Part 36

{21b} St. Olaves, in Herringfleet, was a priory of black Canons, founded by Roger Fitz-Osbert, of Somerley the last of that family, to the honour of the St. Mary and St. Olave, the King and martyr, in the beginning of the reign of Henry III. Herein were, about the time of the dissolution, five or six religious, who were endowed with £49 11s. 7d. per annum. The site of this house, with great part of the lands, were granted to Henry Jerningham, Esq., patron, 26th January, 38 Henry VIII. The site of this house, together with a considerable estate, comprehending almost the whole of the parish of Herringfleet, about half a century ago, passed from the Bacon family to Hill Mussendon, Esq., who bequeathed it to his elder brother Carteret, who had taken the name of Leathes; from him it descended to John Leathes, Esq., his son, a very worthy gentlemen, and much respected, and is now in the possession of his widow, Mrs. Elizabeth Leathes. Camden says that Sir James Hobart, attorney general and privy councellor to Henry VII., built Loddon Church from the ground, St. Olaves Bridge, and the causeway thereby; but it appears from an inscription in Loddon church, that Sir James built only the former; and that the bridge and causeway were built by dame Hobart, his wife. In the reign of Edward I. there was a ferry near the priory of St. Olave, to carry passengers across the river in a boat. This ferry was then, and for several years before, kept by one Sireck, a fisherman, who received for his trouble, bread, herrings, and such like things, to the value of 20s. a year. After his decease, William, his son, did the like, and made it worth 30s. per year; Ralph, his son, also did the same, and had of his neighbours bread and corn, and of strangers money. And because the prior of Toft hindered passengers from going through his marsh, the said Ralph purchased a passage through the prior’s marsh, paying 12d. a year; and of the commoners of Herringfleet, he purchased a way through their common, and was to carry the mover at all times free for it, and then it became worth £10 per year; after Ralph’s decease, John, his brother, had it, and it was valued at £12 per year; John sold it to Robert de Ludham, who made it, worth £15 per year; and he gave it to Roger de Ludham, who held it till the 25th of Edward I. 1296, the time when that king sent out a writ to William de Kerdeston, sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk, to enquire, to what detriment it would be to any person, for him to grant leave to Jeffery Pollerin, of Yarmouth, to build a bridge over the river at St. Olave’s priory; and a jury being empanelled, etc., returned, that the building of a bridge there would be to the detriment of Roger de Ludham and the prior of Toft; but it would be to the great benefit of the country. Whereupon leave was given, and a bridge began, at least, as it is supposed, but perhaps, not finished in a durable manner; for amongst the patents of the 9th of Henry V. anno domino, 1420, one is for building a bridge over the water between Norfolk and Suffolk, at Seint Tholowe’s ferry. What was then done doth not appear, but probably not much; for it was not till the reign of Henry VII.—it is generally believed—that the late bridge was built by dame Hobart. This bridge was found to be so much in decay about 1770 that a new one was forced to be built in its place. The remains of the priory at Herringfleet were chiefly taken down in 1784, but some parts of it are still left. John Jernegan, of Somerley, Esq., and Agnes, his wife, were buried in St. Mary’s chapel, in the priory of St. Olave, at Herringfleet, about the year 1470. He left Somerley on his son’s marriage, and went and resided at Cove, near Beccles. The Jernegans became owners of St. Olave’s, also Herringfleet and the Somerley estates, by marriage with the Fitz-Osberts: for Sir Walter Jernegan marrying Isabel, daughter, and at length heir of Sir Peter Fitz-Osbert, of Somerley, and her brother, Roger Fitz-Osbert, leaving no issue, Somerley came to the Jernegans about 1230, and became the capital seat of that family. The Jernegans came from Horham. The Jernegans of Cossey are a younger branch of the family late of Somerley.

{23} Wista was a measure of land in use among the ancient Saxons, and was equivalent to half a hide, or sixty acres.

