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LOCAL
INFORMATION
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A
Brief History of Diss.
Many towns claim to be 'historic market towns', but there has
been a market in the centre of Diss, on the Norfolk/Suffolk
border for well over 500 years. The town, which lies in the
beautiful Waveney Valley, was established around one of the
deepest natural inland lakes in the country. The 6 acre Mere
is 18 feet deep, but below this is another 51 feet of mud! The
water level is maintained by a number of underground springs
near to the northern edge. The local Rotary Club is hoping to
install an 18metre high water fountain in the centre of the
Mere next year to celebrate their centenary.
The town has a population approaching 7,000. However, the town
also serves a recognised rural catchment area of approximately
40,000 people.
The town centre comprises some excellent examples of Georgian
and Edwardian buildings, as well as a public park, the Mere
and a number of thriving shopping streets and the market place.
The Market operates every Friday and coincides with a local
antiques and collectables auction which is held at Gazes Saleroom.
Speciality markets, flea markets and farmers markets are also
held regularly.
Diss is one of only two UK pilot towns chosen to trial the Italian
"Cittaslow" scheme which is a project aimed at counteracting
the modern ethos of fast food and the fast pace of life. Cittaslow
translates as "Slow City", but Diss prefers to think
of itself as a town that prides itself on a good quality of
life in a relaxed environment promoting good food. Diss was
the runner up in the recent Norfolk Town of the Year Awards.
To the south-west of the town centre lies Fair Green which was
first granted a Royal Charter in 1185 and such activities as
bull baiting and cock fighting took place until the fair closed
in 1872. The Green is now however, still the location for modern
day travelling fairs and circuses.
The town has two modern industrial estates to the east of the
town centre and benefits from being on the main London to Norwich
main railway line.
Attractions in the area include the town's award winning museum
located to the north of the Market Place, the wonderful Steam
Museum and Gardens at Bressingham and the zoo at Banham.
The Mere with Diss Park beyond
Betjeman's View of Diss
For many years Diss was to me a lonely railway station
on the line to Norwich. I knew of it as the
headquarters of the British Goat Society, to which my
wife belonged long before the last war.
Studying the one inch Ordnance Survey map and
reading about it between the lines in Kelly's
Directory of Norfolk, I realized it would be the
prefect English country town, neither too big for
people to feel neglected nor too small to become a
hot-bed of gossip.Then it was associated with the
cheerful and delicate poet, John Skelton.
I was not disappointed. The first way I saw it was
the worst way. That is to say by motor car. Towns are
made to walk about it, not to drive through, and to
meet in, which accounts for churches, chapels and
charming buildings like your Corn Exchange. That motor
drive did reveal one thing, which was a flash of water
seen driving to Attleborugh - the Mere.
I was determined to come back which I did by train
and with Mr. Malcolm Freegard, the BBC film producer
at that time in the BBC Norwich office. Together we
made a short film of the town and spent several days
walking about and looking. Walking down alleys and
suddenly glimpsing the Mere, noticing the charming
Unitarian church and the Quaker meeting house and
ending in the splendid Nave of the Parish Church of
St. Mary.
There were many more timber-framed and plastered
cottages in the town then. Would that they had all
been repaired and modernized. Luckily many remain and
no more will be destroyed and Diss can still be its
individual self and not some dead, hygienic housing
estate.
(Written by Sir John Betjeman, then Poet Laureate, for
the Foreword of the 1975-76 Diss Town Guide.)
Diss 100 Years Ago
What was it like to live here 100 years ago, at the
end of the Victorian era, when the 20th century was
young and nobody had any idea of the wars, disasters
and technological progress to come?
A local boy born in the late 1890s would see the
horrors of the Great War, from which 101 men did not
return. But, for the time being, life must have been
slower and more peaceful, with horses and bicycles and
scarcely a car to be seen in the gaslit streets.
Everyone wore a hat, both men and women, skirts
reached down to the ground and women showed only their
faces.
