Norwich

The Romans' capital for the Iceni, Venta Icenorum, lay at nearby Caistor; the city itself began when Anglo-Saxons settled by the Wensum between the 5th and 7th centuries, founding Northwic, from which Norwich takes its name. Vikings set up an Anglo-Scandinavian district near today's King Street in the late 9th century, and in 1004 Sweyn Forkbeard burnt the town. By the Norman Conquest it was one of the largest towns in England. The Normans demolished 98 Saxon homes for the castle, built a new "French" borough around their own market place — today's Norwich Market — and in 1096 Bishop Herbert de Losinga began the cathedral in limestone from Caen. In 1190 the city's Jews were massacred, except for a few who sheltered in the castle.

Wool from Norfolk's sheepwalks made Norwich one of England's largest and richest towns, second only to London for much of the second millennium, and paid for the churches that still crowd the city. In 1549 Robert Kett's rebels camped on Mousehold Heath and seized the city before being defeated; Kett was hanged from the castle walls. From 1567 Flemish and Walloon Protestant weavers, the "Strangers", arrived in such numbers that they came to form as much as a third of the population, bringing new textile skills and pet canaries.

Competition from Yorkshire woollens and Lancashire cotton ended the cloth boom from the 1790s, but Thomas Bignold founded the first Norwich Union society in 1797, to insure houses against fire in a city built largely of wood. The Baedeker raids of April 1942 hit breweries, factories and shopping streets, and more old buildings were lost to post-war redevelopment. The University of East Anglia opened in 1964, the Forum rose on the site of the burnt-out library in 2001, and in 2012 Norwich became England's first UNESCO City of Literature.

Norwich has a long literary and artistic life. Britain's first arts festival was held here in 1772, and the Norfolk and Norwich Festival, held since 1824, now runs for 17 days each May and is widely described as the fourth-largest arts festival in the UK. The National Centre for Writing occupies Dragon Hall, a medieval merchants' hall, and the city's UNESCO City of Literature status reflects that heritage. The Theatre Royal has stood on its site since 1758, the Maddermarket was the first permanent recreation of an Elizabethan theatre, and a medieval church houses a puppet theatre that is unique in the country.

The Strangers left an enduring mark: the canaries the Flemish weavers bred became the city's mascot and the emblem of Norwich City football club, the Canaries, who play at Carrow Road and are part-owned by the cook Delia Smith. Norwich is also proud of its churches — more medieval churches than any other city in Western Europe north of the Alps — and of its pubs: an old saying held that it had a church for every week of the year and a pub for every day.

Until the railway arrived in 1845 it was often quicker to reach Amsterdam by boat than London, and in the 1790s Norwich was second only to London as an intellectual centre. Today the university, the Sainsbury Centre's art collection and a strong independent scene in the Lanes keep that reputation alive.

About 144,000 people lived in the Norwich City Council area in 2021, and the wider built-up area had about 213,000 at the 2011 census, making Norwich the largest settlement in East Anglia. It serves as the shopping, work and transport centre for much of rural Norfolk.

Insurance and services have long been the backbone of the economy, from Norwich Union's head offices to the government stationery office, HMSO, which moved most of its operations here in the 1970s. South-west of the city the Norwich Research Park groups the University of East Anglia, the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, the John Innes Centre and more than 30 science businesses. Colman's mustard was made at Carrow until the factory closed in 2019.

Residents live in older districts such as the Golden Triangle and Heigham, in post-war estates like Tuckswood, built when inner-city districts such as Richmond were cleared as slums in 1960, and in the newer suburbs. Evenings out centre on the Lanes, Tombland, Prince of Wales Road and the Riverside complex by the station.

Norwich Market is the centre of the city's food: a market founded in the late 11th century to supply Norman settlers, rebuilt in the 1930s with rows of stalls below the new City Hall, and today around 200 stalls, among them stalls selling food. The Lanes around St Benedict's Street hold many of the city's best independent restaurants, and the Golden Triangle, west of the centre, has more than its fair share of pubs serving good food.

Mustard is the city's best-known product. Colman's, with its yellow packaging, was founded in 1814 and long made at a factory at Carrow; since the factory closed in 2019 the mustard has been made at Honingham under a supply deal with Unilever.

Drink is as much a part of the story. Breweries such as Morgans, Steward & Patteson and Bullard and Son survived into the second half of the 20th century, and the city once had the highest number of pubs per square mile in the UK. Real ale pubs are plentiful: Woodforde's Wherry is the local real ale of choice, Adnams ales come from Southwold on the Suffolk coast, and the Fat Cat on West End Street has twice been named CAMRA's National Pub of the Year.