Part 35

The narrow part of High Street, which has for long proved a great inconvenience, owing to the obstruction to traffic, thereby stopping the growth of this part of Lowestoft, has been widened, and smart places will undoubtedly take the place of the somewhat tumble down houses and shops, relics of “ye olden time,” which formerly existed. While the work of demolition was in progress, an ancient crypt was found to extend some distance beneath one of the buildings. The roof is groyned and arched, and rumour has it that the crypt is a portion of a subterranean way leading from the Cliff to the Church. Be this as it may, the discovery is an interesting one for the antiquarian to ponder over, and it should be carefully preserved.

The fine old Parish Church of St. Margaret’s was completely restored in and about 1870, when the Rev. W. Hay Chapman was Rector, at a cost of over £5,000. Thanks to the energy of the present Rector, Hon. Canon Charles D’Aquilar Lawrence, the sacred edifice has been entirely re-roofed at great cost. St. Peter’s Church at Kirkley has also been restored, beautified, and added to, mainly through the munificence of Mr. E. K. Harvey, J.P. A fine new Seamen’s Church and Institute has been erected in Suffolk Road under the auspices of the Missions to Seamen Society. This building is the gift of the Misses Hume, in memory of their late brother, the Rev. H. S. Hume, M.A., a beloved Vicar of St. John’s, who died on November 9th, 1895, after an energetic and useful ministry in Lowestoft, of not quite three years.

In the early part of 1897 a Bill was promoted in Parliament by the Midland and Great Northern Joint Lines for the purpose of making a railway from Yarmouth to Lowestoft, entering the town across the Denes. The scheme also provided for a Dock at Gorleston. It was felt that this would attract a good deal of fishing trade from Lowestoft, besides which, it would ruin the Denes, and destroy the future prospects of North Lowestoft. The Council, by a majority of three, were in favour of the Bill, but a large public meeting protested against it. A petition was got up and largely signed, with the result that the Midland & Great Northern dropped their Bill, and made a compromise with the Great Eastern Railway, to have joint running powers over a new line, which they, too, proposed making from Yarmouth to Lowestoft, by a route which will go to the West of the town and join the present main line near the Coke Ovens Signal Box. There will be a Station on the Yarmouth Road, which will also be used jointly. Thus Lowestoft will he in direct communication with the Midlands.

Lately, Lowestoft Harbour was a source of trouble owing to the periodical accumulation of sand at its entrance. To obviate this the Great Eastern Railway Company will carry out extensive works, by which the North and South Piers will be considerably lengthened, and the Harbour space greatly added to. The necessary Bill for the purpose has passed through Parliament.

Another event of the last few years is the building of the splendid Reading Booms and Concert Hall on the South Pier, this handsome and well appointed building taking the place of an older structure which was destroyed by fire on the night of June 29th, 1885.

It will be seen that Lowestoft has not stood still. There is no reason why she should not go on in her onward march; and there can be no question but that the chronicler of the future will have plenty of material at his command wherewith to continue the History of Lowestoft.

[Picture: Decorative graphic]

* * * * *

PUBLISHED BY ARTHUR STEBBINGS, 56, HIGH STREET, LOWESTOFT.

FOOTNOTES

[Note: In the 1897 edition of the book all footnotes were printed as part of the narrative text, often in parenthesis. This made it almost impossible to follow the narrative, where a sentence would have a multiple sentence footnote inserted in the middle of it. In this Project Gutenberg transcription, the most obvious footnote cases have been converted back into proper footnotes. Gillingwater’s original edition had footnotes in this manner.—DP.]

* * * * *

{1} 15 Henry VI. Anno 1535, when the clergy granted a tenth to the king, the deanery of Lothingland paid as fellows:—

£ s. d. Vicarage of Lowestoft 0 8 8 Rectory of Blundeston 1 6 8 Rectory of Somerliton 1 4 0 Rectory of Lound 0 16 0 Rectory of Belton 1 14 8 Rectory of Burgh 0 13 4 Rectory of Bradwell 2 16 0 Vicarage of Gorleston 0 13 4 Vicarage of Yarmouth Parva 0 8 8 Rectory of Oldton 1 9 4 Rectory of Gunton 0 8 8 £11 19 4

Benefices of 12 merks or under, which did not pay this tenth, and on which the Rectors or Vicars kept personal residence, were Flixton, Fritton, and Ashby.

