103 High Street

Arthur James Saunders carried on a hairdressing business at 103 High Street here in the town. These premises had been a barber's shop for well-nigh 100 years, the first to ply his trade there was one Frederick Aldous Breeze, according to the Post Office Directory for Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk for 1858. It seems Breeze had not continued the business for long, for we find it changing hands in November, 1861 and Edward Fisher  taking over the shop. 

He is described in the Directories of the time as Edward Fisher (Jun.) hairdresser and per-fumer", and to him Arthur Saunders was apprenticed in 1897 at the age of 15 and when Edward Fisher retired in September 1909, Mr. Saunders took over the shop and had completed 58 years in the hairdressing trade before closing down in 1956. Arthur Saunders was appointed a sidesman of St. Margaret's in 1938 and held that office until he left the town. CREDIT: Mike Reading

No103 the High Street in 1865 was Edward Fisher Jr, Barbers Shop. In 1876 it was still Edwards shop but it was described as a Hairdressers and Perfumer, from 1909 to 1956 the shop was Arthur Jason Saunders Hairdressers. 

From the 1960's Arcade Stamps moved in, the shop then passed to Ollingtons the photographers and then finally Laurence Gall. CREDIT: Lowestoft High Street, The Butcher, The Baker and The Candlestick Maker by Crispin Hook 2016 

'101 to 104 The High Street' Local Historian David Butcher has the following to say about these houses: An interesting section of the High Street here, at its lower end, with the building nearest the camera (No 101) being the former “Albion Stores” public house - the second word of the name once being used in other Lowestoft hostelries. The first structure on this plot was placed there during the mid-17th century on land belonging to Nos. 102-104, the row of shops next door.  

This line of retail units is, in fact, a former merchant’s house, dating from the earlier decades of the 16th century, and it is possible to walk along the internal roof-space, from end to end - there being no partitioning of it, as has occurred beneath. It is hard to say whether the off-centre chimney-stack is integral or introduced - but, either way, it is a sign of wealth and status, with the ground-floor and first-floor rooms on either side of it able to be heated. The jettied (overhanging) upper level is further evidence of the building’s antiquity and its middle section (No. 103) has particularly fine, moulded beams and joists in the ground-floor room and an eye-catching cambered ceiling, with jowelled vertical wall-posts, in the space above.  

Many years ago, when this shop was undergoing replacement of its first-floor outer cladding, vertical wooden studs were revealed, with herringbone brick-nogging in between: further evidence of its quality. All of Lowestoft’s late medieval dwellings were half-timbered. In other words, the ground-floor (usually, with a cellar beneath) was a constructed of masonry, with the upper level and roof being timber-framed. Full timber-framing started at ground-level on an oak sole-plate, placed on a layer of rubble, and used a lot more trees. The house here - one of the town’s important survivors - may well have been built by members of the Scarlett family, merchants during the first half of the 16th century.  

At this time, and for many decades afterwards, most of Lowestoft’s houses would have been thatched. But all that changed after the disastrous town fire of March 1645 and tiles became increasingly used thereafter. During the mid-1980s, the writer and two UEA associates spent a day studying Nos. 27 (the “Royal Falcon” ), 36 & 102-4 High Street. One of them, the late Alan Carter (at the time, Director of the Norwich Survey), remarked that these three houses’ timber-framing was as good as any to be found in the City - if not better, in some cases. He said that its superiority rested not in its decorative appearance, but in the quality of the timber used.