{24} A sand, similar to that whereon Yarmouth was founded, appears at this time to be forming a little to the north of the point bearing east from Lowestoft, It begins to be dry even at high water, and at low water is of considerable length and firmness; so that, probably, in another century, it may become [as Yarmouth was originally] a convenient situation for fishermen to dry their nets, etc.; and who may be induced afterwards to erect the necessary buildings for the purposes of a sea-fearing life; and from thence may give birth to the origin of a new town, which may, with propriety, be called New Lowestoft; as should that ever be the case, it must prove extremely prejudicial to the old town.

{26} Bathing in salt water is much in use at this time in many parts of the kingdom, particularly at Southampton, Brighthelmston, Margate, Scarborough, Yarmouth, Lowestoft, and at other places. It was recommended originally for medicinal purposes only, it being pronounced by the faculty to be useful in the cure of many diseases; and, probably, in many cases it has been productive of very happy effects. The first bathing machine in Lowestoft was erected in Lowestoft in 1768, by Mr. Scrivener, from a model procured from Margate, in Kent. It met with that success, that a second machine was soon after set up, and afterwards a third. The bathing season commences about the month of August, and continues about six weeks. During this part of the summer season, the resort of genteel and fashionable company to the town is very considerable, and is of great utility to many of the inhabitants, respecting lodgings and other accommodations. Among many other improvements which the town has lately received, may be included a fine new turnpike road which runs through Lowestoft to Yarmouth; a mail cart under the direction of the general post-office, passes through the town twice a day, with letters to and from London; and the London stage coach once every day.

{27a} It is probable that the town consists of much the same number of houses now, as it did many years ago; there being very few houses erected upon new foundations, but only re-built upon the old ones. The town is much admired for its fine air, and its remarkably pleasant and healthy situation which much contributes to the longevity of its inhabitants. In 1755, died here, Thomas Cockrum, aged 103 years; in 1784, Silvester Manclarke, aged 107; and in 1788, John Wilkerson aged 96.

{27b} When you pass out of the present Market Place into the lane called Fair Lane—so called from its leading to the place where the fairs were formerly held—and pass directly westward, till you have passed the four cross-ways, you then enter the place where the said fairs were kept some years ago; but upon an application of the town to the Rev. Sir Ashurst Allen, Bart., Lord of the Manor of Lowestoft, in the year 1768, the fairs were removed from thence, and were afterwards held in the market place, and have been kept there ever since.

{28} The clock was made by Mr. Isaac Blowers, of Beccles, and cost £20; the expense of the frame, and other necessary work in fixing it, £2 13s. 6d.—total, £22 13s. 6d. In defraying these charges was collected a subscription of £15 16s. 6d.; the remaining money was advanced by the Rev. Mr. Tanner, vicar, who was repaid again in three years by the churchwardens.

{29} A court-leet has been held by the lord of the manor of Lowestoft from time immemorial. A jury used to be empanelled at Lowestoft, which was obliged to attend at the adjoining parish of Corton, the Thursday after Ash-Wednesday, to be sworn. On the Friday they took a survey of the town of Lowestoft, in order to present such nuisances as came under their jurisdiction; and on the Saturday they dined at an inn in the town, where they appointed constables, ale-founders, etc., for the said town, for the year ensuing. After the decade of Sir Thomas Allen, in 1765, this custom was discontinued.

{31} In consequence of this misfortune, the following petition, signed by five of his Majesty’s justices of the peace, the ministers of Lowestoft, and the most respectable parishioners there, was addressed to the principal inhabitants of the adjoining towns soliciting their assistance for the relief of the sufferers by the said fire.

{34} Mr. Aldous Arnold, an eminent merchant in this town, very humanely offered ten pounds to any person who would take this man off the wreck.