At that time the owner of The Uplands (now the Sixth
Form Centre), Stroud Lincoln Cocks JP, could have
stood at his house and looked down at a view of
nothing but fields as far as Victoria Road.`
Francis Taylor JP, at the Manor House in Mount
Street, a Quaker at the Friends' Meeting House or Mrs.
Cupiss at The Wilderness, would all have had similarly
uninterrupted views eastward as far as the railway
station. Right up to the 1960s you could still see the
trains from the Church School.
The Entry was still known as The Parson's Entry.
John Skelton, Tudor poet laureate and Diss rector,
would have walked this way to church from Mere Manor.
In 1905 this house was the rectory of the Reverend
Charles Upwood Manning MA, the last of a line of
Manning rectors who had held the living since the
reign of George III. Rectory Meadow takes its name
from the house which was still called The Old Rectory
until the mid 20th century. Mere Manor is said to have
been just a nickname given during the war.
Where was Moat Road, a name which appears in old
directories, with a harness maker, dressmaker, boot
and shoe maker, shopkeeper, private residence and the
Suffolk Electricity Company there? It may have been
the first stretch of Shelfanger Road, from Crown
Corner to the Parish Fields footpath, as there was a
moat by the maltings. The saleyard where the auctions
now take place was then a cricket ground and later the
football ground. Louie's Lane was originally Broom
Lane but was re-named after the mysterious murder of
Louie Bryant in 1829. This and Meetinghouse (now
Croft) Lane were out in the country in 1905. There
were scarcely any houses and nothing to the west,
apart from fields and Hall Hills. This was a grand
house, later demolished. Its grounds exist now only as
an address.
Factory Lane existed; but the short stretch by the
old Matting and Brush factory was known as Cheap Lane.
The rest, as far as Roydon, was Factory Lane. The
Secondary School, later the Grammar School, had not
been built. It was demolished in the early 1990s to
make way for the Scholars Walk houses. Sunnyside was
then known as Mount Street Road and had a blacksmith
called Albert Fairweather, Mount Pleasant had not been
built, The Causeway was Horn's Entry and Park Road was
Parkfield Road. There was another blacksmith in Chapel
Street and a whitesmith or tinsmith, Ephraim Rice, in
Church Street. The fire engine was housed in Wills
Yard, Chapel Street.
Strolling down Mere Street you would have passed
Edward Abbott's printing and stationery establishment,
where the Alliance and Leicester Building Society is
now. This, as the Diss Publishing Company, remained
the same kind of business until the 1970s. Next was
Stead and Simpsons, now Castle Fruit. The shoe shop's
current premises were then the International Tea
Company's Stores ('The International'.) You could
also have bought shoes at Hilton's and Hammond's on
the same side of the street. Hughes Electrical is on
the site of Taylor & Sons, watchmakers, and Miss Ellen
Taylor's fancy repository, a gift shop. John Double
the tobacconist was where the Camera Shop now is. W.H.
Smith's was a public house called the King's Arms
until the early 19th century. In the early 1900s it
was Brame's Electrical, the father of the man who had
a similar shop (now Whittley Parish, the estate
agents) on Market Hill. Mrs. E.S. Burrage, a ladies
outfitter, was in the shop which would later be
Toyland and now Special Occasions. William Lang the
butcher was where the betting shop is now. There were
grocers on the Paper Chain site for many years, David
Tipple in 1900, later Williams and then Harveys.
Charlie Humphrey, dealt in china and sold pails and
all sorts of other things. He was also the local agent
for Unemployment Insurance; and men used to line up by
the side of the building (now Taylor's Electrical) to
sign on.
The building which now houses shops and the
Diss Express offices is on the site of The Ship Inn,
which lasted until the late 1960s. Edward Weaver,
confectioner and pastrycook, also had his premises
there (Denny's Café in later years); and John Cadge
made artificial teeth nearby. The Diss Mercury office
(which has moved around the town numerous times) is,
appropriately, where Lusher Brothers, printers and
bookbinders, had their premises. (See 'A Country
Boyhood in the Late 19th Century' in my book Northfolk
Southfolk, where John Nice describes working there.)
