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Norwich, a city and county, situate in the centre of the Eastern Division of Norfolk, consists of 35 parishes and 10 hamlets, covers 6,638 acres, is nearly 14 miles in circumference, and contained, in 1851, 15,000 houses and 68,195 inhabitants. The undisputed metropolis of the Eastern Counties, it has communication both by water and rail with the seaports of Yarmouth and Lowestoft, while it is doubly connected with London by the Ipswich and Cambridge lines; and has access to the midland and northern counties, by way of Peterborough. Having thus indicated the locale and dimensions of the “old city,” it is but right that before proceeding further we should give a brief sketch of its history. And this we the more readily do, inasmuch as Norwich has borne a by no means undistinguished part in those great political and social movements which have made England what she is.

We should, however, only trifle with our readers were we to express any opinion upon the origin and paternity of the East Anglian capital, for it would ill become us to pretend to pierce through the obscurity which surrounds the early history of this, as indeed of all other cities. It is certainly but natural to suppose that Norwich gradually rose round a military fortress erected on the site which the present Castle partly occupies; but whether that fortress was raised by some British potentate whose very name is mythical, or was the work of Uffa, the first Saxon king of the eastern counties, and whether, it being destroyed by Sweyn, the present structure was founded by Canute, it would profit us little to discuss. Declining, therefore, these bootless speculations, we find that in the reign of Edward the Confessor, “Northwic” contained 1300 burgesses, boasted of 25 churches, and was already of sufficient importance as to constitute a “hundred;” while in 1085, as appears by the Doomsday Survey, its burgesses had increased in number to over 1500, and its churches to 45. Shortly before this, William the Conqueror had appointed its first Norman governor, Ralph de Guader, or Waher, who, however, marrying the monarch’s niece, Judith, without his consent, and afterwards conspiring against his sovereign, was obliged to flee to Brittany; his bride, after a three-months’ siege in the castle, during which the city suffered much damage, was compelled to capitulate. The office, which included the earldom of Norfolk and some considerable estates, was then conferred on Roger Bigod, the founder of a baronial house illustrious in English history. ssss1 In the following reign the city rose in importance by the translation, in 1094, of the Bishop’s See from Thetford—where indeed it had barely been fixed a quarter of a century; having, up to 1070, been located at North Elmham, then a place of note, and subsequently a favorite residence of the diocesans. The then bishop, Herbert de Lozinga, for having purchased his preferment of William Rufus, and for other simoniacal practices, was required, after the fashion of the times, to prove his contrition by a substantial atonement. He accordingly purchased a meadow, called Cow Holme, extending from the castle ditches to the river; and in 1096 laid the foundation of a cathedral church, proceeding with such expedition, that in five years he was able to place 60 Benedictine monks in the new priory. About this period many Jews from Normandy settled in the city; popular prejudice, however, was strong against them, and in 1137, on a charge of crucifying a boy in Thorpe wood, large numbers of them were ruthlessly slaughtered. Carrow Abbey, we may here mention, dates its origin from the middle of the 12th century, the site being granted by Stephen for a nunnery, where the daughters of the noble and the affluent were wont to be educated.