{35a} The most probable method of rescuing seamen from those unfortunate situations, that I can think of, is that of a kite. When the storm is so far abated that a boat is able to approach pretty near the wreck let a line—which may soon after easily convey a strong rope—be carried by the kite over the vessel, and then let it fall. Thus a communication may be obtained between the wreck and the boat, and by that means the seamen, by fastening themselves to a float, may be drawn through the water from the ship to the boat. Or a rope may be conveyed from the boat to the wreck by means of a small cask, sent from the former in the direction of the tide, or waves of the sea; and when a communication is obtained a float may be applied as abovementioned. And, again, if ships which frequent this coast were to furnish themselves with a floating machine it might be the means of saving the lives of many passengers and seamen, when they happened to be in those distressing situations, by sending them off to the boats which usually attend the wreck. Many lives and much valuable property might thus be saved. Should every one of the above methods be deemed impracticable, yet I should think myself extremely happy, was I only to suggest a hint to some ingenious artist, for the invention of a more successful scheme that might afford relief in such inconceiveable distress.—When the author received the honour of being elected a member of that very respectable body at Norwich, “The Society for the Participation of Useful Knowledge,” he communicated to them a proposal of this nature, to be submitted to their consideration.

{35b} It was from this hill that the royal yacht was first discovered, which brought to England her serene highness, the princess Charlotte, of Mecklenburgh Strelitz, the intended queen of his present majesty, King George III. Lord Anson, vice-admiral of Great Britain, was appointed to convey her highness, with a squadron of men-of-war to the British shore. After a voyage of ten days, occasioned by boisterous and contrary winds, Lord Anson, with his squadron—which was damaged—and the royal yacht, appeared off this place, on Saturday, the 5th September, 1761, about two o’clock in the afternoon, and anchored in Harwich road about three in the afternoon the day following. Her highness landed at Harwich on the 7th., in the afternoon, and from thence was escorted to London. Had not the wind suddenly changed, her highness would have landed at Lowestoft, as was the case of his majesty, King George II. who landed at this town on his return from Hanover, January 14th, 1736–7. His majesty had been a considerable time on his voyage from Helvoetfluys to England, occasioned by stormy and contrary winds, and had been also exposed to the most imminent danger. When the royal barge, with his majesty, the countess of Yarmouth, and his lords, approached the shore, a body of sailors belonging to Lowestoft, uniformly dressed in seamen’s jackets, waded into the sea, and meeting the barge took it on their shoulders, with the king and all the nobility, and carried it to the beach, without suffering it to strike the ground. His majesty was met at the sea-shore by John Jex, Esq., of this town, with his carriage, who conducted his majesty to his house; himself having the honour of being coachman. His Majesty landed about twelve at noon, and about two hours after set off for London. His majesty died in 1760, and his present majesty, George III. was proclaimed at Lowestoft by Mr. Robert Reeve to whom the author acknowledges himself much indebted for many favours, and particularly for his great assiduity in promoting the publishing of this work. John Adams, Esq., the first ambassador from America to England, landed at Lowestoft, the 6th August, 1784.

{36a} This light-house is composed of timber, and hangings in a frame of the same materials; the upper part of it next the sea is sashed, and the light is produced from three lamps placed inside. In the year 1779, the timber was found to be in so decayed a state, that the building was obliged to be wholly taken down, and replaced by another, made of the same materials, and upon the same construction.

{36b} In the year 1778, the Stanford channel bore S.S.E. from the upper light-house. The depth of water in the middle of the roads opposite to the Ness, was between seven and eight fathoms at low water. In the middle of the roads opposite to the south part of the town, and about 120 fathoms from the shore, is a shoal, where there is not above nine feet of water at ebb tide; and another shoal lies about three quarters of a mile from the shore, on which is about sixteen feet at low water. In 1788 the roads appeared to grow narrower, from the sea losing against the town, especially at the ness, where the distance from the Holm sand was not more than a mile and a quarter from the shore; this sand still continues to increase, which with the sea receding from the shore, accounts for the roads growing narrower.

Trinity House, London, January 19th, 1782. This corporation having lately caused a survey to be taken of the Stanford, in which was found only three fathoms, in the best of the channel, at high water; it is recommended to all masters and pilots to be very cautious in navigating ships of a great draught through that channel.

To give one instance of the fluctuating nature of the sands off Lowestoft; it is observed, that that part of the sands where the church and chapel bore on each other the fishing boats, a few years ago, used to sail over, at their going out to sea and returning again into the roads: this part of the sand is now become perfectly dry; and at low water, when the weather is fine, extends to a considerable distance; and may, possibly, afterwards become the foundation of a new town.

