Take Refuge in the Woods: Air Raid Shelters on Mousehold

Old air raid shelters in the undergrowth on Mousehold Heath, Norwich.

The Vinegar Pond

The Vinegar Pond, on Norwich's (in?)famous Mousehold Heath. A dew pond formed from old gravel pits and wartime manoeuvres with military vehicles which supposedly packed the earth down tight enough to facilitate standing water.

As I took these I had a fairly random conversation about graveyards with a guy who looked like Alan Moore. Started to rain soon after. Good for the pond, I suppose.

Dirty Toys and Burned Max Bygraves LPs: The Mousehold Heath Ranger's House

The Ranger's House at Mousehold Heath, Norwich. Built in the mid-1880s for the heath ranger - pretty much coinciding the time when the heath was given to the people of Norwich, so presumably the care of the heath prior was the responsibilty of the Church - and in use until the 1960s, it is now little more than a derelict shell with severe fire, smoke, and vandalism damage. Various plans have been mooted for the house - ideas range from it being used from a study centre to converted to social housing - but at the moment all seemed to have stalled. A few curious items littered about inside - heat-warped LPs, dirty toys - insinuate a pleasantly creepy vibe in the darkness.

The Site of the Chapel of the Boy Martyr

A site of an extraordinary, if horrifying, turning point in Norwich’s history. In 1144, in Norwich’s Thorpe Woods (in an area now known as northern Mousehold Heath), the body of the 12-year old William of Norwich was found, and whose death at the time was attributed to Norwich’s Jewish community. The murder was seen as evidence of ritualistic sacrifice, apparently the first medieval instance of a blood libel against Jews. An increasing sense of anti-Semitism in the area (as well as the country in general) was to culminate in 1190, when the majority of Norwich Jewish community was massacred.



Local miracles attributed to the murdered boy quickly saw William regarded as a saint. A wooden chapel was erected on the site on which William’s body was originally found. This chapel never survived the sixteenth century, and is almost entirely forgotten today. The only remaining signs of its existence are four small moss-covered stone markers indicating its former boundaries. I managed to find three of the four. William of Norwich’s clear relationship to violent medieval anti-Semitism means he is little known today, even in his home city.