Weird Norfolk quirky tour of Thorpe St Andrew in Norwich

Known as Thorpe-next-Norwich until 1955, Thorpe St Andrew is on the north-east side of Norwich with the River Yare to the south. Recently declared a town, it has a large population of more than 13,500 people.

Here are just a small selection of sites and stories, places to visit and snippets of history that can be found, or happened, here.

Hillside Avenue skeletons: In woodland behind Hillside Avenue’s allotments there was an incredible discovery in the 50s. Numerous human skeletons were found, along with the remains of a medieval church. The skeletons were buried before the 12th century, the church was disturbed when it was built in the 1100s. Archaeologists found remnants of glazed tiles, crumpled window lead, fragments of painted wall plaster, marble and bricks. One theory was that the earlier burial was a boat burial, indicated by large nails around a skeleton.

Church ruins: Kept as a beautiful ruin when St Andrew’s church was rebuilt in 1864, the 13th century church remains lead visitors to the newer church through the old tower. St Andrew’s has the original 13th century font and an unusual screen panel where the apostles have the faces of religious and political leaders from the 1920s.

Thorpe Lodge’s secret bunker: Under the former Pinebanks development off Yarmouth Road there is a secret Second World War bunker built on the orders of Winston Churchill. Its entrance was behind a bookcase, and its aerial was disguised in a tree with the feeder cable under the bark. There was an escape tunnel in case its operatives were discovered. Now the underground wireless station, on private land, has been protected as a scheduled monument by the government on the advice of Historic England. The rare IN-Station, known as a Zero Station, was part of a mysterious secret wireless network operated mainly by civilian agents and was set up in 1940 in response to the increasing threat of German invasion.

And that’s not all at Thorpe Lodge… John Harvey, a Norwich banker, textile manufacturer and former mayor, also had a wavy crinkle-crankle wall built around part of the estate, and an octagonal summerhouse which was adapted into a camera obscura. Light would be admitted into the darkened chamber through a double convex lens to form an image of external objects on glass or paper. AND there was a tunnel built under Yarmouth Road to serve as a gardeners’ passage between Thorpe Hall and Lodge.

The death of an infamous East End gangster: Reggie Kray died at The Town House Hotel in Thorpe St Andrew in October 2000. With his brother Ronnie, the Kray Twins were the foremost leaders of organised crime in the East End during the 50s 60s, but the murder of Jack McVitie led to their conviction and incarceration in 1969. After his twin’s death in 1995, Reggie was transferred to Category C Wayland Prison in Norfolk. He served a year more than his 30-year sentence, became a born-again Christian and married Roberta Jones in prison. Diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2000, he left the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital at the end of September, checked into the Yarmouth Road hotel and spent the rest of his life there with wife Roberta until his death on October 24.

The pub with a priesthole: Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery has a tranquil watercolour by artist John Joseph Cotman from 1817. A description given by the museum says: “It depicts Thorpe Gardens, a 15th century Grade II listed building with a priest hole and hidden staircase. For almost 200 years the building has served as a pub, and is now The Rushcutters Arms. Its peaceful river setting, captured so mesmerizingly by Cotman, has hosted regattas, rowing matches and Victorian steamboats during its long history.” 

Thorpe Water Frolic: Merchant Thomas Harvey had seen something similar in Venice while on a Grand Tour of Europe and decided to bring a flavour of Italy to Thorpe St Andrew. In 1824, he held a Water Frolic in Thorpe, which was caught in oils by provincial artist Joseph Stannard. The annual frolics had been established in 1821 and were initially only attended by wealthy and influential people, but in 1823, Harvey opened the event to everyone (albeit with a price tag). Obviously, the two classes of spectator didn’t mingle. The working class watching from the south bank of the Yare, while the gentry enjoyed sailing matches, bands playing Haydn, Mozart and Rossini, speeches and a lavish picnic. At night, there were fireworks and dancing at Thorpe Lodge.

Thorpe Greyhound Track: Cary’s Meadow, just south of Yarmouth Road, was once the home of a greyhound track, which opened in 1933 - the third of its kind in Norwich. Racing operated in the summer, while in the winter, the fields were manually flooded to allow the site to double up as an ice-skating venue. The track closed in 1939 before the start of World War Two and never reopened. Today, the meadow is a free-to-visit nature reserve with multitudes of plant species to spot, including wild orchids in summer. Cattle graze there from July to December and you might also spot bats, rabbits and butterflies.

St Andrew’s Hospital: By the early 20s, nearly half of Thorpe’s population of 2,601 were inmates at St Andrew’s - an institution which had opened in 1814 as the Norfolk County Asylum. Said to be the oldest hospital of its kind in Britain, it was so large that a bridge over the main road was built in 1856 to link two sites. During both World Wars the hospital was used as part of the war effort with wounded soldiers taken there from Thorpe Station. Most of the buildings have now been converted into housing: during construction work a range of features were recorded including an extensive mortuary and dissection complex, a surgical theatre and Art Nouveau stained glass.

Thorpe Rail Disaster: A tragic misunderstanding between a night inspector and a telegraph clerk at Norwich resulted in a terrible head-on collision between two full passenger trains, one bound for Yarmouth, the other travelling from London to Norwich. Residents in what was then Thorpe-next-Norwich heard a “deafening peal of thunder” on the evening of September 10, 1874, as both trains collided just east of the bridge over the River Wensum, within 100 yards of The Thorpe Gardens public house, now The Rushcutters. One national newspaper described the scene as a “ghastly pyramid formed of hissing locomotives, shattered carriages and moaning, in some cases dying, passengers”. The tragedy killed 27 people and injured 70.

Anti-tank blocks: There remain stark sentinels in Thorpe St Andrew which were built to block an invading German army – around the town can be found the remnants of anti-tank ditches from World War Two, concrete block anti-tank obstacles to prevent Norwich being attacked. This line was once 6.5km long – find precise locations here.