St William's Chapel
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Part of a 16th-century map by the cartographer Ralph Treswell (Norfolk Record Office)
The history of the chapel of St William in the Wood
The date and origin of the chapel of St William in the Wood are unclear. A wooden chapel may have been built in 1168 by Bishop Turbe close to where William's body was found in 1144. According to another tradition, a chapel was founded at round the time of the Conquest and decicated to St Catherine, but was rededicated to William in 1168. The earliest reference to St Catherine in the Wood is in a papal bull of 1176, where it was listed among the possessions of Norwich Cathedral Priory and was called St Catherine's chapel in Thorpe Wood (capellum sancte Katerine in bosco de Thorpe).
According to the antiquarian Francis Blomefield:
At the extremity of Pokethorp hamlet, belonging to this parish, is the site of St. Catherine's Chapel, which stood north-east of the said hamlet, above a mile distant from it, (it stood by the race-ground on Mushold-hill, where the road parts, between the starting-post and the lodge, on that side next the city) upon Mushold heath; it was an ancient parochial chapel, founded about the time of the Conquest, and was afterwards re-consecrated to the honour of St. William of Norwich.
The chapel served as a parochial chapel of Norwich Cathedral Priory. The cult surrounding St William developed, but it was never widely popular, and never managed to attract the number of pilgrims that the cathedral's monks had expected. The last offering at the chapel is recorded in 1506. The exact date of the dissolution is not known, but in 1550 the site was leased out by the Dean and Chapter to William Bleverhaysset as 'the chapel-yard called St William in the Wood'.
Blomefield noted that the chapel lost its parochial status when it was annexed to the parish of St James Pockthorpe in 1410, and that after its destruction, the site became known as Pockthorpe churchyard:
...it was appropriated with all its tithes, offerings, profits, and lands, by Walter Bishop of Norwich in 1256, to the almoner's office in the convent, and about 1410, it was united to St. James's parish, and the parochial service transferred thither, the almoner only serving it as a chantry, from that time to the Dissolution.
Blomefield goes on to relate that:
in 1550, was leased by the dean and chapter, to William Bleverhaysset. Gent. by the name of the Chapel-yard called St. William's in the Wood. It was much frequented by pilgrims, who visited it to its dissolution, for in 1506, the almoner accounted for the offerings at St. William's chapel, and those at the Chapel of the Translation of St. Thomas Becket, which stood very near the former, and was called St. Thomas in the Wood, but was never parochial, being supported chiefly by the brothers and sisters of St. Thomas's gild, which was yearly held with great pomp here, on the Feasts of St. Thomas Becket, and of the Holy Relicks; in 2d Richard III. the members of this gild gave a famous picture of the history of Bishop Becket, to this chapel, which was constantly repaired, as well as that of St. William, by the convent; and at the gild days, there were grand processions made, and interludes played, with good cheer after them.
John Kirkpatrick, 'A Plan of ye Churchyard and Precint of ye Chappel of St William in ye Wood near Norwch' (before 1728), Norfolk Museums Collections
John Kirkpatrick produced a plan of the site in about 1720. It shows that at this time, few remains of the chapel itself existed. Kirkpatrick's note on the plan reads:
"A: The place where the Chappell stood, the rubbish of which is over grown with Grass; B: The Ditch of the Church Yard encompassing it; C: Three other short Banks; D: The outward Ditch & Bank inclosing the whole Precinct; E: Probably the place where the Priest's house & Garden was."
During the 1880s a gravel pit was dug out, which removed a segment of the southern side of the site’s outer enclosure. A path that crosses the site was formerly a road.
During the First World War, a deep cutting for a tramway to carry munitions between the railway station and the airfield was made. The cutting - now a pathway - clipped one corner of the outer enclosure at the site.
The site was scheduled in 1980.
