Thanks to Facebook, I was able to accumulate people's memories of smells that used to be abundant in Norwich. Putting them in a video was a bit more of a challenge, but hopefully this video will bring back some reminders.
i remember as a kid in the 80s the council used to come round the estates once a year and re-creosote all the telegraph poles. Still love that smell to this day.
I’m originally from York (I now live in beautiful Norwich) In autumn and winter, the city would smell of the sugar beet factory, now closed down. And then we had the smell of chocolate from Rowntrees and Terry’s chocolate factories at either side of the city. And many years before that, there was Cravens sweet factory opposite the river Foss, and the smell of big, industrial laundries. Gasometers, Ebor ice cream, and then, a mile or two from the city down the river Ouse there was the belching smoke from the crematorium on certain days. Very interesting and nostalgia inducing video. Thank you.
Fab video, brought back lots of memories. Missing for me was the smell of the varnished wooden floors in the Castle and the coffee smell on Finklegate. Oh and the stinky public toilets in the St Stephens roundabout underpass. Loved that other people mentioned Hovels - such a wonderful smell and the candy floss at the fair on the Cattle Market.
Thank you for adding to those memories, and I'm pleased you enjoyed the video. (My next video, next Thursday, will show the building of the St Stephens toilets!)
Woolworths had a distinctive mix of smells that hit you as soon as you entered the door - wood floors yes, but also an odd pervasive underlay of soap-powder and cleaning products. (Of course, if you lingered near the pick-and-mix sweets and broken biscuits counters, towards the front of the store as I recall I sinfully did, you could bask in their strong and tempting odours.) Odd that nobody brought up the scandal that was Tuckswood abattoir, located at the new out of town Cattle Market. It burned all the offal and animal products generated there in business hours. We moved to a council house in Tuckswood Road c1964, about 5-10 minutes away from the Cattle Market, and when the wind was unkind had to close windows at times to keep the sickeningly sweet smell out of the house. It was a local scandal and talking point fouling the air for this new council estate and its concentrated population. The problem largely abated to a faint barely tolerable level after a few years because I believe the authorities eventually compelled the installation of an effective filter on the abattoir chimney - which clearly hadn't been any sort of priority for its designers or operators!
2:11 vauxhall viva in the car park, my first car! the smell of the fair is also diesel fumes from the generators that power the rides, hot dogs and grilled onions spring to mind as well. Loved the cattlemarket easter fair back in the 80s. I remember the chocolate smell, The Reindeer pub on Dereham Rd use to brew beer and I remember a hoppy smell in the air in the early 90s. I remember the chlorine smell at st disgustings, one lad in our class at school had to go home after a swim there because his eyes blew up from the pool being filled with too much chlorine! The old bus station use to stink off piss, it was horrible and got really tatty in the 80s. I use to love the smell of old bookshops, Churchills Tobacco shop and the fruit and veg stalls on the market.
I loved standing in craskes as a child waiting to get my great nans pork cheese! Scooping all the sawdust on the floor into a pile whilst waiting in the Que!
Potter's Pickle Works was on Chapelfield Road between The Crescent and Vauxhall Street. Another sickly smell came periodically from the maltings in St. Swithin's Terrace ff St. Benedict's Street.
I love the concept for this video. Smells are so evocative and really take you back to that place in time. Haha, I love the Norwich City football quote too! There seems to have been far more smells around Norwich from days gone by, than there are today. Very interesting video.
I remember that May and Bakers smell. I lived near St Augustine's swimming pool and it did smell of chlorine. I also recall being walked to school down magpie road. The traffic would build up at the traffic lights at Aylsham rd end. Cars emitted blue smoke and the smell of the exhaust fumes was strong. Not a smell, but I remember a chimney fire on Magpie road. I am sure there would have been a smell.
I live near Carrow Road and the smell on mint sauce days was so confusing to me until I realised how close Colman’s was! Will actually miss it now it’s gone! Great video, thanks
Memorable smells for me as a young lad growing up in the fifties / sixties - Caley's and chocolate. Lambert's and tobacco. A wee pickle factory on Chapelfield Road and vinegar. Yuk - !
Thanks John so glad the tanners on Ham st was listed I biked to my Grandparents on stafford st from marlborough rd most Sundays and always gagged as i turned off Barn rd Passing the crocodile and was it the orchard pub? Great work Sir
Craskes used to have a powerful ventilation fan that blew a horrible smell of perhaps bleach and raw meat right at me whenever I cycled past. It was horrible! But I do miss the smell of the chocolate factory especially when they made Caramac and the bakery somwhere behind Northmberland St
I was notified of a comment by Sean Ulph asking when the toilets at the front of the market were removed. For some reason I can't see the comment to reply directly. My immediate answer would be to guess early 1970s but I'll try and find out.
The only vivid smell I can recall is the chocolate. When I used to go into the city with my mum in the 1980s, if she had the family car she would park in the brutalist Malthouse Car Park (now Chapelfield Plain I believe). This of course, was right next to the chocolate factory. My mum worked there when she left school circa late 1950s to the early 1960s.
