The St. Giles Rooms 47 St. Giles Street,
Norwich NR2 1JR

Tel.: 01603 621827 / 620176
Fax.: 01603 623266
E-Mail: Secretary


The St Giles Rooms  
were called until last year the Masonic Hall, and had been the home of Freemasonry in Norwich since 1881. The name was changed so that non Masons would not feel that the building was there for the exclusive use of Masons. The building is a Grade Two listed building, and part of Norwich's rich architectural heritage. We would like it to be seen and used by the citizens of Norwich.

The original house was built by Ruben Deaves late in the seventeenth century, indeed there is still a tablet memorial to him in the garden wall. It is not inappropriate that the building is concerned with charitable work today, because Ruben Deaves by his Will dated 1781 directed his executors to pay £200 to the Churchwardens of St. Giles Church upon trust, that they should invest the money, the interest to be spent annually for the purchase of clothing for the poor of the parish.

After his death the house was sold to Page Nicol Scott. He was Assistant-Surgeon to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital from 1814-1819, and was, for a term, a partner of another very well known Norwich Surgeon, Dr. Edward Rigby.Mr. Scott was for many years Surgeon to the County Gaol, which at the time stood on the site of the Catholic Cathedral. A portrait of Mr. Scott still hangs in the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital.

The next owner was Horatio Bolingbroke, who bought the house in 1848. He was the first Sheriff of Norwich after the passing of the Municipal Reform act. For several years he was Chairman of the Norwich Charities Trustees (General List). He died in 1879 just two years before the Freemasons bought 47 St. Giles Street.

Prior to them using Number 47, the Freemasons used The Assembly Rooms for their meetings. However, they felt the need to have premises adapted for their own use and 47 being unoccupied was purchased by a Provincial Committee set up for that purpose. It was at about the same time that the City Council decided to re-number the street and number 23 became the 47 we know today, the street was also clad with wood blocks instead of the rough stone of previous years. The cost of this work was £1,708:4:01/2.

An architect was appointed to design suitable meeting rooms, he was Mr. Albert Havers from London. His design was approved on 20th May 1905. It was decided to reconstruct the facade in the fashionable neo-baroque style similar to the Insurance building we now know as the Telephone Managers Office. The exterior adaptation was superficial but followed the neo-baroque revival, characterised by its solidity of mass and large scale designs and decorations and related this to the congested urban site. The whole was carried out in Monks Parks stone quarried at Corsham in Wiltshire.

In 1928 the Freemasons found their building was not large enough for their requirements and further rooms and service areas were built on the bowling green. The building as we know it today is substantially the same as was altered and extended in 1928.