The fascinating story of how Opie Street in Norwich city centre was named

Finklegate at its junction with Ber Street, dated 4th December 1986. Photo: Archant Library (Image: Archant Library)

Take Alderson Place, a small award-winning development built in the late 1950s/60s and tucked away by the triangle formed by Queens Road, Finklegate and Ber Street in Norwich – quite a busy place nowadays!

This two and three-storey city council housing scheme has a flint wall following the line of the long-gone City Wall which was designed by the well known city architect David Percival. His work can be seen across the city.

It actually won a bronze medal and a diploma for its design...at a time when this part of Norwich was being demolished as part of the slum clearance scheme when dozens of roads, streets, yards and courts, disappeared between King Street and Ber Street. There had been a row of Victorian cottages called Alderson Road which had been demolished long ago.

Amelia Opie, a portrait by her artist husband John. Photo: Courtesy of National Portrait Gallery (Image: Archant)

So who was Alderson? Well, it was reported it was named after Dr James Alderson, a surgeon who lived at St Clements in Norwich where he died, aged 83, in 1825 and is buried in the Gildencroft burial ground of the Society of Friends.

You may not have heard of him but you may well known the name of his only child, Amelia who went on to marry a Cornish painter by the name of John Opie. This had been repeated many times but when I spoke to Ann Farrant, former journalist and author of the book Amelia Opie: The Quaker Celebrity she cast doubt on the story. And she posed the question: Why would it have been?

The good doctor wasn't that well known – in fact his brother Robert, who lived in St Helen's House in Bishopgate, was more of a celebrity, being Recorder of Ipswich, Great Yarmouth and Ipswich, and father of Sir Edward Hall Alderson, a distinguished judge with a memorial window in Norwich Cathedral.

London Street at night at the junction with Opie Street, dated 18th August 1970. Photo: Archant Library (Image: Archant Library)

Ann said that during her research for the book she discovered Norwich Electric Tramways Company, acquiring deeds of properties in the area described it as being 'part of an estate formerly Alderson's.'

The mystery deepens at one end of the city centre while down the road, on Castle Meadow, Opie Street, off London Street, is certainly named after Amelia, the Quaker celebrity who led an extraordinary life.

And it is a good job it was. Other names for this once notorious little road linking London Street with Castle Meadow are far too rude to print. It was known as the Devil's Steps, then a couple of unmentionable ones, and then there was one which we can repeat but it's nasty...Evil Whore's Lane.

Tucked away behind St John�s de Sepulchre Church is Alderson Place, named after Dr James Alderson. The man who designed the award-winning development, Norwich City architect David Percival. Photos: Archant Library (Image: Archant Library.)

Let's say it was a night-time meeting place.

Now it has a wonderful name remembering and honouring a woman who was a gifted poet and author. One the whole of Norwich can be proud of.

In her younger years Amelia Alderson was a girl at the centre of some gossip and tittle-tattle. She was from the middle classes and she married John Opie – a man from Cornish peasant stock who had a history. He had also been married but his first wife had run off with another man.

The Bridewell, once the home of William Appleyard; the first Mayor of Norwich in 1403 who was also a burgess to Parliament for the city. Photo: Archant Library (Image: Archant Library)

John and Amelia fell in love and were married in 1798 and what a talented couple they proved to be. She a writer and he a painter. Both of some style.

They set up home in London and enjoyed the good life mixing with the leading radicals of the day. They were celebrities of their time.

The distinguished writer, Sir Walter Scott, was so impressed after reading Amelia's first book, Father and Daughter, he said he had: 'Cried over it more than I have ever cried over such things.'

A self-portrait of the brilliant portrait painter John Opie. Photo: Archant Library (Image: Archant archive.)

Her work was controversial and received reviews good and not so good while her husband John became a top portrait painter. Many of the great men and women of the day sat for John, including members of the Royal Family.

His work was much sought after but he died at the age of 46 in 1807 and is buried at St Paul's Cathedral.

Heartbroken, Amelia turned her back on the bright lights of London and returned to her beloved Norwich where she lived in Colegate with her father. She decided to become a Quaker and devoted herself to charitable works. She travelled a good deal but her heart was always in Norwich.

White marble bust of Norwich Born author and poet Amelia Opie. Photo: Archant Library (Image: Archant Library)

When she returned to the city she lived in a house on the corner of Castle Meadow and what is now Opie Street. She died there in 1853 aged 84 and is buried at Gildencroft close to her father.

Today the street named after her is far more respectable. I think Amelia would like the way it looks in the 21st century. Another Norwich citizen we can all be proud of.

Opie Street, in Norwich, at Dusk, dated 2004. Photo: Keiron Tovell (Image: Archant)