A Handful Of Happenings At Heartsease (1)

 1. Yep! It's A Wild Flower.

Viola tricolor is a common European wild flower, growing as an annual or short-lived perennial. The species is also known as wild pansy, Johnny Jump up (though this name is also applied to similar species such as the yellow pansy), heartsease, heart's ease, heart's delight, tickle-my-fancy, Jack-jump-up-and-kiss-me, come-and-cuddle-me, three faces in a hood, love-in-idleness, and pink of my john.

It is the floral ancestor of our cultivated pansy.

But it was also the name given to a post WW2 housing development in Norwich.

2. Cavalry Barracks

On what was then the northeastern edge of the city, a Barracks was built for a detachment of Cavalry. It was known variously at the Horse Barracks or, more formerly the Cavalry Barracks. There was quite a lot of it ...

... with posher pads for the officers - of course.

And here they appear on a map from the mid 1800s.

The barracks were demolished in the 1950s and in their place is an estate of twee maisonette type homes.

Note the roundabout (bottom right) and a wedge of woodland leading north therefrom.

Also note on the old map a second set of barracks to the right. Called Britannia Barracks, we shall meet these premises later in this series of blogs.

Here is another, later, map of the same area, but extended northeastwards

Both sets of barracks appear as black blocks.

3. The Green Tram

So now lets take a Norwich tram ride. It is a route colour coded in green.

We start our journey at or near the Unthank Road ...

... tram terminus, which, as its name suggests was at the junction of Unthank Road and Newmarket Road,

The picture above was captioned "tram in Unthank Road" but trams never ran in Unthank Road. It was the junction where they terminated. fbb cannot identify the above location.

Here is the location today with Unthank Road on the left.

Trams ran straight along Newmarket Road (1970s 90, 90A, 90B, 90C buses : 2023 10, 11, 12 etc buses) into the city centre.

In the centre they turned right and trundled along Prince of Wales Road ...

... to the magnificent Norwich Thorpe railway station - now sans Thorpe!

Here green trams turned sharp left to run along Riverside Road, surprisingly a road beside the river!

And here is one doing it! Another mystery location ...

... but a guess would place it here ...

... as it is the only bit of Riverside Road with a wall like that!

Be that as it may, the tram terminated where this roundabout is, outside the Cavalry Barracks ...

... where, today, there are bits of Cavalry Barracks type boundary wall to remind us. But, hold fast historic tramway follower! There is more.

In the summer trams continued (dotted line) via Gurney Road ...

... to take Norwich folk to enjoy the bucolic delights of  Mousehold Heath. The summer terminus was roughly where the above Streetview picture is taken but the roads have changed. Valley Road (to the right) is no longer there; and Gilman Road is just a footpath off to the the left,

There is the (former) road's name, partly hidden behind a post.

The picture below shows summer green trams on their way along Gurney Road, looking towards their seasonal terminus at the top.of the hill.

But look again at the tram map above.

There appear to be tracks continuing beyond the summer terminus? In case you are wondering, there is no sign of these rails today - all evidence is long gone.

Exciting eh? More tomorrow.

 Next Heartsease Happening blog : Tuesday 14th March