{39} In the reign of James I. the Dutch paid an acknowledgement for leave of fishing on our coasts, which being withdrawn, his son, Charles I. in the year 1636, issued a proclamation, declaring that he should maintain such a fleet at sea as would protect his coasts from the insults of the Dutch. And soon after sent a fleet, under the command of the Earl of Northumberland, to disperse them, and obliged them to pay 30,000 florins for leave to continue their fishing that season. And thus it has frequently happened since; the Dutch, by infringing on our liberties, and having had complaints alledged against them, have paid considerable sums to appease our resentment; and sometimes, when they have proved unsuccessful in these methods, have been severely chastised: but all to no purpose; for to this day they continue practising the same depredations on our coasts and we every year experience the usual inconveniences which attend them. About the year 1636 great progress was made in this fishery by the Dutch; and the wealth procured it to the republic, caused, as I have just observed, much jealousy in the English nation. In 1601, eighty thousand tons of herrings were caught, which being worth eight hundred gilders per ton, brought to the republic sixty-four millions of gilders. It increased so much from that time that Sir Walter Raleigh assures us, that in 1610 the inhabitants of the united provinces employed in this fishery, upon the coasts of England, three thousand busses, manned with fifty thousand hands. Such a prodigious gain occasioned the English that year to renew their ancient pretensions to the property of the seas which surround their island, and to exact of the Dutch fishermen the tenth herring as a sort of duty. About the year 1600 the Dutch, the French, the citizens of Embden, Hamburgh, and Bremen, got out of our seas, upon a medium, to the value of between six and seven millions sterling annually. Another inconvenience which the British nation experienced from foreigners being permitted to usurp so large a share of the herring fishery, was the great increase of their seamen. This was very evident from the wars with the Dutch which happened in the reign of Charles II., when they were able to supply with able seamen a fleet of upwards of one hundred sail of line of battle ships. It may be worth observing, that the ground work of the regulations pursued by the Dutch in their herring fishery, is taken from the sagacious institutions laid down by Edward III., in the famous statute of herrings passed in that reign.

{40a} It is probable, that Lowestoft, as a fishing town, was in a flourishing state some ages before this period: for though the herring is a northern fish, and but few of them are seen in the Mediterranean; yet it is a fish that was known to the Romans, who, probably, acquired the knowledge of it from their having a station in the vicinity of Lowestoft, viz., Burgh Castle.

{40b} “Prescription is a title acquired by use and time, and allowed by law: as when a man claims anything because he, his ancestors, or they whose estate he hath, have had or used it all the time whereof no memory is to the contrary.”

{41a} But, notwithstanding, the bailiffs of the cinque ports, in consequence of the composition not being paid by the burgesses of Yarmouth, discontinued to frequent, as usual, the Yarmouth herring fair. Yet those fishermen called the west countrymen still continued coming to these parts till the year 1756, but after that time they declined coming any longer. These vessels from the western part of England, as it was called, _i.e._ from the coast of Kent, etc., used to frequent these coasts during the herring season, and sell the fish which they caught to the merchants of Lowestoft and Yarmouth. Also vessels called north country cobles used to attend and dispose of their fish in the same manner. These vessels used to engage themselves to some owner here for the fishing season, which was called being bosted: but this mode of practice is also now almost wholly discontinued. It was not the custom formerly for the merchants of Lowestoft to catch all the fish they wanted with their own boats, but were supplied with a considerable part of it from the vessels above mentioned: but now the merchants from increasing the number of their own boats, are able to furnish themselves with a sufficient quantity of herrings without the assistance of either of the west country boats, or those from the north. This new mode will appear very evident, if we compare the number of boats employed by Lowestoft in the year 1670, with the number employed in the year 1775; in the former they were only twenty-five, in the latter they amounted to forty-eight.

