Norwich City Hall’s clock tower: A history of celebration and tragedy

City Hall Scaffolding. Photo: Courtesy of Roger Cutting. (Image: Courtesy of Roger Cutting.)

When it was opened by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother in 1938, there was a huge turnout. Only a year later, the Second World War began - but the building survived the Norwich blitz.

Due to the aftermath of the war, no project of a similar quality to City Hall could be contemplated and today it now stands as an exemplary building of its period.

Scaffolding has been put up around the clock tower for repair work recently, which brought back some memories for Roger Cutting, 68, from Sprowston.

Mr Cutting worked on the clock tower in the late 1970s. He said that when the scaffolding was erected, they had to do it from the top and work their way down, because the height of the tower meant putting it up from the bottom was out of the question.

City Hall Scaffolding. Photo: Courtesy of Roger Cutting. (Image: Courtesy of Roger Cutting.)

Mr Cutting said he only had two planks of wood to stand on. Due to the winding staircases throughout the building, it would have been almost impossible to carry the equipment needed for the job up the stairs.

In the end, the plan was to winch the 3,500ft steel tubing and 700 clamps up the tower on a rope pulley. The clock face was stopped as a precaution for the scaffolders.

The tower was also the scene of a tragedy in the 1950s. On Thursday October 23 1958, a man fell 150ft from the clock tower to his death.

The Norwich scaffolder was employed by the same company Mr Cutting later worked for. He was scaffolding the clock tower when fell from the top and landed on a bus shelter roof nearest to the tower.

The site of Norwich City Hall, 1935. Designed by Charles Holloway James and Stephen Rowland Pierce, winners of a competition held in 1931 that attracted 143 entries, the foundation stone of the City Hall was not laid until 1936. King George VI and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother opened the building on 29 October 1938. Pevsner described the City Hall as ... the foremost English public building of between the wars ... its siting and self-confidence are its architectural triumph. Despite extensive bombing of Norwich during the Second World War, the City Hall escaped unscathed. (NWHCM : 2004.3.284.) (Image: “Copyright Norfolk Museums Service (Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery).”)

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Norwich City Hall clock tower fully surrounded by scaffolding. Picture: ANTONY KELLY (Image: Archant Norfolk 2017)

Norwich City Hall clock tower surrounded by yellow and green safety netting. Picture : ANTONY KELLY