With the carelessness of a victorious invader, 959 years ago, 98 Anglo-Saxon homes were swept aside to make way for what is still the dominant feature in the city of Norwich. Nearly a thousand years later, it is still setting standards.
A royal residence proclaiming power
It was essential to the Norman invaders under William the Conqueror to display their power over their new possessions. Norwich, one of the largest cities in England at the time, was a key location, with a population of over 5,000 and the river Wensum that enabled flourishing trade. William ordered that a royal fortification should be built there. The construction begun in 1067 was made of wood, built as a motte-and-bailey castle. I wonder, did those evicted to make space for the works find themselves digging up their own land to create the ditches around the new castle and raise the motte (mound) for the castle?
The mound had settled sufficiently for the construction of the stone keep to start in 1094 under the Conqueror’s son William II ‘Rufus’. Although it was to be a royal palace rather than a fortification, the only way in was nevertheless via the stair leading up to the upper-level Forebuilding, where proclamations could be made via the window openings. The stair is now enclosed, and modern visitors in fact get a better view of the Forebuilding than their medieval forebears, from a glass bridge. This is part of the step-free access arrangements that have made Norwich the UK’s most accessible castle, and have gained it a nomination for the Art Fund’s Museum of the Year award.
Down the hill, meanwhile, Bishop Herbert de Losinga was building Norwich cathedral. Both buildings used limestone shipped over from the quarry at Caen, in Normandy. The keep and the cathedral both display the same elaborate and mathematically precise rounded arch decoration characteristic of Norman architecture, and both buildings clearly proclaimed that the Norman invaders were now in charge.
A chequered history
No monarch ever lived in Norwich castle – royal courts were always on the move – but the castle served as the administrative centre for the region.
The castle’s heyday as a royal residence was short-lived, however, and for much of the time from the 14th century it served principally as Norfolk’s county gaol and a centre for the dispensing of justice. The gaol closed in the late 19th century when it was unable to meet the rising standards resulting from prison reform.
Having fallen into severe dilapidation, the building was restored with private funds, and in 1894 it re-opened as a museum, displaying some of the historical, archaeological, geological, ethnographic and zoological material that is still held by the museum today.
Major renovation in the 2020s: a royal palace reborn
Following a multi-million redevelopment project – thanks to the pandemic, it took even longer than originally planned – the castle keep is now restored to its appearance in the 12th century. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that Henry I, the younger brother and successor to William II, spent Christmas at Norwich in 1121. The project has used this date for its presentation, and the Great Hall is set out as for that Christmas feast. Channel 4 recorded the project in a detailed documentary narrated by local celebrity Stephen Fry.
We often associate the middle ages with drab colours, since most people would have relied on natural dyes for their clothing and any decorative items, but here colour explodes all around the visitor. Unlike those less wealthy, royalty could buy exotic dyes such as the intense blue created using the precious stone lapis lazuli. It is used on the door through which guests entered the Great Hall from the Forebuilding, and on the door into the Great Chamber, where the same colour is used on the thrones. The ironwork on the doors has been recreated based on surviving 12th-century doors from Norfolk.
Door from the Great Hall to the Great Chamber Image by Attila via Flickr (CC BY 4.0)
Thrones … and thrones
I first visited the castle in the summer holidays of 2025, not long after the opening of A Royal Palace Reborn. The place was buzzing with families trying on medieval attire and testing out the comfort of the thrones in the Great Hall and the royal bed in the Great Chamber. Some visitors were watching a cookery demonstration in the kitchen area to the side of the hall where food from an external kitchen could be warmed up. Upstairs on the mezzanine, children were trying on armour and (under strict supervision from a guide!) weighing up chain mail and weapons.
Along a corridor just off the Great Hall visitors were intrigued by the prestigious garderobes. There were 16, reflecting the high status of the Norwich palace, and perhaps the expectation of extravagant celebrations. Medieval graffiti survive on a nearby section of wall. The fleur-de-lys (associated with the Virgin Mary) and the circular compass and daisy-wheel motifs were believed to ward off evil spirits that could enter a building through any opening, including the garderobe shaft.
It would have been safe for visitors to try out this other kind of throne too, but none were so bold that day.
A grim fate
The castle renovation project was completed this spring with the opening of the dungeons. These cramped, dark, dank and dismal spaces served for much of the castle’s history as prison cells. They were often overcrowded, since death was the penalty for stealing goods to the value of (in 2026) £30 – not a high bar. The occupants would be awaiting either execution or transportation.
Various instruments of torture are displayed in one of the spaces: stocks and a pillory for public humiliation of petty criminals. The most gruesome item to my mind is an iron gibbet. It would be formed around the hanged body of the criminal so that it could remain displayed in the gibbet as a warning until it rotted.
A happy transportation ending
While the renovated dungeons show a dark side of our history, the informative guides also keep alive the human stories that these walls once witnessed. One such is that of Henry Cable who, along with his father and a friend, were jailed in Norwich Castle for burglary in 1783 and condemned to hang.
Henry, being young, had his sentence commuted to transportation. Also awaiting deportation in the dungeon was Susanna Holmes, likewise a thief. They were destined for America, but the newly independent American colonies no longer accepted British convicts. While the government sought alternatives, prisoners were left in limbo, some for several years. Henry and Susanna meanwhile formed a relationship, and their son – also Henry – was born in the dungeon in 1786.
Henry (senior) was eventually booked onto the first transport to New South Wales, but Susanna was to be lodged, with others, on a hulk in Plymouth harbour. Distraught, Henry and Susanna appealed and their case reached the Home Secretary and the national newspapers. They were allowed to travel together. Some years and another ten children later (all but one lived to adulthood), Henry and Susanna had served out their sentences and went on to enjoy a prosperous life in the nascent society of New South Wales.
The castle receives occasional visits from their numerous descendants, now spelled Kable. One had been on pilgrimage to the family’s grim origins just a couple of weeks before I visited.
Well worth a visit
Norfolk Museum Service deserves high praise for bringing history alive in a way that is clearly inspiring a new generation of potential medieval historians. Despite the relatively expensive admission price the visitor numbers exceeded 110,000 in the first three months. Those living nearby may find a Museum Pass to be good value: it gives year-round free entry to the Castle and all the other excellent Norfolk museums.
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