Norfolk Heritage Explorer

Location

Full description

Former friary, now partly amenities centre and partly art school.
14th and 15th centuries with 19th and 20th century alterations and additions. Flint with stone and brick dressings.
Ashlar facing. Brick, lead, slate and pantile roofs. Nave with north and south aisles, walkway and chancel.
Remains of monastic offices and cloisters to the north.
Former church: seven bay nave, two storey porch, five bay chancel.
For further details see (S1) and (S2).

Cloister: to the north, complete south range. See (S1) for more details. Excavated remains of north cloister range.
Quadrangle is closed to north by Art School building of 1899.
Chapter House: excavated remains of three bay twin aisled range east of east cloister range.
The Crypt: four bays of brick vaulting with central re-made stone pier. Becket's Chapel: to the east of the crypt. Remains of six bay chapel.
The complex ranks highly as one of the most complete Dominican Friaries in England.
For full details see (S1).

The crypt of Becket's Chapel has a quadrapartite plan with double-order diagonal ribs in each bay springing from a central pier. There are blocked doors and openings on all four walls.
R. Smith 1990.

From 1696 to 1698 a mint stood in a corner of the cloisters and in 1608 a library was made over the porch.

For the Yorkshire tracery here and at St Peter Mancroft see (S9).

1910 to 1911. Excavation by P.A. Nash of Dominican Friary.

1958.
Excavation by C. Green for the Ministry of Works on the site of Becket's Chapel. This had been destroyed in 1874 and the site levelled off to the yard entrance to Elm Hill.

1970.
Foundations dug at west end of nave of St Andrew's Hall.
Removal of 15th century and other floors; paving stones with a selection of masons marks on underside.
Plan of floors by Architect's Department and photographs of floor levels.

November 1971.
One post medieval sherd from inside the Gents' toilets, during construction work.
W. Milligan (NCM).

February to March 1972.
Clearance to expose the surviving walls of 'Becket's Chapel' for floor level involved the demolition of a late 19th/early 20th century store building.
For further details see file.
J. Roberts.

23 May 1973.
Unstratified material from St Andrew's Hall itself.
Medieval pottery etc, see list in file.

1974.
From test hole dug outside the Art School, St Georges Street.
Various pottery, Late Saxon to Medieval.

1974.
From Blackfriars Hall. 17th century bellarmine.
Doorway from southeast corner of cloister walk into north corner of 'crypt' unblocked.

January 1975.
New doorway opened through east end wall of main church south aisle to give access to south end of vestibule.
Walls of the 'crypt' were rendered. Pre-plastering drawings were made.
J. Roberts.

February 1993. Field Observation.
Recording of wall revealed in relaying floor between St Andrew's and Blackfriars' Halls in walkway.
Details in file.
S. Bates (NAU), 3 February 1993.

See file for further details. See also NHER 827, etc.

2006.
Scheduled monument consent granted concerning the proposed acoustic double glazing to the clerestory windows of St. Andrew's Hall, the installation of external floodlighting, the stripping, repairing and re-covering of the roof of the west turret and the upgrade of the fire warning system.
See (S12).
H. White (NLA), 2 April 2009

January-February 2007. Watching Brief.
Monitoring of groundworks associated with installation of floodlighting, bollards and new paving. From Context 3000.
A 26m long trench was excavated running from Prince's Street to the stone steps on the southern side of St. Andrew's Hall, and although changed course several times, was oriented largely north-south. A wall foundation and in-situ demolition rubble was recorded in the south section of the trench. The wall was constructed of brick and flint cobbles bound by a lime mortar and was on the same orientation as Prince's Street. A further wall base was located in the northern section of the trench, constructed of brick bound by lime motar and oriented NE-SW.
A second trench was dug parallel to the full length of the southern exterior of the hall. Seven grave cuts were recorded. They were steep sided and extended below the base of the trench so were not fully excavated. Disarticulated human bone was recovered from all graves, in addition artefacts were recovered from four of the graves, including animal bone, medieval brick and a single sherd of medieval pottery. Medieval brick and an 18th century pottery sherd we recovered adjacent to the western porch of the Hall. The south-westerly section of the trench revealed a single fragment of 12th-1th century continental pottery, fragments of post- medieval roof tile and fragments of butchered cattle bone. A structural feature was recorded in the section of the trench immediately adjacent to the west porch. It consisted of an east-west wall or wall foundation, and was built of chalk lumps and flint cobbles.
11 trenches were excavated in preparation for bollards. A small quantity of human bone and a single sherd of Thetford-type ware was recovered from one trench to the south of the site.
A third trench was excavated to the south of St Andrews Hall, and revealed a structural feature in the north-east corner which consisted of two flint cobble and lime mortar walls. One was oriented east- west and the other north south, to form the south-west corner of a probable cellar. The north-south wall truncated a circular pit or well. The feature appeared to be lined with a sandy clay material, and the fill produced post- medieval pottery fragments.
See (S13) for further information. The results of this work are also summarised in (S22).
The associated archive has been deposited with Norwich Castle Museum (NWHCM : 2017.498).
H. White (NLA), 3 December 2008. Amended by P. Watkins (HES), 27 May 2019.

The workhouse was founded in 1711 when Norwich incorporated its parishes for poor relief, together with Duke's Palace and the St. Augustine's Infirmary (NHER629).
Information from J. Lodey.
E. Rose (NLA), 4 June 2007.

