Argyle Street, Norwich

Argyle Street was a Victorian street consisting of small two-up two-down terraced houses. According to Morant's map, it was partly built in 1873. In 1883-4 there were 106 families, primarily manual workers with a significant number of men employed by the railway. The Jarrold & Sons Directory of 1889 lists one shopkeeper. The street was saved from slum clearance in the early 1960s, after the nearby area of Richmond, or the "village on the hill", was completely demolished. ==Squatted==

The University of East Anglia planned to buy the Victorian terraced housing of Argyle Street from Norwich City Council for student homes in 1979. However, on 6 December 1978, forty squatters moved into fourteen empty houses and one of Britain's largest and longest running squats had begun. The other fifteen empty houses were quickly occupied and eventually the street had 120 squatters. In 1980 the squatters formed a co-operative which was backed by Norwich City Council, which at the time included Pat Hollis. Together they applied for a grant from the Government-funded Housing Corporation. In 1981 a £1 million grant was agreed for a major renovation scheme, but in 1982 the Department of the Environment blocked Norwich City Council's plan to sell or lease the houses to the co-operative. ==Redevelopment==

In 1984 Norwich City Council decided to demolish the street and redevelop the area for sheltered homes. The final eviction of squatters from Argyle Street occurred in February 1985. ==Film==

In 1981, Argyle Street became the setting for scenes of a filmed adaptation of Doris Lessing's dystopian novel Memoirs of a Survivor. In 1985, Al Stokes made a film about the eviction of the squatters, called Street of Experience. ==References==