A number of organisations, and the Sunday Times, have been singing the praises of Aylsham recently. It has been described as a “ruddy-cheeked market town” and one of ten stand out locations in the east of England.
The perfect advert for small-town living.
So let’s take a look at the way it was in the “good old days” thanks to the Mike Adcock Collection of photographs, looked after by the Norwich Heritage Projects, and the book Norfolk 1890, re-published in 2016 by the Norfolk Industrial Archaeology Society and edited by Philip Tolley.
It was described back then as: “An important and progressive little town, full of intelligent enterprise, and is a centre of business activity for the surrounding district.”
The town, they wrote, stands on the river Bure, amid one of the most pleasant tracks in the county, twelve miles north of Norwich.
Well, that hasn’t changed but…
This was written in 1890:
“It has a post office, a good hotel, a police station, and a corn exchange; is the seat of pottery sessions and county courts, and conducts some commerce by barges on the Bure.
“A manufacture of linen. Known as Aylsham web, was carried out in the times of Edward II and Edward III; and a manufacture of woollen fabrics sprang up at a later period: but both have disappeared.
“The chief employments now are in the corn trade, the timber trade and country business. A weekly market is held on Tuesday and fairs on March 23 and the last Tuesday of September.”
The description of the town continues.
The parish church is decorated English, said to have been built by John of Gaunt. It consists of nave, chancel and transept, with a square tower and spire and contains an ancient rood screen, a carved font and numerous brasses.
One gentleman buried in the graveyard is the brilliant Humphry Repton, the last great English landscape designer of the 18th century, who died in 1818.
Humphry was born in Bury St Edmunds. In 1762 his father established a transport business in Norwich and his son went to the Grammar School.
His first paid commission was Catton Park in 1788. He was an extraordinary man of vision.
The book goes on to write about the various businesses operating at the time but my first memories of the town are listening to Aylsham’s very own “Beatles” - Barry Lee & The Planets in the swinging 60s.
They were brilliant.
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