The building many people still think of as Currys, now
Diss Discount, was Arthur E. Capon's tea shop at one
time (spot it on one of the big photographs in Diss
library) and later the Co-op. There were several
cottages at the back of the building, all of which
have long gone. The next few premises, where the
barber shop, jeweller and pet shop are now, were a
pasture meadow until the mid 19th century. By the
early 20th there were dressmakers and a teacher of
music working there. Chapman's the jewellers was the
premises of Cleer Sewell Alger, the photographer whose
work left such a precious legacy of Victorian life. He
was killed in a motoring accident in 1903.
The United
Reformed church, then known as the Congregational
church, was there, having been built in 1839. The
parish church hall was at the foot of the street,
looking back up towards the church, having been built
on the site of the cattle pound. Now there is a
building society there and shop. There were houses
where the Somerfield supermarket is; and later
Chitty's garage. Park House, now a solicitors' office,
had been built in 1837.
Coming back up the street you would have passed
Charles Lait's, coach builders, where the Diss
Publishing Company is. The next shop has been a
watchmaker and jewellers for many years, Livock and
Moss in those days, now Hemstocks. You could quench
your thirst at The Sun, now the Waterfront Inn. You
would pass Harry Markwell's, basket maker and
perambulator factor, where you now buy fried chicken.
Butler's the greengrocer was where the florist is.
William Boyce, the fish dealer, was where Cannell's
the butcher is now. Francis Cupiss had his first
premises here in Mere Street, where the card shops
are, before moving to The Wilderness in 1874. Palmer's
Drug and Oil Stores was here. Hopgoods also had their
first shop in this part of Mere Street, where the
kebab place is, a century ago. The Cross Keys public
house stood here, on the Woolworths site, in the 18th
century. Later William Amos Lines had a barber shop;
and there was also a fish shop. The Masonic Hall was
also there before Woolworths was built. The King's
Head hotel, now divided into several different
premises, was next as you came back up to the Market
Place.
Elsewhere in the town you would have found the stay
factory, where the Heywood Road scout hut is. There
was another matting factory, where the Salvation Army
headquarters are. Their original 'barracks' was tucked
away behind The Beehive yard, accessed from there or
perhaps Roydon Road. The Diss Soda Water works stood
where St. Mary's Court is. Later in the century the
site was Bardwell's timber yard.
The Almshouses stood where Bellacre Close is now.
Cows from Pleasure Farm grazed on the land where
Dennyholme would be built. The Court, formerly home of
William Betts who created the Frenze farm railway,
stood between Vinces Lane and the railway line. (The
Betts railway had disappeared by 1888.) On the way to
Scole you would have seen the Isolation Hospital,
where Sawmills Road is now.
Several firms still traded as wind and steam millers
– Button, Chaplyn and Chase. There was a string
of public houses which have since disappeared,
including the Dolphin, Bell and Star (all in the
Market Place), Half Moon (St. Nicholas Street),
Beehive (Denmark Street), Cherry Tree (Roydon Road),
Ship (Mere Street), Denmark Arms (corner of Park Road
and Fair Green), Red Lion and Railway Tavern (Victoria
Road), Jolly Porters (by the railway station) and
White Hart (now the White Elephant, Stuston Road). You
would have changed your library book in the reading
room upstairs at the Corn Hall. The sick were cared
for at Diss Hospital, where Grasmere is in Denmark
Street.
Many business names which are still associated with
the town, some just in memory, were active then:
Albrights the ironmongers, the Aldrich brothers for
matting and brushes, Aldrich and Bryant the grocers,
Anness the butchers, Bobby's the drapers, the Cuthbert
Stores, Doubledays for lemonade and mineral water,
Easto's the fishmonger, Gaze's the auctioneers and
estate agents, Gostling the chemists, Harrison's the
cabinet makers, Lyus the solicitors, Perfitt's the
stonemasons, Spink's the butchers, Youngs the
engineers and so on.
As the town takes part in the Cittaslow project it
could be useful to ponder life as it was in Diss 100
years ago.
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