The site today
The site where St William's Chapel stood is unusual in Norfolk as it is an example of an earthwork that was never built on or ploughed in, and that largely retains its historic setting. The site is a large one (around 100m by 130m). It is trapezoidal with a banked enclosure; the earthworks survive to a height of up to about 1m. Within this enclosure are the remains of a possible building platform. The remains are incomplete, and are considerably overgrown by small trees and vegetation.
The land is owned by Norwich City Council and managed in association with the Mousehold Heath Conservators. It is vulnerable to erosion (by trees, mountain bikes, etc.).
Modern archaeological work
The site consists of a large earthwork constructed upon glacial sands and gravels, brickearth and Norwich Crag above a solid geology of chalk. Within the site are the remains of a possible flint building platform. These features are visible from the ground and on aerial photographs. An information panel was installed in May 2015.
When the site was examined in 1978, it was found to largely overgrown by small trees and bushes. In March 1996, the site was re-examined and back-filling of a series of animal burrows which had disturbed the structure of the chapel was found. No finds were retrieved. In around 2002, a shallow hole was noted with freshly-disturbed soil and a piece of possibly 15th-century moulded ashlar. In 2003, the area was found to be densely covered by nettles, brambles, elder and hawthorn. There were a few mature trees, mostly oak, and the cover was less under them. By the following year, the scrub had been cut back to a height of approximately 30cm and cleared away, and flint and pebbles were seen in areas of bare soil.
In 2007, magnetometry and resistivity surveys were carried out in what was thought to be the location of St William's chapel. The surveys aimed to "identify surviving structure remains and compare the effectiveness of the two techniques". Neither survey managed to conclusively identify structural remains associated with the chapel, although the magnetometer survey did reveal a number of potentially archaeologically significant anomalies. The resistivity survey was less successful, principally due to the site's topography and geology and the presence of dense vegetation.
An earthwork survey was undertaken by Brian Cushion in February 2010, but no detailed map was produced because the boundaries of the site were so ill-defined:
The earthworks consist of two concentric banked and ditched enclosures located on land gently sloping southwards. Within the earthworks are mounds and depressions of flint rubble which are likely to be the remains of buildings. Three north-south aligned banks originally linked to the southern boundaries of the two enclosures were observed. A short length of former tramway survives as a cutting close to the south-east corner of the site with an extraction pit on the southern boundary and gaps in the north-south boundary from a former track way that crossed the heath. The central features are probably the remains of the chapel and the two adjacent structures could be the associated monks’ quarters. The inner enclosure and the building platforms are possibly contemporary. The outer enclosure is likely to be a boundary possibly enclosing the churchyard and a small feature in the north-western corner could be a former entrance.
A LIDAR image of part of Mousehold Heath, centred on the site
Sources
https://www.heritage.norfolk.gov.uk/record-details?MNF406-Remains-of-St-William-in-the-Wood%27s-chapel-Mousehold-Heath Norfolk Heritage Explorer: Remains of St William in the Wood's chapel, Mousehold Heath
https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_an-essay-towards-a-topog_blomefield-francis_1739_4/page/n43/mode/1up?view=theater Blomefield, F. 1806. The History of The City and County of Norwich, Part II. An Essay Towards a Topographical History of the County of Norfolk. Vol IV. pp 425, 429.
Tremlett, Sophie (2003): St William's Chapel, Mousehold Heath, Norwich
https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/side-by-side/#zoom=17.0&lat=52.64541&lon=1.32087&layers=257&right=ESRIWorld ; https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/side-by-side/#zoom=16.0&lat=52.64512&lon=1.31787&layers=10&right=ESRIWorld National Library of Scotland (Ordnance Survey)
Trevor Nuthall, Norfolk Arch. 47 (2016) 334-346 St William’s Chapel, Mousehold Heath, Norwich – the site of three chapels
Further information
https://www.invisibleworks.co.uk/hidden-history-the-forgotten-chapel/ Nick Stone: The forgotten chapel - William of Norwich
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