More Info →Norfolk Building, 8-14 Coleman Place

So-named by a later owner, Norfolk House was erected in late 1925 for C.M. Ross & Co. Ltd., to Arthur Robert Allen and Herbert Leslie Hickson’s design. Its site had been the garden of the neighbouring Union Bank - which had included a bank manager’s residence. It comprised four small shops, with offices upstairs, and its building permit was applied for in August 1925. The brick, steel and concrete building was to cost £6,000. It was duly sold in 1933. Norwich Union Life Insurance purchased the building in 1964, and as this firm had been founded (in 1908) in the English county of Norfolk, this appears to be the source of the building’s present name. That firm departed in 1986, and the building now consists of street-level shops and an art gallery upstairs. Its façade remains largely authentic, especially the shop fronts.