Why Herringfleet, Corton, and Hopton came to be omitted, does not appear.

This, though apparently a small sum, was in fact, a very considerable one, for thirty pounds now is scarcely an equivalent in value to five pounds at the time of Henry VI.

{3} In a field near Barnby, called Bloodmere-field, have been found many ancient beads, spears, etc.

{4a} Sixth son of Earl Goodwin, brother of Queen Edith, wife of Edward the Confessor. This earl, with Harold his brother, who disputed the crown with William the Conqueror, was slain at the decisive battle of Hastings.

{4b} Fee farm is a perpetual fixt rent, in ancient times, both in England and France. A ferm signified rent, and land put to farm, was said to be affirmed or arrented.

{4c} At this period the only distinction of property was the king’s demesne, and the baronies of the nobility, and the rest of the people were vassals either to one or the other, small private estates were entirely unknown, and the yeomen of England did not exist of a century after.

{4d} The principal branch of the family of the Fitz-Osberts, resided at Somerley Hall in this island.

{6} The strength of the contest during the whole of this dispute may be summed up in these words: “By this controversy between the burgh of Great Yarmouth and the men of Little Yarmouth and Gorleston, in Lothingland it appears that prescription, seeing they were no burghs, prevailed not to assert and make good a liberty of unlading goods and exposing them to sale in the towns.” By the same it is also evident that liberties belonging to free burghs are only to be had and obtained by the king’s charter; and that where they were used without it, they were esteemed and judged usurpations, especially if practised and continued to the prejudice and damage of a free burgh. It was observed before, that the fee of this hundred was originally in the crown, and it appears to have continued so, without any interruption, till the time of king Henry 3rd, who, in the twenty-second year of his reign, anno 1238, granted it to John de Baliol and Devergill, his wife, one of the sisters (Ives says nieces) and heiress of John Scot, Earl of Chester and Huntingdon, in exchange for their part of the county of Chester. The reasons which induced king Henry to make this exchange were strictly political: the ancient Earls of Chester being Earls Palatine, bore great sway in any combination of the barons, and this the king, as well as his father, had often experienced. Randulf, the sixth Earl of Chester, uncle and immediate predecessor of John, was not only a man of great power, but of considerable abilities and much integrity; he warmly espoused the cause of king John against the barons, and proved himself a faithful champion to his son, even to the preservation of his person, and the raising him to his father’s throne; his attachment to loyalty seemed to proceed from conviction; and, notwithstanding his being so great an advocate for John and Henry, yet, with all the dignity and hardiness of one of the iron barons of that period, he openly rebuked the former in parliament for his criminality respecting the wives and daughters of the nobility, and joined with the Earl of Cornwall to force the latter to seal the new charter of the forest liberties instead of that which he had cancelled at Oxford. Earl John, the last of this family, his successor, adopted his uncle’s system, and took part with king Henry upon the great difference between him and Richard, Earl Marshall, in 1233, and, upon the solemity of Henry’s marriage with Eleanor, daughter of Raymund, Earl of Provence, we find him bearing the sword, called Curtana before the king, in token, says Matthew Paris, that, being an Earl Palatine, he had power to restrain the king, if he should be exorbitant. It is no wonder, therefore, that, upon his death, Henry should be desirous of annexing the county of Chester to his crown, especially as he left no issue, and only female relations; and as this earldom was, in some respects, entitled to royal privileges, and a local monarchy, he assumed it into his own hands, “lest so fair a dominion should be divided among women;” and in the 31st year of his reign this Earldom annexed to the crown for ever, and remained so till the 21st of Richard 2nd, when by Act of Parliament, it was united to the principality of Wales.

