41 High Street
Current
41
High Street
Lowestoft
NR32 1HZ
United Kingdom
We take pride in our work and aim to achieve great results. We offer a wide range of services and cherish each and everyone of our customers.
History
Most people remember No41 as Ronnie Cooks butchers but it had been a butcher's shop for about 120 years up to the point when Mr Cook retired in 1985, starting in 1865 it was Walter Plummer Butchers, in 1900 it was Frederick Able butchers and in 1921 it was listed as Bayfields Butchers. In the 1932 Kelly's Directory it was listed as Frank Catlings butchers and finally into the Cook family's ownership in the 1940's. When it was a butchers it also occupied No42. On the outside of the building is a Plaque which states "Cromwell’s headquarters March 1643 when he quelled the Royalist fervour of the local gentry. Beneath the ground floor are the remains of the 15th century groined and vaulted cellars. Also the building sits on the site of the Swan Inn. After the butchers had long gone its been The Curtain Lady and at present Broadland Aquatics.
CREDIT: Lowestoft High Street, The Butcher, The Baker and The Candlestick Maker by Crispin Hook 2016 Get the book
Current Address: 41 High Street. East or West Side: East side When built: Built in the mid 19th century and altered in the 20th century. This building together with No. 42 are Grade II listed. Brief history/features: In the 17th century this was the site of the “Swan Inn”, but there is evidence from the extant cellars which date back to the late 14th century that an even earlier building or buildings occupied this site. Oliver Cromwell rode into Lowestoft on 14 March 1643 with a large formation of soldiers and arrested 14 leading Royalists. He stayed at The Swan for three days and here he interrogated one of his prisoners, Sir John Pettus of Chediston, a Colonel in a regiment of Royalist militia. Little known fact: In 1677 a Berkshire topographer named Thomas Baskerville stopped over in Lowestoft and dined at The Swan on “…fish incomparably well-dressed, with excellent good claret and beer…” At this time, and for many years, the landlord and landlady of The Swan were John and Katherine Wythe. A portrait of Katherine was still hanging in the inn when it was sold 34 years later.
Architecture
Nos. 41-42 High Street, as seen today, are replacement buildings for "The Swan" inn, which once occupied the site and served as one of Lowestoft's premier hostelries during the 16th and 17th centuries. It was where Oliver Cromwell stayed overnight on 14 March 1643/44, when he came to Lowestoft (from Cambridge) with a force of cavalry, having heard tell of a shipment of arms either entering or leaving the town (it has never been established which). He arrested a number of Royalist sympathisers, both local and from out of town - including the Vicar, James Rous - and returned to Cambridge with them. They spent a period of house-arrest there, before being released.
In December 1584, George Phifeld (merchant) conveyed the premises to John Archer of London (fishmonger) - the latter having been identified as the largest exporter, at the time, of red herrings from Great Yarmouth. Part of the deal was for Phifeld to supply Archer with twenty lasts of high-quality "reds" (200,000 fish) - the nature of cure and packaging being itemised in the manorial record of exchange. The Archer family remained as tenants until the 1630s, when the messuage changed hands.
In 1720, it was listed as being in the occupancy of John Hayward (mariner-merchant), who had died in June 1719 - an example, perhaps, of the manorial records not having kept pace with the realities of life (or death). He was responsible for endowing a bread charity in the town for the relief of local poor people.
What is now known as Mariner's Score (the footway linking the High Street with Whapload Road) was once called Swan Score, after the inn itself. CREDIT:David Butcher
No.41 and 42 and we're traveling back to the 1960s and here is Ronnie Cook's butcher's shop. All of the shops that you see in this photograph the building's date back to the 18th and 19th century. Most of them were private large dwelling houses rather than shops. The shop fronts were added later as the town prospered and expanded in the 19/20th century so shop fronts were added. 41, 42 High Street, they are listed because of their mid-19th century character and there were changes to the facades as we shall see in a moment to these things. So the shop fronts didn't always look the same as different businesses took over they would change the shop fronts to suit their tastes and the the needs of their business.
There's one other thing here that's quite interesting, sort of architecturally worth a comment is if you look on the the gable end, that's the north end of 41 High Street You can see X's and... those are not painted on there they are the ends of long metal beams that have been thrust completely through the building and then the ends stick out and then they have these large cross irons put on with a large bolt which have been put in years and years ago when it looks as if the wall is beginning to sag and bow. So they... they're put in there to strengthen the building.
And they're still there today and they will as long as that building stands, they will have to be there. CREDIT: Ivan Bunn from transcript - Poetry People - High Street Histories
TM5593NW HIGH STREET 914-1/8/24 (East side) 03/10/77 Nos.41 AND 42
GV II
Pair of houses and shops, now 2 shops and 4 flats. Late C14, re-built C17, re-built again mid C19, altered C20. Brick. Asbestos slate and natural slate roofs. Double-pile plan. 3 storeys in 4 window bays. 2 late C20 ground-floor shop fronts. 4 top-hung late C20 casements to each of upper 2 floors, those to No.41 with rendered skewback arches. gabled roof with internal gable-end stacks. The rear pile is similar. Two 2-storey cross wings receded east from the rear: C20 details. INTERIOR. C20 details throughout except for the late C14 cellar under No.41. Limewashed brick. 2 compartments separated by a wide double-chamfered 4-centred brick arch. The south compartment has a flight of brick steps leading to the street, now blocked. The east and west walls are punctuated by 4-centred chamfered brick arches leading to small recessed chambers with barrel vaults. Each recess arch has an engaged circular respond with polygonal capitals. A forest of C20 brick piers supports the roof, from which the vault has been removed. The north compartment has a quadripartite brick vault with hollow-chamfered ribs on corbels. There are no wall niches or responds. In the north-east corner rises a brick winder staircase with moulded circular newel bricks. It is blocked at ceiling level. CREDIT: Historic England
Add new comment