King Street today is a quiet residential area, off the beaten track. Yet, through the centuries, the street and the river behind it were major routes in and out of the city of Norwich. The long, straight street stretched from the South Gate in the city walls to the Castle and Cathedral, a distance of about one mile (1.6 kilometres).  

The South Gate was also known as St. Peter’s Gate, St. Peter’s being the first of a succession of churches along the street. There were shops and traders, breweries and public houses. On market days, cattle and sheep were driven through to the livestock market under the Castle. On the adjacent river, boats brought cargo from the coast to be unloaded on the river staithes, then stowed in warehouses and merchants’ halls. The trades and business conducted at premises along it meant that King Street was a commercially important thoroughfare. 

By the twentieth century, the street no longer had the importance in the life of the city it once had, although brewing was still a major employer. However, when Norwich was bombed in World War II, its location was perilous. Unlike the depictions in films, bombing usually lacked precision. The Castle and Cathedral, the heart of the city, were a stone’s throw away, and the railway station, goods yards and a conglomeration of factories lay just across the river. King Street was dangerously close to the cultural, industrial and commercial life of the city.  

During the early stages of the war, bombing was not severe in this area. Then, on the 9th of July 1940, bombs were dropped on the Riverside Works of Boulton and Paul, not far from Dragon Hall. On the 30th of July, many other buildings were hit, including Reads’ Flour Mills in King Street. In August, there was further damage to Boulton and Paul and Colman’s Carrow works, and the street was machine gunned for good measure. Further raids followed in the December of that year; Carrow Hill and a building adjacent to the Cathedral cloister were damaged. In December, bombs hit Mountergate and Carrow; King Street lay in the midst of this destructive violence.  

Throughout 1941 there were sporadic raids. On the 29th of April, premises along King Street itself suffered.  

In April and May of 1942, Norwich experienced its heaviest raids, the Norwich Blitz marking out the city’s strategic significance. The bombing on the nights of the 27th and 28th and the 29th and 30th of April caused the most damage and loss of life. There were further attacks in June of that year.  

Norwich was not considered a major industrial target, but was one of those cities chosen in what came to be called the ‘Baedeker’ raids. Baedeker had produced travel guides in Germany since 1827. Cities were chosen for their cultural and historical value and not as a strategic or military target. Bath, Canterbury, Exeter, Norwich, and York, all important medieval cities, were selected using Baedeker’s series of tourist guides to the British Isles. The raids were said to be reprisals for the bombing of the historic city of Lübeck on Germany’s Baltic coast by the RAF earlier that year.  

PART TWO

In Norwich, the raid that began on the evening of the 27th of April 1942 was the most severe to hit the city during the war. Two nights later, on the 29th of April, another raid took place, destroying many buildings in the City Centre. In June 1942, three enemy aircraft, which were later destroyed, dropped incendiaries and high explosives, causing several large fires. Over two hundred people were killed, with thousands of others injured. 

King Street through the ages has been described as a place of churches and pubs, as indeed Norwich itself has been. In these air raids, Morgans’ Brewery, one of several breweries, and a major business along the street, was destroyed. Pubs, including the Engineers Tavern, The Elephant and Castle, the Swan, and the Jolly Maltsters, were flattened or damaged. St. Julian’s Church, just across the road from Dragon Hall, was destroyed, as was St. Michael at Thorn. All these buildings and institutions were very close to Dragon Hall itself which, at that time, contained shops, dwellings, and a pub called the Old Barge Inn, which was damaged but survived. Those were traumatic days for the people of Norwich, and those who lived in and around King Street. 

As I say, The Old Barge was hit, but did not sink. It survived and was eventually brought back to life in the Dragon Hall we see today. 

In the photograph below, the ruins of St. Julian’s church can be seen in the lower right corner, a little up and to the left of it is Dragon Hall, with the River Wensum and the railway station and sidings beyond.

During the Blitz, hundreds of people lost their lives in Norwich. In 1946, a memorial garden was created in Earlham Cemetery, where victims of those raids were buried in a mass grave. The intensity of the attack and the large number of casualties meant that identification was sometimes difficult amid the chaos. The authorities were not even sure how many had been killed. It is usually suggested that over two hundred of those people killed in the Norwich Blitz were interred there.  

Subsequently, there have been a number of memorial services on the anniversary of the raids. In May 2002, to mark the sixtieth anniversary, a service, led by the Normandy Veterans’ Chaplain, was held. The British Legion, various other Veterans’ organisations, and civic leaders were in attendance, including the Lord Mayor, the Mayor of Koblenz (with which Norwich is twinned), Chief Constable, and Chief Fire Officer.  

PART THREE

Immediately afterwards, the Civic Group walked to the military section of the cemetery. In one corner the graves of a number of German airmen are to be found. There are five graves in one of them, four for an air crew who died together. A British veteran got in contact with the widow of the pilot of the bomber with the crew of four. Through this connection, their deaths were marked. Here, prayers of peace and reconciliation were said, and the souls of the German dead commended to God. Those present found it a moving moment. 

Afterwards, the German widow sent a letter of thanks. This is an extract. 

‘I find it very honourable that the War Graves are so honoured by English veterans and the Authorities. I am very proud of this England and its people.’

Yours, Gerdi BollerT.

The people of King Street survived the Second World War, as they had survived other tragedies throughout history, but, as so often before, the residents were at the mercy of other people’s decisions and actions. During the war, as the famous poster urged, they ‘Kept Calm and Carried On.’ 

St. Julian and St Peter Parmentergate were now a united parish. Amidst the chaos, the churches carried on too; the only reference to the war in the Parish Record simply states: ‘St. Julian’s was destroyed by enemy action June 27th at 2.30 AM 1942.’

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