that several churches to the same one are found in Norwich, as seen also in the city of London. As in old London, it was in those cases necessary to confer surnames, so to speak, upon those churches.
They are surnames of the geographical sort and not a little curious. The four St Peters are, for example, St Peter Mancroft, the largest and most important in the city, so called from the Magna Croft, or large field of the castle; St Peter per Mountergate, in King Street, named from the road by the "montem," the hill or mount, that runs ridge-like in its rear; St Peter Hungate, the "hundred gate," or road, reminiscent of the time when Norwich was a hundred of itself, even as it is now by itself a county; and St Peter Southgate. St Michael-at-Thorn has still thorn trees growing in its churchyard; St Michael Coslany, with St Mary's of identical surname, was built in Coast Lane; and St Michael-at-Plea was named from its neighbourhood to an ecclesiastical court. St John Maddermarket is thus distinguished from other St Johns—St John Timberhill and St John-at-Sepulchre. In the neighbourhood of the first-named, madder for the dyers' use was marketed; while at Timberhill was the market in wood. St Martin-at-Palace, by the old Bishop's Palace, and St-Martin-at-Oak take up the tale, which might be continued at great length.
NORWICH SNAP.
The business life of modern Norwich centres in the Market Place and the streets that immediately lead out of it: the mouldering signs of old commerce peer in peaked gables, clustered chimneys and old red-brick and plastered walls in the lanes and along the wharves of the Wensum.
There trade hustles and elbows to the front, in many-storeyed piles of brick, stone and stucco, with great show of goods in plate-glass windows and bold advertisement of gilt lettering. All those signs of prosperity may be seen, and on a larger scale, in London, but not even in London are the electric tram cars so great a menace to life and limb as in these narrow and winding streets, where they dash along at reckless speed.