The concern elicited amongst the governors of Norwich over the state of the watercourses and streets was matched by an equal concern for the state of the city's housing stock and other buildings. Thomas Starkey summed up the relative shortcomings of English towns compared to those on the Continent. No one, he suggested, could ‘be so blynd or obstynate to deny the grete dekey, fautys and mysordurys … of our commyn wele … when he lokyth apon our cytes, castellys and towyns, of late days ruynate and fallen downe’. Norwich merchants who sat on the city's ruling council, and who traded in northern Europe, had first-hand experience of these differences; in comparison, Continental cities appeared ‘so gudly, so wel byldyd and so clene kept’. According to the particular logic of mid-Tudor reformism, derelict or deteriorating properties had a direct impact on the moral and physical well-being of the residents. Negligent landlords who failed to maintain wind- and water-tight housing to a proper standard were accounted foolhardy not only for squandering and devaluing their assets (and thus jeopardizing the security of a city's economy), but also for displacing an apparently endless stream of impoverished and ailing tenants who, with no other options open to them, were forced to refer themselves to the mechanisms of charitable assistance. The gravity of this situation would have seemed self-evident. Since the publication in 1535 of William Marshall's tract entitled The Forme and Maner of Subvention or Helping for Pore People (a translation of regulations for poor relief implemented at Ypres), as well as the passing of the national legislation it inspired, a close relationship between begging and the transmission of disfiguring diseases – especially the pox – was firmly established in the civic consciousness. For these reasons, Norwich councillors felt compelled to scrutinize the state of the city's domestic and commercial buildings with a critical eye.

Rebuilding the domestic housing stock

The extent of the problem of dereliction in Norwich in the mid-sixteenth century is hinted at in a series of land tax (landgable) records, financial accounts and property deeds.