Take a trip to Norwich and you’re sure to spot our iconic Norwich Castle Keep watching over the city skyline. But have you ever wanted to know what wonders await you inside?
Norwich Castle is home to a fascinating museum and fantastic art gallery- transporting you from Anglo-Saxon East Anglia to 21st century contemporary art. And now, after 5 years, Norwich Castle Keep is open once again and better than ever!
The Royal Palace Reborn project will transport you back 900 years to the heyday of Norman England. With reinstated original floors, interactive and multisensory experiences, and a Gallery of Medieval Life with nearly 1000 artefacts, you’ll get a truly authentic experience of medieval life. Plus, Norwich Castle becomes the UK’s most accessible castle, taking you from basement to battlements (with incredible views, too)!
Here, we speak to Project Manager Hannah Jackson and Curator of Archaeology Dr Tim Pestell to discover this Royal Palace Reborn.
Discover hundreds of medieval artefacts in the beautiful Gallery of Medieval Life
Our ideas for the transformation of Norwich Castle grew out of a recognition that the old layout of the Keep wasn’t doing justice to its fascinating medieval history. From the outside, the Keep is a real Norwich icon, having dominated the skyline for over 900 years, but once inside the museum, it was really easy for our visitors to lose their sense of direction. We know that lots of people had a great day out at the museum but never made it into the Keep, and those that did found a Victorian museum rather than a Norman Royal Palace. We wanted our visitors to be transported back to the 1100s and experience how the Keep would have looked when it was first built.
From this starting point, we came up with the idea for the project and were hugely grateful to receive support from The National Lottery Heritage Fund and Norfolk County Council, together with a number of other organisations and funders, who enabled these ideas to take shape.
Experience the Keep as it would have been in 1121- over 900 years ago!
This project has been a huge team effort. As well as involving colleagues from Norwich Castle and Norfolk Museums Service, the project team worked with architects and structural engineers to design the new spaces. We’re a Grade I listed building, standing on top of the largest man-made mound in the UK (which is also a Scheduled Ancient Monument), so we worked very closely with Conservation Officers and Historic England to ensure that throughout the project the right decisions were being made for the building.
And once the plans were in place, we then had to deliver the project. Working with our Principal Contractor, specialist stone masons were brought to site, alongside carpenters and plumbers, electricians and dry liners. Furthermore, dressing the recreated spaces has called upon the tremendous skills of blacksmiths and carpenters together with our amazingly talented tapestry and textile volunteers. We’ve needed curators and conservators, display case manufacturers and digital projection designers…the list goes on and on!
Norwich Castle: The People’s Palace- fully accessible from basement to battlements!
The Norwich Castle team has been delighted to have worked with British Museum colleagues over many years. We have a number of objects from their collections which are on long term loan to the Castle and have worked with them on a number of touring exhibitions, such as Viking: Rediscover the Legend which visited Norwich just before the constructions works commenced.
A partnership gallery was the obvious next step, giving us even more ways to work together. The British Museum has a fascinating medieval collection which really complements Norwich Castle’s own internationally important collections. In this new partnership gallery inside the Castle Keep, we now have a huge display of medieval collections within a medieval building which is additionally exciting!
The nature of a construction project is that so much of the work takes place behind tall hoardings and locked gates. Doing much of it during a global pandemic made it additionally challenging to keep everyone informed on what was happening at Norwich Castle. The opportunity to work with the team at Eye Film has enabled us to capture so many of those key moments, which can then be shared with you all.
In fact, Eye Film have been following the project for over 8 years, so they’ve been on the journey with us – witnessing the exciting discoveries and additional challenges that the project has faced. We were really pleased to hear that the resulting documentary would be shown on Channel 4. We know that the Castle has a special place in the hearts of many Norwich and Norfolk residents but hope that this documentary enables those from further afield to find out more about our fascinating medieval history. Hopefully, they’ll come and visit us soon!
You can fully immerse yourselves into medieval life at Norwich Castle
There are far too many to choose over the years – so many of the project team grew up locally, and being involved in a project of this scale and ambition on a building that we’ve known all our lives has been an amazing experience.
A recent favourite moment was welcoming some models for a photoshoot onto the battlements. This included some individuals who use wheelchairs. Being able to provide level access via a lift onto the rooftop is brilliant. The Keep was originally designed to be a royal palace – an exclusive property for invited guests only – but we really hope that the redevelopment will now make it open to everyone. A true palace for the people!
Norwich Castle Keep is now open! You can visit daily from 10am – 5pm. Book tickets to Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery via their website– adults £15.30, children £13.05, under 4s FREE, family discount adult with paid child ticket £13.95.
