Norwich St Mary the Less, Norfolk Genealogy

History
Norwich St Mary the Less, Queen Street is one of the forgotten churches of the city. Indeed it is hidden from view in modern Norwich surrounded on all four sides by shops and offices.

It fell into disuse as long ago as 1544. It's tower is visible and a metal gate and alley from Tombland are the only indications of it's existence.

On its redundancy in the 16th century, it was sold to Norwich Corporation, and became a merchant hall where Dutch and Walloon merchants sold their cloth. This continued until the 1620s, when falling demand meant that the Corporation rented it out to the local Worsted merchants, who used it for a while. In 1637 it was bought by the Flemish Walloon Company to be converted into a French Protestant church. Among the famous members of the congregation were the Martineau family, who are commemorated by several plaques.

Norwich Heritage Trail have a plaque which refers to the church as a Huguenot Church. In fact it would be more accurate to describe it as Walloon.

By 1832, the French Protestant community had been fairly fully integrated into Norwich non-conformist life, and the lease was sold to the Swedenborgians. This protestant cult flourished briefly in the mid-19th century before fading, and, as a consequence, the lease passed in 1869 to the Catholic Apostolic Church, or the Irvingites, as they were known after their founder.

Catholic Apostolic Church continued to use the building until the 1950s, when the last of the Norwich congregation died. The building then became a furniture store.

It is listed by English heritage as a building at risk and appears on the at risk register http://risk.english-heritage.org.uk/default.aspx?id=946&amp;rt=0&amp;pn=307&amp;st=a&amp;ctype=all&amp;crit=

technically it is owned by the Dutch and Flemish Studies Centre.

For historic photographs http://www.georgeplunkett.co.uk