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Queen's Hills Country Park

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Queen's Hills Country Park is situated in the Tud Valley to the west of Costessey which is itself a western suburb of Norwich. It was created at the same time as Queen's Hills housing estate around 15 years ago. The park is roughly delineated by the estate at its north and the River Tud to its south. Over the past year we have all become more familiar with our immediate surroundings than we would ever expected and I have enjoyed discovering how much the park has to offer. The geography of this part of Costessey has been heavily influenced by gravel quarrying. The clatter of gravel travelling through the steel tubes of Longwater Gravel's processing plant on the other side of the Tud valley is familiar enough to have become part of the ambient noise here. When the plant restarted after England's first lockdown in 2020 however, the renewed noise and light came as quite a shock. To the east lie Costessey Pits which have been repurposed as watersports and fishing lakes...
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The Jenny Lind Play Ground for Children

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As you arrive in Norwich from the south, the A11 turns into Newmarket Road and just before you reach the city centre you pass the site of the old Victorian hospital that closed in 2003. Its domed spires (or maybe spired domes) and dutch gabled front still stand today though much of the building was rebuilt as the hospital was converted to flats. A little way behind the flats and the housing that has replaced the rest of the hospital, is a green square that includes a playground for young children and some outdoor basketball courts. On the other side of the path this marble arch stands as an entrance to a small open grass field. The playground, courts and field form Jenny Lind Park. The name 'Jenny Lind' will also be familiar to many parents whose children have needed medical attention in or around Norwich since 1854. The Jenny Lind Infirmary for Sick Children was the UK's second children's hospital after Great Ormond Street and...
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Chapelfield Chocolate Factory

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The Nestle factory seen from Chapelfield Road (2002) Photo credit: John Fielding . One of my most abiding memories of Norwich as it was when I moved here in the 90s, is the aroma of chocolate wafting past our house in NR1 when the wind was in the right direction. The factory where they made the chocolate was owned by Nestle at that time and stood on the site of what is now Chantry Place . I've heard it said that we often remember smells and sounds better than sights and that is certainly true for me in this case. I only have a vague recollection of dour looking buildings with steel tanks and pipes emerging at various points sitting unobstrusively behind the city wall as I cycled round the inner ring road to get to Blockbuster Video. On one hand, writing about renting videos from a shop makes me feel like a bit of a sepia tinted relic. It also makes me boggle at how long the old Blockbuster Video shop has stood empty. Despi...
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