The American Cyclopædia (1879)/Norwich (Norfolk)

NORWICH, a city, capital of the county of Norfolk, England, on the Wensum river, 98 m. N. E. of London; pop. in 1871, 80,390. It is a place of great antiquity, was a flourishing town in the time of Edward the Confessor, and is still surrounded by fragments of its ancient walls, which were flanked with towers and entered by 12 gates. The streets are narrow and mostly unpaved, and the houses are built of brick with rude pointed gables; but the market place is one of the largest in the kingdom. The cathedral, founded in 1094, and chiefly of Norman architecture, is a cruciform structure, with a tower (restored in 1858) and spire rising from the intersection of the nave and transepts to the height of 315 ft. In 1872 there were 67 places of worship, of which 46 belonged to the church of England, 8 to the Baptists, 3 to the Congregationalists, 4 to the Primitive Methodists, and 2 each to the Wesleyans, United Methodists, and Roman Catholics. Norwich has been noted for its woollen fabrics since the reign of Henry I., when a colony of Flemings settled there, and obtained long wool spun in the village of Worstead, 9 m. distant, whence the produce took the name of worsted. The leading manufactures are shawls, crapes, bombazines, muslin de laine, damasks, camlets, gros de Naples, and bandanna handkerchiefs.

Norwich Cathedral.