An Air of Antiquity in Norwich

NORWICH, England — I was riding the London Underground when I saw an advertisement for East Anglia, the hub-shaped area of England northeast of London.

“Can you imagine a place where just breathing in makes you feel better?” it read. “A place where you’re offered all the space, peace and quiet you could need?”

I hated to be manipulated by an advertisement, but after a few days in London’s August heat last year, I had had it with the crowds, buses spewing diesel exhaust, rickety and filthy Tube trains and the armies of tourists. So I set out for a few days’ respite in Norwich (pronounced Nor-itch, with the “w” silent, or sometimes Nor-ridge to rhyme with “porridge”), the capital of East Anglia, about two hours northeast of London by train.

On the advice of a friend, I had visited the city a few years ago and looked forward to going back. It is the kind of place where you can still find olde England.

Many other medieval provincial English towns have been transformed by urban development and sprawl, but Norwich has retained much of its ancient charm. The city center is a maze of narrow cobblestone lanes, and in places remnants of the original city wall, which dates back 700 years, have been carefully preserved.

By the early 11th century, Norwich was an important Anglo-Saxon market center; by the 1670s, on the strength of its textile manufacturing, it had grown into the largest provincial town in England, second in size and importance only to London. Today Norwich is a smallish city with a population of 124,000, and it’s never more than a two-mile walk from any point along its perimeter to its center.

The advertisement I had seen on the Tube must have lured many others here as well, because it took Ann, the kind woman at the Norwich tourist office, nearly half an hour to find me lodgings for four nights. But she came through with a room in Pine Lodge, a pleasant B&B; on the western side of town, near the University of East Anglia and a half-hour’s walk from the city center.

A bus dropped me off across the road from the B&B;, and Maxine, my landlady for the next few days, showed me to a cramped but elegant room dominated by a canopy bed. For $38 a night, including a proper English fry-up in the morning, it was a bargain.

The shops and sights were closing by the time I walked back to the city center, so I happily decided to take advantage of Norwich’s greatest asset--its pubs. Norwich locals claim the city has 365 of them--one for every day of the year--and it’s probably not far from the truth.

I found my way into Tombland, a well-maintained cobblestone street that held a Saxon marketplace about 1,000 years ago, and settled into a table on the patio in front of Boswells, a brasserie-style pub adjacent to Norwich’s breathtaking Norman cathedral. Boswells is popular with the upscale after-work crowd who congregate here to savor pints. Although traffic along the street was loud, I relaxed with a pint of Woodforde’s Wherry, a smooth, medium-bodied Norfolk County brew.

I hadn’t eaten anything since a sandwich in London’s Liverpool Street Station, so the Woodforde’s put a spring in my step as I trotted up Magdalen Street in search of a tongue-boiling curry for dinner. Magdalen Street is home to several good Indian restaurants, the most luxurious of which is Ali Tandoori. I went instead to Norwich Tandoori, next to Anglia Square. It’s a more modest place, but I knew from my last visit that it served the best Indian food in the city. I had onion bhaji (fritters) followed by chicken tikka Madras and left breathing fire.

I ambled back down Magdalen Street, crossed the creek-like Wensum River on the tiny Fye Bridge and stopped at Ribs of Beef, a plain-looking pub popular with students from the University of East Anglia because of its excellent selection of ales. The Ribs of Beef serves Rib Cracker ale, which they brew on the premises, and it is fine indeed--dark, fruity and powerful.

Then I searched out a Norwich landmark--the Adam and Eve, one of the oldest pubs in England. The first record of the Adam and Eve is from 1249, when workmen building the nearby cathedral came here in the evenings and were paid for their labor in bread and ale. Its ceilings are low, built during a time when people were smaller, and there are several little rooms in which you can enjoy a pint while its loquacious landlady, Rita, tells you stories about the pub’s history.

The next day dawned sunny and warm, and as I walked up Earlham Road into the city, I chanced on a Norwich treasure: the Plantation Garden, created by Henry Trevor, a 19th century businessman who made his fortune selling furniture. Set off one of Norwich’s busiest roads, the three-acre Victorian Plantation Garden is enclosed by verdant beeches, chestnuts and elms and a medieval terrace wall. When I entered I felt I was in a different, more placid time. With its unpretentious flower beds, Gothic fountain, rustic bridge and Italianate terrace that overlooks the garden, it is a refuge from modernity.

I passed two women on a bench who, like me, were smiling ear to ear. “It’s spectacular, isn’t it?” one of them called.

My next stop, Norwich Cathedral, is also spectacular, though in a different way. Its spire, at 315 feet, is the second highest in England, surpassed only by the 404-foot spire of Salisbury Cathedral. The Normans began construction of Norwich Cathedral in 1096, but it wasn’t consecrated until 1278. Most of the town’s medieval structures were built of locally mined dark flint, but the cathedral was constructed of bright limestone transported from Caen, France. It was a massive undertaking, and the result was a cathedral that is a beacon in the heart of the city.

Norwich Cathedral has all the greatness of Westminster Abbey, without the hordes of tourists. Its air of sanctity is undisturbed. I spent a couple of hours walking around and savoring the quiet antiquity, then relaxed beneath the spire on the grass courtyard, circumscribed by the largest monastic cloisters in England.

The cathedral is the grandest of Norwich’s houses of worship, but not the only one worthy of a visit. The city is packed with small medieval churches--32 survive of the 56 that existed at the time of the Reformation. In this more secular age, many of them have been put to unorthodox uses: an art and cultural center, a sports hall, a juvenile rehabilitation center.