{7a} Beatrice, the second daughter of king Henry and his Queen Eleanor, married John, the first Duke of Britainy, son of John, the late Earl of the same family, by whom he had issue, Arthur, duke of Britainy, and John Earl of Richmond, the said nephew. This great and accomplished nobleman was no less famous for his conduct and courage, than for his illustrious descent from one of the ancient Norman families, strengthened in its interests and possessions by several very near alliances to the crown; he also united to those qualifications, great generosity and real goodness.

{7b} It is evident from Swinden, that the affair was agitated in the 8th and 9th of Edward 2nd, although Ives asserts, that the Earl of Richmond took no notice of it till the 2nd of Edward 3rd. Possibly the earl, from residing at so great a distance, might not personally appear in the prosecution till the time of Edward 3rd; when the suit grew more serious and importunate.

{8} The Commissioners appointed by the king to meet at Great Yarmouth, in order to make enquiry concerning this dispute, and to terminate the differences, were the Bishop of Winchester, Lord Chancellor of England, Lord John Stoneherd, and John de Cambridge, his justices; Robert de Ufford, Oliver de Ingham, and Ralph Nevel, steward of the king’s household. In the roll of this year is the following entry:—Paid to the lord chancellor and others, the king’s justices, the time they were at Great Yarmouth, by order of John Pere Brown, £1 2s. 6d., and at the same time paid for bread sent to them 13s. 4d.

{9a} In August 1578, the Queen was expected at Yarmouth, by way of Suffolk, and great preparations were made for her reception and entertainment; particularly, a silver cup of £16 value, made in the form of a ship, was intended as a present to Her Majesty; but she proceeded no further than Norwich, and from thence the Lords of her retinue came to Yarmouth. In the same year, an annuity of 20s. a year, was granted, by the city of Norwich, to John Benne, of Lowestoft, who was lamed with firing off the cannon at Norwich, when the Queen visited that city.

{9b} Leuks, leuga, or luca. There are various conjectures concerning the meaning of this word; some making it three, others two, and many only one mile; but with respect to the liberties belonging to the herring fair, the leuk was determined as only one mile; as may be seen in section 4th., when an actual admeasurement of the said distance was ordered to be made,

{10} It appears indisputably evident, from divers charters granted to the town of Great Yarmouth, that the rights and privileges belonging to their herring fair extended to the distance of seven leuks or miles. The principal point in dispute between that town and the town of Lowestoft, was, from what place the said distance was to be measured, whether the quay or the mouth of the haven: when it was proved, and legally determined, about the year 1664, that the said admeasurement should commence at the former place. And, therefore, the town of Lowestoft, and the other towns, pretending to have a right to buy and sell herrings, etc., within the limits of the said seven miles from Great Yarmouth was illegal, and a manifest infringement on the liberties of the town.

{11} A beam to weigh with.

{12a} About this time a Warren, earl of Surrey, was warden or bailiff of Lothingland, who, it is conjectured, was William de Warren, the second earl of Surrey.

{12b} It also appears that Lowestoft, and also the island, in the reign of King Henry IV. and Henry V. was part of the estate of Michael de la Pole, earl of Suffolk, and passed to his successors.

{12c} Of Somerly town, in this island, and in whom the family became extinct. Isabel, the sister of Sir Roger Fitz-Osbert, of Somerley, was wife of Sir Walter Jernegan, of Horham, by virtue of which marriage [her brother, Sir Roger, dying without issue] he became possessor of the Somerley estate. This family, in the reign of King John, was settled first at Horham, in Suffolk, afterwards another branch was settled at Stonham Jerningham, in the same county, about the year 1234. The Horham branch, by marriage with the Fitz-Osberts, removed to Somerly which then became the principal seat of the family.

{13a} The Yarmouth men were opposed by the adjoining towns six years before they obtained this charter.

