Friars Quay (Norwich) the River Wensum itself. The immediate history however relates to the use of the site as a timber yard until it was made available for development. Jewsons Timber Yard was established by John Wilson Jewson who shipped in timbers by wherries from Great Yarmouth. In 1868 George Jewson purchased a 17th-century house in Colegate which was used as the headquarters of the business. His son Richard (1867 to 1949) established Jewsons as the largest timber merchants between the Thames and the Humber. Richard became Lord Mayor of Norwich in 1917. The land was purchased by Norwich City Council in 1970.
Norwich "in her state doth stand With towns of high'st regard the fourth of all the land", as Michael Drayton noted in "Poly-Olbion" (1612). The wealth generated by the wool trade throughout the Middle Ages financed the construction of many fine churches, so that Norwich still has more medieval churches than any other city in Western Europe north of the Alps. Throughout this period Norwich established wide-ranging trading links with other parts of Europe, its markets stretching from Scandinavia to Spain and the city housing a Hanseatic warehouse. To organise and control its exports to the Low Countries, Great Yarmouth, as