Stephanie moved into King Street in December 2020 and did a silversmithing course at Wensum Lodge in 2022. She was heavily involved in the Save Wensum Lodge campaign, and took an organisational role within it.
Moving to King Street
I moved to Norwich in December 2020, in the peak of the pandemic. We were very excited about living on King Street. We were slightly nervous too as it has a bit of a reputation. But we were excited by Jurnet’s Bar in the undercroft of the Music House, the oldest domestic dwelling in Norwich and by the presence of Wensum Lodge. It looked like this fantastic adult education centre on the banks of the river, where you could study anything and everything you wanted.
Silversmithing at Wensum Lodge
Lockdown continued for quite a while after we moved here. Eventually, in winter 2022, I did a lovely ten week silversmithing course with a friend. I’d never done it before and I thought I could make myself some very fancy bespoke pieces of jewellery. I did not. We made some fairly disastrous pieces of jewellery, like rings that didn’t fit. I did make one or two pieces that were wearable but I’ve lost them now.
It was great fun. We had a wonderful tutor and learned a lot. It became apparent when we were doing this course that our tutor was tearing her hair out. She was under-resourced, overworked and not given enough support. Even though she loved teaching and loved silversmithing, she said our course was very likely to be the last one she would do at Wensum Lodge.
Save Wensum Lodge
My involvement in the campaign to save Wensum Lodge came about by accident really. Everyone was taken aback when the County Council announced its plans to sell it. By chance I found out about a meeting organised by a City councillor, a local activist, and a Green Party councillor. Another resident of King Street and I went along to find out what was going on. We were the only local people there. We talked to the councillors about the possible routes to save Wensum Lodge.. Before I knew it, I was saying ‘Oh, well I’ll do that, I can do that.’ You know the way it goes. So it really did start by accident. This was in June 2023.
We organised a big meeting at the King’s Centre. It was a joint Save Wensum Lodge and King Street Neighbours meeting. I have no memory of how this happened, but to my horror I ended up being the main organiser and sort of chair of this meeting. I’m actually quite good at chairing meetings because I don’t like them and I don’t like the sound of my own voice. I can do it, but I don’t like doing it. There were about 150 people there. We had lots of residents, we had City councillors, we had County councillors. We had people from Jarrolds who were looking for a new place for their print museum. We had people from the Norwich Unity Hub, which is an umbrella group for lots of artists, eco groups and activists. We had tutors and students. There was so much knowledge in that room and enthusiasm to save Wensum Lodge. It was a very moving occasion.
Everybody agreed at the end of the meeting that the best plan would be to get Wensum Lodge declared as an asset of community value. This could be done by the City Council and it would give us six months to put together the funds to buy Wensum Lodge for the community.
The campaign
It was all quite complicated. Wensum Lodge is owned by the County Council. The Music House, which is on the site of Wensum Lodge, is owned by the City Council. The City Council declared Wensum Lodge an asset of community value. We were then negotiating with the County Council as to whether we could put together a package to buy it. We had a second meeting where the real enthusiasts came along to set up a committee to run the campaign. About 20-25 people came to the second meeting.
We had protests in the city centre. We organised petitions and leafleting, we did all the standard things. The petition was organised partly by the Green Party. I think we got about 6,000 signatures. We had a mailing list of about 300 people collected from people signing up in the city centre or at meetings. We would email them fortnightly with any updates. I did an interview on Radio Norwich. I did three press releases for the Eastern Daily Press (EDP).
It was all quite low key. We would have meetings once a fortnight. We all ended up out of pocket because we had to book meeting rooms but it wasn’t big money. I do remember standing on the steps of the City Hall in December. It was pouring rain and freezing cold. I was speaking to quite a small group of people because it wasn’t really the weather to listen to speeches about the importance of Wensum Lodge.
It became apparent that lots of people in Norwich and the county beyond had great affection and enthusiasm for Wensum Lodge. There was a great desire to save the place. So many people I met had done more than one course there. For some it had been a real lifeline. For some it had been the start of their social lives in Norwich. When we were collecting signatures for the petition in the city, complete strangers would say ‘oh yes, Wensum Lodge. Yeah, wonderful place.’
At some point the core committee shrunk to ten regulars. That core committee went to see MP Clive Lewis, who was supportive but said his powers were limited. We had a meeting with Kay Mason Billig, the leader of the County Council, who listened to everything we said but nothing happened.
The Film
The film came about by suggestion of committee member Dave Welsh. He had a neighbour called Chico Dall’Inha. Chico is a professional filmmaker and director who lives in Norwich but lectures in film at Goldsmiths College, London. Chico was prepared to make a short film for us, for free, to help the campaign.
We tried to get people of all ages, backgrounds and experiences to come and talk to Chico about their memories of Wensum Lodge and why it was important to them. We eventually assembled 12 people. It was very moving because for a lot of these people, their experience at Wensum Lodge really did change their life. It set them off on new career paths, sent them to university, made them new friends, and got them new skills. It was only about ten minutes long, but it was a very moving account about the importance of adult education and Wensum Lodge to people in Norwich.
Long story short
To cut a long story short, Wensum Lodge was an expensive project. It hadn’t been properly taken care of. It had been allowed to decay, and I don’t think the County Council really wanted to sell it to the community. We were looking at having to put together a package of millions of pounds. We weren’t even a registered charity. When we tried to become a registered charity, no-one wanted to be a trustee, probably because when you’re talking about the possibility of having to raise millions, you don’t know what you’re getting into. It’s a bit scary, and we weren’t people who knew the ins and outs of setting up a charity. We just had loads of enthusiasm.
