Norwich Castle is a medieval royal fortification in the city of Norwich, in the English county of Norfolk. William the Conqueror (1066–1087) ordered its construction in the aftermath of the Norman Conquest of England. The castle was used as a gaol from 1220 to 1887. In 1894, the Norwich Museum moved to Norwich Castle. The museum and art gallery holds significant objects from the region, especially works of art, archaeological finds and natural history specimens.
The historic national importance of the Norwich Castle site was recognised in 1915 with its listing as a scheduled monument. The castle buildings, including the keep, attached gothic style gatehouse and former prison wings, were given Grade I listed building status in 1954. The castle is one of the city's twelve heritage sites, and is managed by the Norfolk Museums Service.
The interior of the keep was reconstructed over five years to how it would have looked in the early 12th century, fully reopening in August 2025.
History
Norwich Castle was founded by William the Conqueror some time between 1066 and 1075 and originally took the form of a motte and bailey. Early in 1067, William embarked on a campaign to subjugate East Anglia, and according to military historian R. Allen Brown it was probably around this time that the castle was founded. The earliest recorded incident at the castle is in 1075, when it was besieged by troops loyal to William to put down a rebellion known as the Revolt of the Earls, co-led by Ralph de Gael, Earl of Norfolk. Ralph went abroad to try and rally support from the Danes leaving his wife Emma in charge of the garrison. The support failed to materialise and the rebellion was put down. The siege lasted three months and ended when Emma secured promises that she and her garrison would be unharmed and given safe passage out of the country.
Norwich is one of 48 castles mentioned in the Domesday Survey of 1086. Estimates suggest that between 17 and 113 houses were destroyed in the building of the castle. Excavations in the late 1970s discovered that the castle bailey was built over a Saxon cemetery. The historian Robert Liddiard remarks that "to glance at the urban landscape of Norwich, Durham or Lincoln is to be forcibly reminded of the impact of the Norman invasion". Until the construction of Orford Castle in the mid-12th century under Henry II, Norwich was the only major royal castle in East Anglia.
By about 1100, the motte had been made higher and the surrounding ditch deepened. The stone keep, which stands today, was built on the south west part of the motte between 1094 and 1121. The keep internally had two floors. The entrance was to the upper floor on the eastern side, accessed via an external stone stairway to a forebuilding which became known as Bigod Tower. An area of land surrounding the castle, known as the Castle Fee was immediately brought under royal control, probably for defensive purposes.
During the Revolt of 1173–1174, in which Henry II's sons rebelled and started a civil war, Norwich Castle was put in a state of readiness. Hugh Bigod, 1st Earl of Norfolk, one of the more powerful earls, joined the revolt against Henry. Bigod landed 318 Flemish soldiers in England in May 1174 and with 500 of his own men advanced on and captured Norwich Castle. Fourteen prisoners were held for ransom. When peace was restored later that year, Norwich was returned to royal control.
The castle provided sanctuary to Jews fleeing the violence that erupted against them across East Anglia in Lent 1190, and which reached Norwich on 6 February (Shrove Tuesday). Those Jews unable to find safety inside the castle were massacred.
The Pipe Rolls, records of royal expenditure, note that repairs were carried out at the castle in 1156–1158 and 1204–1205. Thomas de Burgh ( də-BUR, French: [dəbuʁ]; c. 1170 – ?), younger brother of William de Burgh, Lord of Connacht and Hubert de Burgh, Earl of Kent, and older brother of Geoffrey de Burgh, Bishop of Ely, became the castellan in 1215.
The castle as a prison
Parts of Norwich castle were used as a prison from an early stage; a gaol was made in the castle which serviced the wider county. State prisoners were confined in this gaol in 1264 and 1274. Sometimes the earl in charge of a royal castle refused to allow the sheriff to imprison convicted criminals therein, even though it had been customary to do so. In 1340, an Act of Parliament was passed that gave sheriffs control over the prisons within royal castles. From this time, Norwich castle became the public gaol of the county of Norfolk. The king retained ownership of the castle and continued to appoint a constable to look after it in his name.
By the 18th century, the stone of the castle had blackened, its battlements had decayed, and the castle ditch was being used for rubbish disposal. The prison reformer John Howard visited six times between 1773 and 1782. He recorded the highest number of inmates at 53; split between felons and debtors. Howard described an upper gaol with ten cells, a low gaol and a dungeon restricted to male felons. He was especially critical of the limited separate facilities for women prisoners.
John Soane rebuilt the prison between 1789 and 1793. The interior walls of the keep were removed and cells for the male felons built. The debtors and women prisoners were accommodated in a new building adjoining the east side of the keep. This building incorporated but obscured the traditional entrance to the keep, the Bigod Tower. This cost £15,000. Soane's design was heavily criticised by antiquarian and architect William Wilkins (1751–1815) in his essay in Archaeologia published by the Society of Antiquarians in 1796
... the East front, in which was the grand entrance, is grossly mutilated and entirely hidden by an additional building, that appears to have no kind of connection with it, and ... has totally destroyed its symmetry. ... [W]e have now only to lament, that the original style and purity of the building has been so palpably violated by this heavy excrescence ...