{13b} The granting of this charter, for uniting Kirkley road with Yarmouth haven, was one of the principal sources of the great contention which arose between Yarmouth and Lowestoft, about the year 1660, respecting the herring fishery; and gave rise to a law-suit which subsisted several years: the Yarmouth men insisting, that the place called Kirkley Road was not contiguous to the haven, but a part of the main sea, opposite to the town of Kirkley; which town lies to the south of Lowestoft, thereby including the Roads of Lowestoft within the boundary of their liberties. Whereas, it is very evident, from the charter itself, that Kirkley Road was an adjoining place to the haven, and that the mouth of the haven, at that time, discharged itself into the sea, opposite the town of Corton; and, therefore, must be situated a little to the south of that town. This assertion receives still further confirmation from an ancient view of the town of Lowestoft, late in the possession of Thomas Martin, F.S.A., and an old map of this part of the coast, inserted in Ives’s Garianonum, where Kirkley Road is placed between Lowestoft and Corton.

It is probable that the passage cut through the cliffs at Lowestoft, a little to the north of the town, called the Cart’s Score, and also the foot-path between that Score and the northern light-house, were designed, originally, for the convenience of a communication between Lowestoft and the adjacent country, and the haven’s mouth when situated near Corton: and there are several other passages, similar to the above, between Lowestoft and Yarmouth, which were also formed for preserving a communication between the country and the haven’s mouth, according to the several situations which the haven afterwards had.

{14a} The old map from whence this was taken, remained in a chest called the Hutch, belonging to the Corporation of Yarmouth; and was copied from one still more ancient, which appeared to be in a perishing condition about the time of Elizabeth.

{14b} Camden speaks of Kirkley as a haven town, and in his time very likely it was so; for the Waveney had then not only a communication with the sea near Lowestoft, but had also such a depth of water at its entrance as was sufficient to admit vessels of a small draught into it. At a little distance from the mouth of this river, on the south side, is a small inlet running towards Kirkley, and now called Kirkley Ham, and probably is the place which in those days was called Kirkley Haven.

{14c} Blomfield in his history of Norfolk, says it was navigable as far as Brockdish, and its opposite village Syleham. That the former place, from the great breadth and depth of the river there, was originally called Broad-ditch; and the latter now called Syleham, is derived from Sail-home, intimating probably that there the navigation terminated. [Swinden says, that in the time of Kett’s Rebellion in 1549, a small pinnace was to go up to Weybread with twenty-four men] and, as a corroborating circumstance, anchors have been found, in turning up the ground in the last-mentioned village, which is generally acknowledged as sufficient evidence that some centuries ago large boats and barges had a free and easy access to those places. But when the Yare was reduced to a stream, and all communications between the Waveney and the sea was cut off at Lowestoft, the rivers decreased, and the navigation consequently was more contracted.

{14d} From hence it appears that the defence or fortification, ordered to be erected at the sea-breach near Lowestoft, was, in reality, only the reparation of a former one. When it was first erected is now unknown. In a violent storm and high tide in 1786, the sea was very near breaking into the river, and so much soil was washed away that the old foundations of the above defence were discovered.

{16} The first levy, at two shillings, and sixteen pence in the pound was made under the former commission in 1652.

{17a} Possibly Mutford Bridge before this event was only a dam of earth, formed across the river. The bridge that was built afterwards consisted chiefly of earth, arranged in the same manner, with a small passage through it for the current of water to pass through, consisting of planks, about three feet wide and two in height, and called the sluice. In the year 1760 a new bridge was built of brick materials consisting of one spacious arch, large enough to admit small craft through the same; and thereby rendered the river navigable to its utmost eastern limits.

{17b} It was customary about this time, on Pakefield fair day, for a man to stand near this channel, with boots on, to carry children through the water who went from Lowestoft to the fair.

{17c} This work, intitled Notitia Imperii, is supposed to have been written in the reign of Valentinian III, and Theodosius II, but by some, in the very beginning, by others at the latter end of the reign of Theodosius. It contains a succinct account of the state of the Roman empire in those times; to wit, of the provinces, and their governors; of the other magistrates, both civil and military, their titles and officers; of their land and sea forces; of their foot and horse; of their troops, both Roman and foreign; and the places where they were quartered, etc. It was published by Guidus Pancirollus, 1593, under the title of “Notitia Utraque,” etc., that is a General Survey of the Dignities, both of the East and West, since the times of Arcadius and Honorius. Ives.

