Francis Davy Longe - Lowestoft in olden times

Transcribed from the [1899] edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org

The following pages contain lectures read before the members of St. Margarets Institute, at Lowestoft, with additions introduced to render the story somewhat more complete.

Lowestoft of the present day, with its harbour, its magnificent fishing fleet, and its fine marine terraces, is the product of the nineteenth century. But the Present is linked with the Past by the retention of the old Town on the Cliff as the nucleus of the greatly enlarged modern town.

The rise of Lowestoft was so much connected with the fortunes of Yarmouth that it would be impossible to tell the story of old Lowestoft without introducing a good deal that belongs to the history of old Yarmouth. Indeed, were it not for the records which have been preserved of the contests between the two towns about the Herring Trade, the materials for a history of Lowestoft would be almost nil. The history of Yarmouth is only introduced into this sketch so far as it is incidental to that of Lowestoft. But I feel that apologies are due to the larger and more ancient town for the partial manner in which its history is dealt with.

The materials from which these lectures have been compiled are furnished by Domesday Book, the Lay Subsidy Rolls, the Parish Register, and the ancient documents contained in Swindens History of Yarmouth, and Gillingwaters History of Lowestoft. Other historical details of interest have been taken from those valuable old works, and from Nalls History of Yarmouth and Sucklings History of Suffolk.

Part I. Introductory , Geological . The Waveney . The Silting up of the Estuary . Burgh Castle .

Part II. Domesday Book . The Parishes of Lothingland . Lowestoft in Domesday . Neighbouring Parishes . Herring Rents . Live Stock on the Farms . Condition of the People in Saxon Times . Serfdom . Craftsmen . The Merchant .

You will think that I am going unnecessarily far back in commencing my sketch with a reference to that very remote period

When Britain first at Heavens command
Arose from out the azure main.

But if a thousand years or so would take in the origin of both Lowestoft and Yarmouth, questions have arisen affecting the relations of these towns which involve a much more extended retrospect.

It has long been a tenet of Lowestoft people that Lowestoft is a more ancient town than Yarmouth. In some of the numerous petitions presented to Parliament in connection with the disputes between the two towns about the Herring Trade, her greater antiquity was put forward by Lowestoft as giving her a prior claim to the herrings which visit the seas off this coast.

There is a story that the learned Potter, the translator of schylus, when vicar of the parish (about 1780) received a letter from the Archbishop of Canterbury addressed to him at Lowestoft near Yarmouth. The vicar was indignant at what he regarded as a slight on his town, and when replying to the Archbishop, added this postscript My Lord, when you direct to me again be pleased to write simply LowestoftLowestoft does not want Yarmouth for a direction post, for Lowestoft was ere Yarmouth rose out of the azure main.

Again, the question whether the Waveney ever flowed out at Lowestoft was a matter of warm discussion some 60 or 70 years ago, when the project of making a connection between that river and the sea, and providing Lowestoft with a harbour (an undertaking since so successfully carried out) was first mooted. The belief that the Waveney did once run out here, was supposed to give much sanction to a project which would only restore to the town an advantage which nature had originally given her.

These questions have been touched upon by writers on the antiquities of our neighbourhood, but not in a very satisfactory way. The tradition that the Waveney, or a branch of it, used to enter the sea at Lowestoft, has been reproduced by several writers as part of a picture which represents Norwich and Beccles, and other places on the borders of our marshlands, as ports and fishing towns on the shore of a large inland sea or estuary over which ships sailed freely, and to which herrings innumerable used to pay their autumnal visit which they now confine to the sea outside. That the sea at some time flowed over at least a great part of this area is probably quite true. No tradition would be required to satisfy the most ordinary observer that such a condition of things might have once existed, nor would anything more be needed to give rise to such a tradition. The question is when did this condition of the surface exist, and when did it cease to exist.