On King Street, at Norwich, Dragon Hall is an extraordinary timber-framed merchant hall, a survivor of the city's golden age of drapery. Built by one of the richest traders of his time, it bears witness to the commercial prosperity of Norwich, which peaked at the hinge of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
The temple of the drapery trade
Dragon Hall was built around 1427 by the draper Robert Toppes, a prosperous mercer, four times mayor and four times MP of Norwich. It was a vast warehouse-showroom: a great hall of seven bays, with a crown-post roof, where cloths were displayed and traded. At a time when Norwich was one of the richest cities in England thanks to the trade in wool and cloth, this building embodied the power of its merchant bourgeoisie. It remained a place of commerce in the early Tudor decades, before being gradually subdivided into dwellings over the sixteenth century — a sign of the city's evolution.
A roof peopled with dragons
The building's modern name (given in 1986) comes from its fourteen carved dragons, nestled in the spandrels of its roof: small winged figures, remnants of the medieval decoration, that gave the hall its nickname. This carved detail recalls that even the utilitarian buildings of trade were adorned with imaginary motifs, mixing the functional and the fantastic. Today, Dragon Hall houses the National Centre for Writing — a fine continuity for a place that was always a crossroads of exchange. To see: the great seven-bay hall and its crown-post roof, the 14 carved dragons of the spandrels, the façade on King Street.
Did you know?
Only one carved dragon really survives clearly visible in the roof of Dragon Hall — but it was enough to rename the whole building in 1986. These small winged creatures, crouched in the wood since the fifteenth century, are the discreet guardians of a temple of trade: where wool was once bargained, there still watch, invisible to whoever does not raise their eyes, the dragons of a Norwich draper.
Notes
Dragon Hall lies on King Street, Norwich, Norfolk; a monument open to the public (National Centre for Writing). Hours to check.
Quiz
- Who built Dragon Hall around 1427?
- The draper Robert Toppes
- Henry VIII
- A bishop
- What did this building serve as?
- A cloth-trade hall
- A prison
- A chapel
- Where does its modern name (1986) come from?
- The carved dragons of its roof
- A king named Dragon
- A battle