The Location of The Halls
- Background Information
- The Medieval Halls
- The Halls and the Reformation
- The Halls c.1600-1900
- The Halls Today
The Location of The Halls
Find out more about the original location of The Halls, the history of the present site, why the friars moved and what happened after the fire in 1413.
Where was the Original location?
- The black friars established themselves in Norwich in 1226. The first site offered to the friars was in Norwich ‘Over the Water’, a relatively underdeveloped part of the city, north of the river Wensum and north of Colgate. This first foundation depended on the generosity of local citizens and minor country gentry, and evidently filled a very real local need.
[Map showing the approximate location of the original site, north of Colgate and south of Golden Dog Lane. Map taken from www.multimap.com]
- Donors of land included such prominent citizens as Sir John Gelham, one of the Norfolk gentry, and William de Dunwich (bailiff of Norwich), who presented the friars in 1261 with a garden on the west side of their site. In 1280 the friars enclosed their precinct with a wall; and in 1290 the prioress of the Benedictine nunnery at Carrow gave them a further piece of land.
- Members of the royal family also donated money to the Dominicans. When Henry III visited Norwich in 1272, he ordered the sheriff to bestow 10 marks (£6 13s. 4d.) on the friars. Edward I, during a visit in September 1289, authorised a payment of 40 shillings for three days’ food, and two years later, in 1301, the executors of Queen Eleanor of Castille, gave them 100 shillings. They were fast becoming a notable presence in Norwich.
- While the black friars were establishing themselves in Norwich, a new but short-lived order of friars appeared in the city [click here to learn more about other friaries in Norwich]. The Friars of the Penance of Jesus Christ, commonly known from their rough brown habit as the friars of the sack, first arrived in Norwich in 1258, where they secured a home in the parish of St Peter Hungate.
- Despite some notable grants of land, including a valuable water-front property from the But family, who were then the biggest landowners in the city, the Order was not successful and eventually there was only one solitary friar of the sack left. The surviving prior, William de Hoo, was described as ‘broken with old age and nearly blind’. In 1307 the end came when Clement V suppressed the whole Order (i.e., he wound up their activities). Fortunately, William was still provided for, and lived in Norwich for the rest of his life.