2007.
Scheduled monument consent granted concerning the installation of 11 cycle parking stands, improvements of the fire compartmentation and installation of automatic glass doors.
See (S14) for further information
H. White (NLA), 2 April 2009

2008. Proposals to regenerate St Andrew's and Blackfriars' Halls by Norwich HEART (S10), who also provide the following summary of the site (S11):-
St Andrew’s and Blackfriars’ Halls, and their associated buildings, are the most complete example of a friary complex in the UK to survive from the medieval period. The friary was originally founded on the site by the Friars of the Sack in or around 1258. After this order was suppressed the friary was taken over in 1307 by the Black Friars (Dominicans), who had already established themselves in the city. So the site’s history stretches back around 750 years. When the Dominican friary suffered the same fate as other monastic houses at the Reformation in October 1538, the city promptly petitioned the king “to make the church a fair and a large hall for the mayor and his brethren for their common assemblies, to keep a free school therein, and to keep a chapel”. By 1540 the buildings were owned by the City and have been so ever since, serving as a non-conformist chapel, stores, a mint, a workhouse, a school, assembly rooms and, from 1824, the main venue for the Norfolk & Norwich Festival. The Halls are still used as a modern-day concert, performance and events space – for antiques fairs and the beer festival.
D. Gurney (NLA), 19 November 2008.

2008.
Scheduled monument consent granted to remove and replace recorded stone copings, fix slipping concrete copings and repoint knapped flint facing. Consent was also granted to install under floor heating , to repair and consolidate the remains of the flint cloister walls and to repair and re-cover the roof of the east building of the garth building.
See (S15) for further information.
H. White (NLA), 7 January 2009.

2008. Norwich HEART.
The only English friary to survive intact from the medieval period, the Halls were built over 600 years ago and were part of the medieval precinct of the Dominican or Black Friars. The layout is typical of a medieval English friary church, including a large nave (St Andrew's) used for preaching to congregations and a smaller chancel (Blackfriars) where the friars held services. The nave and chancel were separated by a walkway, which would have allowed direct access to the cloisters. The Halls now hold the country's largest collection of civic portraits, totalling 127 late 16th to 19th century paintings of Norwich Mayors, Sheriffs and other dignitaries.
See (S16, S17).
D. Gurney (NLA), 27 January 2009.

February 2009.
Scheduled monument consent granted for the installation of an internal secondary glass sliding door to the entrance on the west elevation, and the installation of two new signs.
See (S18) for further details.
H. White (NLA), 4 March 2009.

August 2009.
(S19) notes that a photograph dating from 1843 exists in 'Norfolk Photographically Illustrated'.
H. White (NLA), 1 September 2009.

November 2009
For website with many resources and 3-D animations, see (S20).
D. Gurney (NLA), 4 November 2009.

November 2010. Building Survey.
Survey of the East Garth Building (the former dormitory range) prior to proposed works. Roof and selected rooms examined.
See report (S21) for details, including the results of the analysis of a mortar sample taken from the roof.
P. Watkins (HES), 10 November 2015.

March 2011. Application for scheduled monument consent.
See (S22).
S. Howard (HES), 24 October 2011.

Monument Types

• EXCHANGE (Undated)
• PIT (Unknown date)
• CESS PIT (Medieval - 1066 AD to 1539 AD)
• CHAPEL (Medieval - 1066 AD to 1539 AD)
• CHURCH (Medieval - 1066 AD to 1539 AD)
• CHURCH (Medieval - 1066 AD to 1539 AD)
• FRIARY (Medieval - 1066 AD to 1539 AD)
• FRIARY (Medieval - 1066 AD to 1539 AD)
• GRAVE (Medieval - 1066 AD to 1539 AD)
• NONCONFORMIST CHAPEL (Medieval - 1066 AD to 1539 AD)
• UNDERCROFT (Medieval - 1066 AD to 1539 AD)
• CELLAR (Post Medieval - 1540 AD to 1900 AD)
• GRANARY (Post Medieval - 1540 AD to 1900 AD)
• MINT (Post Medieval - 1540 AD to 1900 AD)
• ROMAN CATHOLIC CHAPEL (Post Medieval - 1540 AD to 1900 AD)
• SCHOOL (Post Medieval - 1540 AD to 1900 AD)
• WALL (Post Medieval - 1540 AD to 1900 AD)
• WORKHOUSE (18th Century to 19th Century - 1711 AD to 1900 AD)

Associated Finds

• ANIMAL REMAINS (Undated)
• HUMAN REMAINS (Undated)
• POT (Late Saxon - 851 AD to 1065 AD)
• BRICK (Medieval - 1066 AD to 1539 AD)
• POT (Medieval - 1066 AD to 1539 AD)
• CLAY PIPE (SMOKING) (Post Medieval - 1540 AD to 1900 AD)
• POT (Post Medieval - 1540 AD to 1900 AD)

Protected Status

• Listed Building
• Scheduled Monument

Sources and further reading

Related records

Find out more...

• Parish Summary: Norwich (Medieval Period) (Parish Summary)
• Parish Summary: Norwich (Parish Summary)
• Parish Summary: Norwich (Parish Summary)
• Parish Summary: Norwich (Post Medieval Period) (Parish Summary)