The waters were muddied further by the fact there had been a pre-existing charity called the Friends of Wensum Lodge, which dated back to the opening of the Lodge. It had done wonderful things and raised money for so much of the equipment like the pottery kilns and the silversmithing equipment. This previous charity was still in existence technically. In order for our charity to exist this previous charity had to be wound up. But winding up a charity is quite bureaucratic and the paperwork was never resolved. So, we couldn’t set up a charity because there was this pre-existing charity and nobody wanted to be a trustee. And unless you have a structure like that, you’re not in a position to put in bids for the Heritage Lottery fund. You can’t raise money. We were stuck.
We had hoped that Norwich Unity Hub would take on Wensum Lodge, but they went to Carrow House, which had been renovated and was ready to go. And Jarrolds decided that Wensum Lodge was too big of an ask.
Tours around the site
We had two tours around the whole site itself, and it was fascinating. There are huge cellars underneath the buildings, one of which was once used as a shooting gallery for a local gun club. And there’s other very sad bits of the site. Right next to the river there’s a place which was a café that had been closed for a long time. It still has the old piano there, and it’s all covered in dust and cobwebs. You just think it’s such a perfect spot to sit by the river and have a cup of coffee, and it’s just been mouldering away.
People (who knew a lot more about the workings of Wensum Lodge than I) felt the site had been allowed to decay either deliberately or inadvertently. They felt that the courses weren’t being properly marketed and it was a cost saving move to put out the message that Wensum Lodge is inaccessible, which it isn’t. So, even by 2022 when I was going there, the place was probably not at its best.
Closing of the window
We had a hardcore committee of about ten people who’d come to meetings and do their bit. It was a mixture of locals, tutors, and students. They’d send off freedom of information requests to the councils, they’d write to their MPs, they’d come and stand in the rain to hand out leaflets. We’d had six months to somehow summon up millions of pounds to save this building or persuade someone else to buy it and lease it to us on a peppercorn rent. But the task and the costs were just too big for us. And in January 2024, news came that the six month window for the asset of community value had shut. That was the end of the campaign in any realistic sense.
When the property went on the open market I was contacted by a local chap. He was someone who loves the site, understands it, and wanted to buy it. While it wouldn’t carry on being Wensum Lodge as an adult education centre, his plans for it were in the spirit of its history. This was a local person who reached out to us, no other buyers did. So I do feel hopeful that there is a good future for Wensum Lodge. It was the end of our campaign but it was the dawning of a little bit of hope for the site.
Impact of closure on King Street
For the local people it’s just another shuttered up building on King Street. You might have noticed we have a huge half-finished development courtesy of Orbit Homes. We have the Bennett’s building, which was built by Anne Boleyn’s grandad. It’s attached to the wonderful Dragon Hall and is an important building in its own right. It’s mired in some planning permission and investment problems. One of the main issues we’ve learned is that there’s a huge lack of communication about these valuable assets. The person who owns the Bennett’s building won’t communicate with us at all, it’s like we don’t exist.
Further down the street you’ve got Wensum Lodge and the Music House. Then right at the end of the street used to be the Ferry Boat. We’ve had a crane there for about 18 months. A magnificent crane presiding over a building site where nothing has happened for over 18 months, because we think the developer has gone bust. So Wensum Lodge was just another sign of inner city decay.
Adult education after closure
The County Council promised that the courses of Wensum Lodge would be relocated. In fact, a lot of them have moved online. There is this idea that people prefer learning online which is not the case. People go to afternoon and evening courses partly because they want to see other human faces. Some of the courses are now based in schools, which means that people who would attend during the day can’t. That’s often people who are older or not working. Some courses like silversmithing and pottery have disappeared altogether. It’s very frustrating.
While Wensum Lodge was being killed off, the County Council was supporting and to a certain extent investing in the conversion a department store in the centre of Yarmouth. It was far older than Wensum Lodge. Essentially, they’ve been turning it into a Wensum Lodge, despite telling us that the future of adult education was online and that Wensum Lodge was too expensive to maintain and inaccessible. So it seems like there’s one rule for Norwich and one rule for Great Yarmouth. I couldn’t possibly think why.
Personal impact of closure
To be absolutely honest, the end of the campaign was a great relief. It was a lot of pressure and a lot of responsibility. I’m not a politician, I’m not a professional fundraiser, and those are key skills when it comes to saving something like Wensum Lodge. I did it because it was important and I was surrounded by people who agreed, but they drifted away. People drift away. As I said, we ended up with a core of ten people and we started with more. I was never elected to be chair of this committee but nobody wanted to be chair and nobody wanted to be trustee. I feel we all did what we could. We made a certain amount of noise, we made some friendships, we made a great film, but really it was a task beyond us.
From the committee, I keep in contact with the people who live locally and occasional contact with the people who live further away. I think everybody is still very interested in what happens to Wensum Lodge. Hopefully there will be positive news. I still have the mailing list and I can’t wait to actually say to them ‘it’s okay. It’s not going to be what it was, but it will have a future.’
Stephanie Northen talking to WISEArchive on 11th April 2025 © WISEArchive 2025. All Rights Reserved.
