2Nd World War Memorial Cottages (Europe, Bates, Gristock, Knowland, Randle And Asia) Including The Front Garden Walls, The War Memorial And The Walls And Gatepiers To Mousehold Lane

Set of 6 almshouses built as a Second World War Memorial between 1948 and 1950, designed by Cecil Upcher for the Royal Norfolk Regiment Memorial Trust. The cottages are constructed in red brick with plain-tile roof and ornamental brick stacks with grouped flues, executed in a Vernacular Baroque style with curving Dutch gables. They are arranged in the plan of a quarter-circle terrace, single storey in height.

The symmetrical south-west elevation features a 12-window range of upvc windows to the original design. Six shaped gables are arranged as single gables to the ends of the façade and two paired gables in the centre. Each gable contains a Venetian window and has rusticated corners and dentil cornices. In the gable head of each is an oval plaque with keyblocks to the quadrant points, bearing the names of the houses. The northern pedimented main gable ends carry plaques inscribed 'Europe 1939-45' and 'Asia 1942-45'. Between the paired shaped gables are rusticated entrances to passageways to the rear. The façade has four half-glazed entrance doors set within recesses and six sash-type windows with external shutters, all beneath a dentil eaves cornice. The north and south returns are treated as large pedimented gables with a recessed half-glazed doorway within a rusticated arched opening and one casement window. At each end of the façade and set back is a garage in similar style linked by an archway.

The rear elevation has four service blocks projecting at right angles. Internally, each house follows a similar plan except for the end houses, which accommodate side entry. The houses feature wedge-shaped T-plan entrance halls with curving passage ends, four-panel doors, and simple timber fire surrounds.

Low front garden walls project forward from the façade and reflect the curve of the houses. At the centre stands a miniature cenotaph serving as the Royal Norfolk Regiment war memorial. Fronting Mousehold Lane are further low brick walls curving inwards to a central carriage entrance, flanked by gatepiers carrying plaques recording the presentation of the site by the Norwich Home Guard and naming the group as the Regiment's war memorial.

The cottages were intended for war veterans from the Royal Norfolk Regiment, whose members won five Victoria Crosses in the Second World War, the greatest number for any British division in the conflict. The site was donated by the Norwich Home Guard. The houses named 'Europe' and 'Asia' refer to the theatres of war in which the regiment fought, while the other four names—Bates, Gristock, Knowland and Randle—commemorate four of the Victoria Cross holders. The fifth recipient, Captain Jamieson, was commemorated at a house in King's Lynn, now demolished.

This was the first essay in mass concrete walling clad in brick undertaken by Cecil Upcher, a solution necessitated by the acute shortage of building materials in the period following the Second World War. The scarcity of materials is evident in the use of lower-quality bricks on the rear compared to the fine quality bricks employed on the front elevation. Despite these material constraints, the cottages demonstrate remarkably high quality, with carefully and richly detailed brickwork on the façade in a timeless and characteristic local Vernacular Baroque style. The terrace curves to protect the Regimental memorial in the centre.

Almshouses of the second half of the twentieth century are unusual, particularly in a style well-known in Norfolk. There appears to be only one other group of Second World War memorial cottages in England, located in Bournemouth. In Scotland, a listed set of Second World War memorial cottages exists at Craigmillar near Edinburgh, called the Thistle Foundation Estate and dedicated in part to the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. Cottages named after specific winners of the Victoria Cross are otherwise unknown. All those commemorated have died, the last in 2001. The central Regimental memorial and walls to the road complete this exceptionally fine memorial group.