The city's past can be explored in museums housed in a variety of historic surroundings, from the Norman Castle to a medieval church.
The Bridewell Museum is devoted to local trades and industries and stands next to St Andrew's Church in Bridewell Alley. Displays cover the food industries of Norwich, including flour-milling, brewing, mustard production and chocolate-making. There are items produced by the city's iron foundries, textile and footwear industries, examples of early fire appliances, and reconstructions of a smithy and the interior of a pre-war pharmacy.
The Mustard Shop, also in Bridewell Alley, has a small, well laid out exhibition of the history of Colman's mustard manufacture in Norfolk.
The Castle Museum is the largest local authority museum in East Anglia. The stone keep, which has dominated the city centre for over 800 years, was built by the Normans and is one of the finest secular buildings of its period anywhere in Europe. It was later used as the County Gaol, and was converted to a civic museum in 1894. Picture galleries and a rotunda have since been added.
Exhibits show aspects of life at different periods over the last 250,000 years, and include tools, weapons, pottery, jewellery and luxury items that were traded in Norfolk, from far and near. Dioramas show natural history and archaeological scenes, and there are displays of ceramics, glass, Lowestoft porcelain and Norwich silver. The museum is the home of Mrs Langton's amusing collection of ornamental cats, and the Twining Teapot Gallery, which contains the greatest specialist collection of British ceramic teapots in the world.
Displays covering the history of aviation in Norfolk can he found at the City of Norwich Aviation Museum at Horsham St Faith, near Norwich Airport. Visitors can look round the cockpits of a number of aircraft, including a Vulcan bomber from the Falklands Task Force.
Dragon Hall (in King Street) was used by a 15th-century cloth merchant to display his wares. The timber framed great hall contains the intricately carved and painted emblem of a dragon among its roof beams. The building was a honeycomb of apartments and shops for many years and has served a variety of purposes, including as a pub. It has a vaulted under croft where the merchant's wares were stored. There are plans to make Dragon Hall a local heritage centre.
Part of the John Jarrold Printing Museum in Whitefriars is displayed in a 13th-century friary crypt. The museum celebrates the local printing industry, and is named after a pioneering figure in British printing. The core of the collection is made up of equipment used by Jarrold Printing during the last 150 years. It includes a working hand-composing room, a collection of printing presses and bookbinding materials and machines.
Find out more details of the some of the many museums in and around Norwich.
