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ABOUT NRHG TROWSE TRIANGLE NATURAL HERITAGE HISTORY INDUSTRY PEOPLE FOR SCHOOLS NEWS 
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A river shut in, a city mantled in rubbish If you were doing this lilo ride before Norwich had been invented, you would already begin to feel the river valley broadening out, with ever-widening muddy edges as you drifted further downstream. These days the original shape of the river banks is masked by cliff-like quay headings towering out of the water each side of your head as you float under Coslany Bridge and on towards Duke Street. For centuries, folk all along the river have been trying to reclaim the low-lying land and make it easier to unload boats. They drove vertical timbers, and later on steel piles and concrete, into the river banks and filled in behind them with all kinds of soil and rubbish, to raise the ground level by 2-3 metres or more. |
Today, much of the city centre is mantled in layers of waste soil, demolished buildings and rubbish, which is why the
archaeologists find it so interesting. A lot of its original landscape has been 'smeared out', the steeper bits dug away
and the hollows filled in. A tributary of the Wensum - the Great Cockey - used to flow in a deep gully from London Street
down to the river at Duke Street, but you wouldn't know it now.
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