Old Dive's History of Norwich Castle - Part the Third - Life in the Mediæval Castle Fee - Chapter III

Curious to find out more about flirting (see previous post: incorrectly fletched arrows not flying true) I consulted the oracle of the interweb and, after numerous pages of inappropriate content, discovered the Worshipful Company of Fletchers and was amazed at the sheer amount of work that goes into making a mediæval longbow arrow (if you're really unlucky I might go into detail at the end of this talk so that those of you who may be inclined to do so can make their own arrows).

With regards the feathers used for fletching, Veronica-Mae Soar, Clerk to the Craft Guild of Traditional Bowyers and Fletchers tells us - among a great many other strange and wondrous things in A Brief History of Arrowmaking:

"Contrary to some belief it is not necessary to set fletchings on the slant in order to make the arrow spin. Provided that each feather is from the same wing, right or left, the arrow will spin because the feather has a rough side which produces lift and a smooth side over which air flows freely."

Now we know that, let us take a look at mediæval life along the Great Cockey, the stream running along the western boundary of the Castle Fee and home as well as bowmaking and fletching to some of the most truly gross and stinky goings on.

The "Lost" Rivers of Norwich, showing the route of the Great Cockey.

Gotta love that Norman Knight north point.

Courtesy EAA 132

The Great Cockey rose at a place called Jack's Pit, shown on the map above, about at the top of the current All Saints' Green, just inside the line of the later city wall. Jack's Pit was a deep, muddy pool "caused by the conflux of the water of several kennels" (Kirkpatrick: 1889). A "kennel" being a channel or canal, so several dtches or small streams came together at Jack's Pit and out flowed the Great Cockey.

This flowed down All Saints' Green and Westlegate, where it formed Needham Slough, a large marshy pool between what is now M&S and Debenhams. Here it was joined by a tributary stream coming down St. Stephen's Street.

Above this point, along Surrey Street and Queen's Road, there were tenter fields, where washing was hung out to dry, the archæological evidence suggests tha the water above Needham Slough was clean enough for washing and brewing.

The Great Cockey, running north between Norwich Castle and the Norman Market on the left.

You can see Needham Slough on the lower left of the map. The grey lines are the current street plan.

Courtesy EAA 132

From Needham Slough, the Great Cockey became a strong watercourse, cutting a channel up to thirteen feet deep in places (this was excavated under a shop in the middle of the Royal Arcade).

Its course followed the line on the above map, passing Debenhams, dipping down through Primark and Game, across the centre of Royal Arcade and along the line of Little London Street to the side of Jarrold's continuing in a roughly straight line to its outfall into the Wensum, which you can see today as an iron-grated culvert in the river wall opposite Norwich Playhouse.

By 1285, parts of the Great Cockey had already been built over and the stream culverted. Due to the steep slope down from the castle toward the market the western bank of the Cockey was lower than the eastern and so regularly flooded the area between Pret upstream and Jarrold's downstream [I'll mark these on the map of the Norman Market that comes toward the end of the talk, so anyone who doesn't know the area can at least make sense of it].

The flooding was not an issue while it was open land with sheds and pits, used by skinners and tanners (see below), but once it became more built up by around 1420 the whole length of the Great Cockey was buried in a large brick culvert, which was diverted eastward from the centre of the Royal Arcade to what is now Castle Street in front of Waterstone's to allow the old course to be built on.

Recent archæological papers suggest it then kinked across at right angles, left and right, to run down Little London Street on its old course.

But Old Dive knows better … During rebuilding works to the complex of mediæval houses that used to be Hovell's basket shop (thirteen mediæval buildings all on different levels on a steep slope), after a terrible fire in the 1980s, I got the job of architecturally reconstructing what was left.

Hovell's in happier days … it stretched up the hill to the right for another two buildings and down the hill to the left for four more, plus several more stacked in behind. Photo EDP24

 Lo and behold, there, running through the basement, beneath a later timber floor that had burned away, we found the Great Cockey still flowing in a massive brick culvert, suggesting that the archæologists' guess was wrong and that the diverted stream continued in a straight line from the bottom of London Street, down through Hovell's basement, under the Georgian house at the west end of the Bridewell, then on down the hill past St. Andrew's churchyard, under the Festival House and then joined the Wensum at its original outflow.

Analysis of the enrolled deeds from Norman and early mediæval records tells us that the most commonly occurring trade along the banks of the Great Cockey was that of leather-workers, of which more in the next post.

Towering above the Cockey stream were the castle motte and keep and the moats, ditches, mounds and baileys of the Castle Fee; the great earthworks that protected Norwich Castle.

These were not used merely for defence. The vast swathes of grassland were used for the fattening of pigs and cattle for the people of the castle and the Fee.

A Fat Pig … courtesy of the interweb.

People outside the fee were not permitted to graze their animals there, though I learned from the Pipe Rolls that in 1137,  a certain David Monney of Norwich [NB: David Monney was a workmate of Old Dive and present at the lecture, much to the amusement of the other attendees] was fined for fattening his pigs on the castle bailey.

But to return to the early Norman Castle Fee and our stroll along the Great Cockey, it's time to get gross … really gross. You know you want this bit, it's what you came here for … If you've not finished your sandwiches it's too late now …

… and that'll start in the next post. I know, I'm a spoilsport.

Sources:

East Anglian Archæology Vol. 132: Norwich Castle: Excavations and Historical Survey: 1978-1988: Part 1: Anglo-Saxon to c.1345: Elizabeth Shepherd-Popescu: 2009

The Norman Connections - Castle: Part 1: Norwich Castle: Elizabeth Shepherd-Popescu: 2010

Mediæval Norwich: ed: Carole Rawcliffe & Richard Wilson: 2004

Eastern Daily Press website: "13th century cat and goat hide shop excavated."

A Brief History of Arrowmaking: Veronica-Mae Soar; Clerk to the Craft Guild of Traditional Bowyers and Fletchers: The Worshipful Company of Fletchers: online resource

East Anglian Archæology Vol. 112: Dragon Hall, King Street, Norwich: Excavation and Survey of a Late Mediæval Merchant's Trading Complex: Norfolk and Norwich Heritage Trust

East Anglian Archæology Vol 28: Excavations Within the North-East Bailey of Norwich Castle: 1979

Francis Blomefield: An Essay Towards a Topographical History of the County of Norfolk: Volume 3: The History of the City and County of Norwich: 1753 to 1775 

The Oxford History of England: 1087-1216: From Domesday to Magna Carta: Austin L. Poole (ed): 1951

The Pipe Roll Society: Archive Editions (various): online resource