Norwich Introduction Walking Tour (Self Guided), Norwich

The Iceni tribe predated the Romans in the village of Caistor, near the area of present-day Norwich. In 60 AD an uprising led by Boudica had been put down and Caistor became the Roman capital of East Anglia. Anglo-Saxons settled the town of Northwic in the 4th century. By the 10th century Northwic became Norwich, a prosperous trading center.

William the Conqueror arrived with a bang in 1066. The Normans heartily set to work. They built the Norwich Castle. Around the Castle a market and a Norman village was created. In 1096 construction of the great Norwich Cathedral began. Norwich became a walled city of churches, hospitals and friaries, financed by a burgeoning wool trade.

The Tudor era in the 16th century brought revolutionary changes. The Protestant Reformation, peasant rebellions, and waves of religious refugees from the continent, brought new skills and enterprises with them. Cromwell brought civil war and churned life in general but after the restoration in 1660, Norwich had its economic golden age.

In the 17th and 18th centuries the Norwich area had its share of civic and social upheavals. Jacobitism, Whigs and Tories, plagues, dissents and reforms had generated a metropolitan if not cosmopolitan culture and sophisticated politics. Intellectual life flourished and the city billed itself as "The Athens of England."

Life in Norwich in the 19th century showed marked improvement. The first public library opened in 1857. The Chapelfield Public Park opened in 1852 and Mousehold Heath in 1886. The Roman Catholic Cathedral of St. John the Baptist was built in 1884. The Castle Museum in the Norman Castle opened in 1894, the Royal Arcade in 1899.

Norwich is a blend of the medieval and modern. Come and visit Elm Hlll, the Forum, the Plantation Gardens, Strangers Hall, the Wensum River Walk, the Museum of Norwich, restaurants and pubs from the 15th century, and a market square that has been operating for 900 years. Like William, come, conquer and be conquered.