28 High Street

In 1720, an earlier house preceding No. 28 is recorded in a listing of the time (compiled by the parish vicar, Revd. John Tanner) as being held by Daniel Long (mariner). The messuage stretched from the High Street down to Whapload Road. The Manor Roll of 1618 shows the property as being in the hands of William Rising (yeoman), with the Long family acceding to it in 1660 after a series of transfers via other tenants.

One interesting aspect of the site is the description given of it, in surviving manorial documentation, as "a messuage from the waste of the lord". This phrase occurs a number of times in the court baron records and refers to the Lowestoft township moving from an inland site (some three-quarters of a mile or so to the west-south-west) onto the clifftop during the first half of the 14th century - an area of coastal heath previously used mainly for the rough grazing of livestock.

The main reason for the relocation seems to have been the need for the community to be nearer to the beach because of the growing importance of fishing and maritime trade in the local economy. It was a controlled process, sanctioned by an absentee lord of the manor, which brought him increased income from the sale of the land to the chief tenants of the manor, from annual ground-rents charged on the house-plots, and from entry fines payable every time a property changed hands. CREDIT:David Butcher