The Castle Mall shopping centre was opened in September 1993 and took around 4 years to be completed. The site occupies nearly 7 acres in the centre of Norwich, 4 acres of which include a substantial part of an ancient monument, i.e. Norwich Castle. The building work also redeveloped one of the oldest streets in Norwich (Timberhill) as well replacing the unsightly area of the old cattle market.
As well as featuring a vast array of shops on three levels, the Mall also features, food courts, two car parks, bars and restaurants, a cinema and even park gardens on the top...
The Castle Mall is the home of Martin Burgess's 'Gurney Clock' which was given to the people of Norwich by Barclays Bank to mark the 200th anniversary of the founding of what is now Barclays by the Gurney family in Norwich in 1775. The clock is in the shape of a golden lion automaton in a golden castle (the lion and castle are two of the heraldic symbols of Norwich) and has a weight-driven observatory Harrison regulator of a type designed in 1775.
On the hour, bronze balls are taken by the lion and travel down a track to a set of scales (a symbol of Barclay's Bank) and on into the castle. The clock took eleven years to build and was housed in a public park, but by 1992 it had been badly vandalised. After a long campaign by the Norwich Society, it was then restored and installed in the Castle Mall, Norwich, inside a massive glass and metal case.
10 Castle Mall facts:
| Construction Cost | £75 million |
| Gross Built Area | 1m sq. feet |
| Gross Retail Area | 380,000 sq. feet |
| Car Parking | 1050 spaces |
| Total Length of Piles Sunk | 25,000 metres (15 miles) |
| Amount of Concrete Poured | 180,000 tons |
| Quantity of Excavated Material | 800,000 tons |
| Area of the Park | 1.82 hectares (4.5 acres) |
| No. of Lifts | 22 |
| Total Development Cost | £145 million |