{41b} This abbey was of the Premonstratensian order. It was founded by Randulph de Glanvill, A.D. 1182. At the dissolution, the annual revenues were estimated at the sum of £180 17s. 1d., and the site, with the greatest part of the manors, rectories, and lands, were granted 28 Henry VIII. to the above Duke of Suffolk; afterwards it became the property of Daniel Hervey; next it was vested in the honourable Elizabeth, relict of Killand Courtney, Esq., daughter of the Viscountess Hinchinbroke, and grand-daughter of the right-honourable lady, Ann Harvey; afterwards it belonged to Sir Joshua Van Neck, of Putney, in Surrey, Bart.; and now to Sir Gerrard Van Neck, of Hevingham, in this county.

{45} Probably one mediety of the church was dedicated to All Saints; the other to St. Margaret.

{48} During the civil war in the reign of Charles I, Lowestoft took an active part against the Parliament.

{51} In the year 1737, one boat only, belonging to Joshua Marshall, caught 72 lasts of herrings. A last is 10,000.

{55a} On the 29th May, 1731, fifteen boats, belonging to Lowestoft, caught 24,600¼ of mackarels, being the greatest number ever remembered to have been taken in one day. The sale of these fish amounted to £295 7s. 9d., and were sold by the late Mr. John Spicer, {55b} who usually sold the mackarels.

{55b} Mr. Spicer was clerk of this parish about fifty years; he died about the year 1776, and was succeeded by Mr. Bolchin.

{60} The disputes arising from the privileges granted to the burgesses of Yarmouth and the barons of the cinque ports clashing with each other, gave birth to the most violent outrages and domestic wars that were ever known before between any two places in this kingdom; they even proceeded to such lengths as to alarm the whole kingdom with their mutual depredations.

By a special pardon granted to the men of Yarmouth, 10 Edward I. it appears, that they were fined £1000 for damages which they had done upon the western coast as far as Shoreham and Portsmouth. And in the 31st of that king it appears, that Yarmouth had sustained damages by the portsmen to the amount of £20,138, an enormous sum at that time. This, probably, is what Hollingshed alludes to in his Chronicle, where it is recorded, that in the 25th of Edward I, “That king passing into Flanders, to the assistance of the earl thereof, being no sooner on land, but the men of the ports and Yarmouth, through an old grudge long depending between them, fell together and fought on the sea with such fury, that, notwithstanding the king’s commandment to the contrary, twenty-five ships of Yarmouth and their partakers were burnt, etc.” But Manship observes, “That in the town’s Record of that year he did not find that so many were burnt; but by a complaint and presentment made to his majesty it appears, that thirty-seven ships were greatly damaged by the portsmen, 171 men killed, and goods to the value of £15,356 were spoiled and taken from them;” of which (says he) a grievous requital was not long after made by the men of Yarmouth against portsmen. The late disputes seem to have originated from the mistaken idea which each of the parties had conceived of their own importance from their newly-acquired grants, and for want of having their respective privileges more clearly ascertained.

{61a} In the reign of Edward III. Yarmouth had more ships than any city or town in England.

{61b} Upon uniting Kirkley road to Yarmouth haven by letters patent, 46 Edward III. the fee-farm rent of £55 per annum was augmented to £60.

{63} Exclusive of the above mentioned rent of £55, which made the whole fee-farm £60 annually.

{67} At this time there was no bridge over the Yarmouth haven.

{69a} The charter for uniting Kirkley road to Yarmouth haven repealed the second time, the 5th of Richard II.

{69b} Sir Robert Trisilian was chief justice of England in the time of Richard II. He was adviser of many illegal acts in that reign, for which he was impeached, with several other judges and some noblemen in Parliament. Being convicted of the offences he was charged with, he was executed, February 19, 1388.

{74} Sir Francis Gawdie, of Wallington Norfolk, was son of Thomas Gawdie Esq., of Harleston. In 1582, he was appointed sergeant-at-law and queen’s sergeant; in 1589, a judge; and in 1605, lord chief justice of the common pleas, being then a knight. He died after a fit of apoplexy at Sergeant’s Inn, London, before he had sat a year in that station, leaving no male issue.