Wilkins continued by slating the gutted interior as
... equally ill managed; small courts surrounded by lofty buildings, which almost ... totally, exclude every cheering ray of the sun from its wretched inhabitants. The felon, the prisoner untried, the debtor, and the gaoler, the guilty, and the innocent, share in the calamity.
In the 18th century, the castle mound was being used by the city's inhabitants as a soil quarry and rubbish dump. Norwich Justices of the Peace petitioned the House of Commons for the fee simple of the castle, the shirehall and surrounding grounds to be vested in them. This was granted by Act of Parliament on 12 July 1806, thereby ending more than 700 years of royal ownership, and vesting the Castle in the Magistrates of Norfolk as a county gaol. The authorities soon deemed Soane's prison inadequate and it was extensively remodelled by Wilkins's son, also named William Wilkins. The building work was completed by 1827 or 1828, costing £50,000. Models and plans of the site show that Wilkins retained Soane's U-shape structure within the keep but demolished Soane's adjoining building and the 1749 rebuilt Elizabethan Shirehall or Sessions House on the north side of the keep. Prisoner accommodation was extended across the top of the castle mound by new wings radiating from a central gaoler's house. This governor's house was octagonal, containing apartments for the gaoler's family, a prison chapel and a committee room, and featuring views over the three wings and the yards. 240 cells were in these wings, with 36 cells in the castle keep. A mill house with a treadwheel was installed to the right of the entrance, pumping water for use in the castle. A new Shirehall was designed by Wilkins in Tudor style and built at the north east foot of the castle hill in Market Avenue. Prisoners would be escorted from the castle cells, down spiral stairs and along a foot tunnel to the crown court in the shirehall.
Prison labour involved weaving matting and making sacks, prison clothing and shoes. In 1862, 134 average daily prisoners were in the gaol, with a total of 862 within that year. 103 of these were debtors. Officers of the gaol numbered around 20, including a governor, surgeon, chaplain, schoolmaster, engineer, matron, turnkeys, taskmaster and porter. The castle ceased to be used as a gaol in 1887, following the opening of HMP Norwich on a site adjacent to the Britannia Barracks at Mousehold Heath; a transfer of all prisoners to this site occurred on 2 August 1887.
Executions
A gallows was erected on the bridge behind the entrance lodges to the castle; felons were either executed publicly at these gallows or privately within the gaol. The bodies of those executed were automatically handed over to the surgeon of the gaol until the Anatomy Act 1832, after which their burials were conducted within the castle's precincts or at St Michael-at-Thorn church. "Hempnall Poisoner" Charles Daines was the last of these executed felons to be buried at St Michael-at-Thorn in April 1837. After Daines, all of the 16 felons executed at the castle were buried in an open area between the granite walls and the brick buildings of the castle complex, marked with a stone in the wall above listing their initials and the date of execution. The last public execution took place in 1867, after which a gallows on the north side of the keep was used. George Harmer was the last person to be executed at the gaol on 13 December 1866.
Robert Kett
A wall plaque placed at the entrance to the Museum in 1949 commemorates the 400th anniversary of the execution of Robert Kett. The plaque reads
... this memorial was placed here by the citizens of Norwich in reparation and honour to a notable and courageous leader in the long struggle of the common people of England to escape from a servile life into the freedom of just conditions.
Kett and his brother William were accused of high treason as leaders of a peasant revolt now known as Kett's Rebellion. After capture in Norfolk the brothers were held at the Tower of London and indicted. A special commission of oyer and terminer found both guilty and they were brought back to Norfolk for execution; Robert in Norwich and William in Wymondham. On 7 December 1549 at the behest of Edward VI Robert was 'drawn' from the Guildhall to the Castle and taken up to the battlements on the west face to be hanged in chains from a gibbet. A figurative roundel by sculptor James Woodford that decorates the central bronze entrance door to Norwich City Hall depicts the hanging.
James Rush
James Blomfield (or Bloomfield) Rush was hanged at the Castle for the double murder of Norwich Recorder, Isaac Jermy and his son at Stanfield Hall near Wymondham on 28 November 1848. The crime, trial and execution excited national as well as local interest. Rush was held in the Castle gaol from early December. His trial took place at the Norwich Assizes and a guilty verdict was pronounced on 4 April 1849. The convicted felon was marched to the scaffold at noon on 21 April 1849 and despatched by hangman William Calcraft in front of thousands of spectators.
Conversion to museum and art gallery
The castle was bought by the city of Norwich to be used as a museum. The conversion was undertaken by Edward Boardman. Soane's cell complex within the keep was swept away and flooring and balconies installed. Norman style arches were built to support the new glazed roof. Wilkins's central gaoler's house and walled prisoner exercise yards made way for gardens and the cell blocks were converted to viewing galleries. The museum was officially opened by the Duke and Duchess of York on 23 October 1894.
At 12:25 pm on 20 February 2012, a group of four men entered the museum, forced open a display case, and attempted to steal a rhinoceros head, planning to sell its horns. They were tackled by two members of staff and stopped from stealing the head. The horns on the head were replaced with replicas before it was put back on display. Five days after the attempted rhino head theft, Admiral Lord Nelson artefacts valued at £36,800, including medals, a gold mourning ring worth £25,000, a box of medallions, and a saucer from his tea service, were stolen from the museum.