At the heart of Norwich, Strangers' Hall is one of the finest merchant houses of the Tudor age. Occupied continuously by mayors and traders, it bears a name heavy with meaning: that of the 'Strangers', those Protestant refugees from the continent whose arrival, in 1565, transformed the city — a major episode of Elizabethan history.
The house of the Sothertons
Built on a fourteenth-century vaulted cellar, Strangers' Hall was deeply remodelled between 1485 and 1540, then occupied by a line of rich Norwich merchants, the Sothertons, who gave the city several mayors. Its sixteenth-century bay window with armorial spandrels, its medieval cellar and its Oak Room with its painted overmantel (a view of Norwich from Mousehold Heath) bear witness to the comfort and refinement of a great Renaissance merchant house — the living setting of a bourgeoisie enriched by the cloth trade.
The Strangers and the revival of Norwich
The house owes its name to the 'Strangers': the Protestant refugees from the Low Countries — Dutch and Walloon — welcomed at Norwich from 1565, thanks to a royal licence obtained by the mayor Thomas Sotherton with the approval of Elizabeth I. Fleeing religious persecution and war in the Spanish Netherlands, these textile craftsmen revived the city's declining drapery industry: their population rose from 1,471 to 4,678 people in a decade. This influx transformed Norwich into a great textile centre and made it one of the most cosmopolitan cities in England. Strangers' Hall keeps its memory. To see: the fourteenth-century vaulted cellar, the sixteenth-century bay window with armorial spandrels, the Oak Room and its painted overmantel (view of Norwich).
Did you know?
The 'Strangers' of Norwich brought far more than their trade: to them, tradition says, is owed the introduction of the domestic canary into England — those little yellow birds that the Flemish weavers reared and kept near their looms. The canary became the emblem of the city: to this day, Norwich's football club is nicknamed 'the Canaries', a distant legacy of the sixteenth-century Protestant refugees.
Notes
Strangers' Hall lies at Norwich, Norfolk (parish of St John Maddermarket); a museum run by the Norfolk Museums, open to the public. Hours to check.
Quiz
- Who were the 'Strangers' of Norwich?
- Flemish and Walloon Protestant refugees (from 1565)
- Spanish soldiers
- Monks
- Which mayor obtained their licence to settle?
- Thomas Sotherton (with Elizabeth I's approval)
- Robert Kett
- Thomas More
- What effect did their arrival have?
- It revived the textile industry of Norwich
- It ruined the city
- It triggered a war