“Norwich itself was then a beautiful place, and looked almost the same as it must have done in the days of Crome and Cotman. I now realise what a playground it was for the artist. No wonder it had its famous Norwich School of Painters, for the artist is dependent on his environment, and no artists had a more truly picturesque home than this old city of gardens, with its cathedral, its fifty churches, its river with wherries, boats and barges, quays and bridges. There are towers on the ancient walls of the city, alley-ways leading to courtyards and back streets, with churches hidden away, set in churchyards filled with tombs of parishioners.
As I became older, I became more and more unconsciously in love with those gabled houses in their narrow streets. Such an unlimited wealth of motifs would tempt the dullest painter.”
Alfred Munnings, An Artist’s Life, 1950.
WATCH: Tramway Ride Through Principal Streets 1902 Norwich, Norfolk. The East Anglian FIlm Archive.
Watch here: www.eafa.org.uk/catalogue/294
