Knowlden Titlow

About Us
History of St Mary's Croft

Early History

When the City Walls were built in the 14th Century they enclosed the field of St Mary's Chapel part of the Monastrey which stands where the Theatre Royal is. Hence is has been known as Chapley Field, Chapperfield Croft or Chapel in the Field. In 1666 the field was used as a mass burial site for victims of the Great Plague.

It was enclosed within Rails in 1707 and was the venue for a Duel in 1784 when two men drew pistols on each other loaded with Corks ! The City of Norwich Water Company built a large reservoir there in 1792 but following an outbreak of cholera in the city the reservoir was abandoned in 1849. The whole area was laid out as ornamental gardens. Opened in 1880 they remain in much the same form today.

During the early 1800's is was daytime for playground for Street Urchins and a night time haunt for persons of questionable character. The Prince and Princess of Wales visited to plant trees and the splendid drill hall was built in 1866. The reservoir was filled in and the City Corporation and it was laid out as a public garden in 1877 finally being officially opened by the then Lord Mayor in 1880.

The great iron pavilion formerly exhibited at the 1876 Paris and Philadelphia exhibitions was erected in the gardens in 1880. When it became unsafe through rust and neglect it was dismantled in 1949.

The Pavilion was a thatched timber building. A place to sit and watch the children play, and to shelter from the rain. The Pavilion was eventually replaced by a tea room ( today it is the popular Pedro's, a Mexican-style restaurant).

 

New House

On 3rd April 1872 a Charles Morse sold two cottages on the site to a Captain Stephen Matthew Crowe a 32 year old Militia man for £110. The 1871 Census shows Crowe (as he as a tenant of one of these property's in Chapel Field living with his servant Sarah Moore and a visitor Maud Strudwick aged 7 and a scholar. Interestingly the census provides for a further description of this person allowing for options ; 1 Deaf and Dumb, 2 Blind, 3 Imbecile or Idiot and 4 Lunatic. Sadly little Maud is marked as a lunatic.

Clearly Captain Crowe was a well travelled man serving in Zululand and he decided to build a city residence on the site of these two cottages. He designed the house himself incorporating Gothic style architecture with his own influence of Zulu styling in the top floor balconies. He also included other embellishments including the magnificent chimneys and fancy stonework.

The Property was complete by 1881 as illustrated on the present day drainpipe at the side of the property. However, Captain Crowe accidentally extended the official building line by three inches and because it intention was to let the property the local corporation refused permission for a period of 30 years.

During his period of ownership Crowe employed a carpenter in the evenings who worked on the interior woodwork which is still on show today in the front ground floor rooms and staircase. The tapping noise he made, as he carved the oak panels, together with the flickering candle-light that he worked by gave rise to a reputation as the Haunted House.

The property was named St Mary's Croft which was derived from the local college of St Mary's in the Fields which stands on the ground of the Assembly Rooms and the original name for Chapelfield which was Chapel Croft. However locals named the property Captain Crowe's New House and The Crowe's Nest.

By the 1881 Census the property had been occupied the newly retired Major Crowe aged 44, and Sarah Moore longstanding servant. A third occupant was Emma Strudwick aged 60 who is listed as his mother. This could have been his stepmother perhaps.

New Owners

In 1884 Major Crowe sold the property to a relative Mrs Strudwick - she must have been related to his mother in some way but this still remains a mystery and the 1891 Census does not make specific reference to this property. By 1901 the property had been sold to Mary Pym for £2,000. The Census that same year shows Mary Pym, a 38 year old woman of "independent means" living at 3 Chapelfield She took some time to move into her new residence as the census shows St Mary's as being unoccupied.

Mary Pyms husband had left her soon after they were married and she lived on her own with two servants. She died in 1927 aged 64 and it appears that in the latter years of her life she lived on her own in the house as acquaintances remember her as a small woman, carrying buckets of coal and doing her chores. She was clearly not without money as she left another house in her will to Nugent Monk the founder of the Maddermarket Theatre.

Mary Pym left St Mary's Croft in her will to Henry Hart, an antique dealer in Norwich's All Saints Green. He used it as a furniture store using the front right room as a store for Grand Pianos.

The Dental Practice

The Bryan and Steel dental practice, one of Norwich's oldest, which dates back to 1843 and was first based at Tucks Court, Norwich occupied a surgery on the site of the present day City Hall and during the late 1920's they knew they had to find a new base as their property was to be demolished. In 1929 they purchased St Mary's Croft, Chapelfield North from Henry Hart for £1,600.

The property needed considerable adaptation for a dental practice. Initially the ground floor rooms were as follows. Our waiting room was an office, the board room was the partner's sitting room and the large office was as it remained as until 2006 was the waiting room. The surgeries were on the first floor and the second floor with the rooms opening to the balconies were given over to dental technicians. It was not until 1931 that the dental practice opened.

During the second world war the property received blast damage in an air raid and evidence of this can be seen in the patchwork of brick repairs to the side wall. John Steel one of the partners slept on the top floor, ready to put out fires from incendiary bombs. He also recalls that during one raid a bomb fell on the old Nestle Chocolate Factory (now the site of Chapelfield Shopping Mall) which blew him out of bed! The dental practice flourished over the intervening years and successive partners worked on preserving patients teeth through the formative years of the NHS, the development of anaesthetics, cosmetic dentistry, the benefits of fluoride and high speed spray-cooled turbine drills - ouch!

A New Base for Knowlden Titlow

After eight years of residence at Unthank Road, Norwich, Knowlden Titlow realised they had outgrown them. The financial services and insurance broking operations had expanded in latter years and the search for a new office began in 2002.

In April 2006 an offer was accepted for St Mary's Croft by the current dental partners Messr's Brown, Parker and Irving. Knowlden Titlow Insurance brokers was on the move leaving Knowlden Titlow Financial Services Ltd to take up the spare space at Unthank Road. But some months would elapse before they could move in.

Just like in 1929 the property needed considerable work and refurbishment to make the transition from dental practice to modern day office. This work was made more complicated because the property was made a Grade II Listed building in 1980. Miles and miles of old gas pipes, water pipes and old electrical cabling was stripped out of the property, returning back to its original state as a residence, whilst modern day Cat 5 cabling and air conditioning had to be fitted to make it a useable modern day office.

The ornate moulded ceiling on the first floor former surgery had to be renovated and new mouldings cast and fitted to replace missing or damaged ones. Likewise the ornate hand carved oak panelling in two of the ground floor rooms needed some TLC!

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Knowlden Titlow finally moved in on Friday 2nd March 2007.