I visited St. Julian’s Church, named after Julian of Norwich, a hermit who lived there in the 14th century and who wrote “The Revelations of Divine Love,” widely recognized as the first book by a woman in English, in which she portrayed God as all-loving rather than all-powerful--a mother as well as a father.

By the end of the afternoon it was time to return to more earthly concerns, so I wandered among the stalls of the lively open-air market in the city center. There I encountered a bizarre medley of sights, sounds and smells. There were stalls in which to buy secondhand books, fresh produce and inexpensive clothing. But one was devoted to vacuum-cleaner parts; another displayed, among other meats, a tray of pigs’ trotters buzzed by a swarm of flies. I passed on the trotters, but my stomach was rumbling. I would need food to fortify myself for a pub crawl that evening.

I went to Tatler’s, a fine restaurant with a country ambience that bills itself as the “home of Norfolk gastronomy.” I won’t try to persuade you that fish and chips is the height of dining excellence, but when they want to, the English really can cook, and Tatler’s is proof. I had deep-fried Cromer crab puffers with charred tomato relish and curry oil for an appetizer, followed by a ravioli of salmon, lobster and monkfish served with buttered leeks in a lobster-tarragon broth.

The next day I set out for Norwich’s other major tourist attraction--the Norman castle, built soon after work began on the cathedral. Sitting atop a hill in the center of town, it is an imposing, fortified keep, or at least it was before it was turned into a jail and, more recently, a museum.

When I visited, the castle had just reopened after a two-year renovation, and the results are impressive. Inside the keep, video displays and virtual reality tours guide visitors through castle life over the ages. Downstairs, I toyed with exhibits--mostly for kids, but I wasn’t about to be left out--that asked me to re-create how they transported the stone from Caen to Norwich. I took a guided tour of the battlements and had a spectacular view of the city.

Attached to the castle keep is a small but outstanding museum with galleries devoted to painting, sculpture and natural history. I was delighted by a collection of watercolors by John Sell Cotman, one of the key figures in the Norwich School, a group of 19th century painters known for lush Norfolk landscapes and nature scenes.

On my last day, my friend Bruce Johnson drove from London to join me for lunch. We set out for the Broads, an area covered in shallow lakes and waterways formed in the Middle Ages when peat was dug up and used for fuel. The wetlands, or broads, span much of Norfolk and Suffolk counties and contain about 200 miles of waterways. The area, now a national park, is a favorite destination for bird-watchers.

There was a thick fog when we pulled off a country lane at Reedham. The object of our expedition, the Reedham Ferry Inn, lay across a small, nameless broad.

On foot we boarded a ferry, whose source of locomotion was a lawn mower-style engine that dragged the platform across the water. When we were halfway across we were enveloped by the mist, and it felt as if we were crossing into a fairy-tale realm as the Ferry Inn slowly materialized.

Inside it was warm and crowded with people who had come for a proper Sunday lunch of roast beef, gravy, potatoes and Yorkshire pudding. The food was wonderful, and we refreshed ourselves with pints of Old Speckled Hen, a strong but smooth amber beer.

Full and happy, Bruce and I took the ferry back across the broad. I kept my eyes on the inn as it disappeared into the mist. Bruce breathed in deeply and said, “It’s a breath of fresh air, isn’t it?”

Yes, it was.

*

Guidebook: Norwich Know-How

Getting there: From LAX, nonstop service to London is offered on American, United, British Airways, Virgin Atlantic and Air New Zealand. Delta has direct service with a stop. Restricted round-trip fares begin at $756. Norwich is about two hours by train from Liverpool Street Station in London. Round-trip fare is about $45.

Telephones: To call the numbers below from the U.S., dial 011 (the international dialing code), 44 (country code for England) and the local number.

Where to stay: The 84-room Maid’s Head Hotel, across from the cathedral in the heart of the city, is elegant and comfortable. Tombland, NR3 1LB; 1603-209-955, fax 1603-613-688. Rates: $143-$163 double, including English breakfast. Dinner $15 per person.

Beeches Hotel & Victorian Gardens has 36 rooms in three Victorian houses adjacent to Plantation Gardens; 2-6 Earlham Road, NR2 3DB; 1603-621-167, fax 1603-620-151, www.beeches.co.uk. Rates: $119-$137 double, including English breakfast. Dinner $15-$23 per person.

Pine Lodge, where I stayed, is a small but immaculate B&B; 518 Earlham Road, NR4 7HR; 1603-504-834, www.norwichaccommodation.com. It has two bedrooms with king-size beds, but not with attached bath. It is 11/2 miles west of the city center. Rates: $55 double, $41 single, including English breakfast.

Where to eat: Tatlers, 21 Tombland; 1603-766-670, fax 1603-766-625. Three-course meal for two, $73-$87.

The Pickwick, 41 Earlham Road; telephone/fax 1603-

628-155. Classic and stylish pub fare; $9-$14 per person.

The Waffle House, 39 St. Giles St.; 1603-612-790, fax 1603-616-612. Popular restaurant serving Belgian waffles, using many organic and free-range ingredients; $3-$10 per person.

Reedham Ferry Inn & Restaurant, Ferry Road, Reedham, Norfolk; 1493-700-429, fax 1493-700-999. A must for Sunday lunch. Menu includes local game and Lowestoft fish dishes, $10 per person. From Norwich, drive east on the A47; turn right onto the B1140 and take it into Reedham and to the ferry.

For more information:

Norwich Tourist Information Center, Guildhall, Gaol Hill NR2 1NF; 1603-666-071, fax 1603-765-389, www.visitnorwich.co.uk.

British Tourist Authority, 551 Fifth Ave., Suite 701, New York, NY 10176; (800) GO-2-BRITAIN (462-2748), www.travelbritain.org.