C O N T E X T 1 4 1 : S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 5 13 Following this we visited St Peter Hungate. This church has not been a place of worship for some time either. From 1936 to 1995 it served as a museum of church art. This begged the question of what would be considered a more appropriate use for a former church, and whether this could have ultimately paved the way for the secular use of churches in the city.The institutional and educational aspect of the building has been retained. It is currently occupied by Hungate Medieval Art, a charity that promotes Norfolk’s medieval heritage through exhibitions and events. The next church to fall under our scrutiny was St Clement’s on Colegate, a 15th-century church with possible Saxon origins that is occupied by the Stonemasons’ Training Partnership of the Guild of St Stephen and St George, Norwich’s only working medieval guild.The idyllic setting of the church allows the apprentices to do various pieces of work on and around the building.This is certainly a special example of a change of use of a medieval church. We did, of course, visit some churches that were still in use as places of worship, such as St Andrews and the Octagon Unitarian Chapel. These two establishments could not have been more different.The former originates from the late 15th century and is the second largest medieval parish church in the city, while the latter is an 18th-century octagonal building. With declining congregations, it must be asked what future would these unique buildings have? Claire Gayle Non-conformist Norwich Norwich might be a small city in a far corner of the British Isles but it has played a fundamental part in developing the rebellious yet high-minded streak in our national character, as Nick Williams, volunteer at Norwich HEART, alluded to in his intriguing tour of non-conformist Norwich. It was in Norwich in 1531 that Thomas Bilney was burned alive as the first Protestant martyr. Less than 35 years later, the City of Norwich invited the Protestant refugees from the Spanish Netherlands to settle in Norwich to improve the city’s textile industry. The Strangers, as they were known, were given the abandoned church of St Mary the Less on Queen Street as a place to sell their goods. The Strangers would come to form more than a quarter of Norwich’s population and Norwich’s textile industry thrived. St George,Tombland, and (below) Nicholas Groves and Paul Rhymes with delegates outside the church
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