{17d} Designed as a watch for this part of the coast, and under the command of the honorable the count of the Saxon Shore, so called from its situation being near, or rather opposite to the country of the Saxons, a warlike people in Germany. The count guarded this shore against the attacks of the Saxons.

{18} This is confirmed by an inscription in the Barberini Palace at Rome.

{19} Ives, whom I have chiefly followed in this account of Garianonum, is somewhat mistaken here; for I have seen a coin, found in this place, of Romulus and Remus sucking the wolf.

{20a} In the year 1781, as some labourers were digging in the fields at Eye, in Suffolk, they discovered a leaden box, which contained several hundred Roman coins and medals; they were all of the purest gold, extremely well executed, and in the highest preservation; they were chiefly of the Emperors Arcadius and Honorius, the last who governed Britain; they were of about 11s. in value each, and near them were found some human bones. Whether they were buried with some eminent Roman, to defray his charges over Styx, or to inform posterity that the Romans once possessed this island, I leave the ingenious to determine. And in 1786 as the workmen were making a new turnpike road at Benacre, in this county, one of them struck his pick-axe against a stone bottle, which contained about 920 pieces of silver coin of Julius Cæsar, supposed by the date to have been hid there 1500 years. The coins were in general in good preservation, and included a large series, some few before Domitian; they were all about the size of sixpence, nine of them weighing an ounce. Sir Thomas Gooch purchased near 700, some were bought by different persons, and the remainder sold to a Jew, who retailed them at a low price in the neighbourhood. Some impressions of Aurelian, Germanicus, and Nerva Trajanus, were amongst them.

{20b} Son of John Jex, Esq.; late eminent merchant at Lowestoft, and one of his majesty’s justices of the peace for the county of Suffolk: to whose kindness the author of this work is much indebted for many papers relative to the herring fishery at Lowestoft.

{20c} Probably Flixton; a small village near Lowestoft, derived its name from this Felix, the first bishop of the East Angles. This parish is now consolidated with Blundeston, and valued, in Queen Anne’s time at £14. There was formerly a small chapel in this parish, which is now in ruins, and appears to have been so ever since the year 1704; for in that year George Burrows, chapelwarden, delivered to his successor Henry Green the following things belonging to this chapel, viz. two books, a surplice, a cup, a cloth, a cushion, and an anchor and two pieces of iron belonging to the chancel window: therefore we may conclude from this, that after this time the chapel was become unfit for religious uses. Possibly so small a parish might be unable to keep it in repair, or possibly it might have received very great damage from the great November storm in the preceding year. This chapel is dedicated to St. Andrew, and is now made use of for the vile purpose of a farmer’s out-house; the walls are demolished for the reparation of stables, and the font is split asunder to support the two ends of a hog’s trough, to the great offence of common decency. Thomas Skeete was rector of this parish in 1704, and was the last rector; and William Fiske, in the year 1717, was the last chapelwarden. James Smith was rector in 1684 and 1685; John Burrell in 1697, and continued till 1701; and Robert Barrow was curate in 1703. Richard Newman was buried here January 14th, 1682; Elizabeth Bugg was buried May 23rd, 1683; William, son of William Fiske, husbandman, and Mary, his wife, was baptised, November 12th, 1702; John Wallis, of Great Yarmouth, single man, and Mary Hollis, of Gorleston, single woman, were married December 21st, 1697; John Davey, of Raydon, single man, and Elizabeth Shinglers, of South town, single woman, were married July 4th, 1699; William Dawson, of Cromer, in the county of Norfolk, single man, and Ann Richardson, single woman, were married February 4th, 1695.

{21a} Cnobersburgh, that is Cunoberi-Urbs, from a Saxon Chief who had formerly resided here.