63 High Street
Current
HolmView
63
High Street
Lowestoft
United Kingdom
History
No63 or Holm House, was home to William Youngman, brewer·and first mayor of the Lowestoft Corporation in 1885, at the rear of the house he had his stables and a billiards room but by 2016, these outbuildings make up the scout den which is now home to the Scouts in Lowestoft. In 1940 listed in the phone book is Madame D Benson and by 1983 advertising in the local paper is Anglian Academy, the advert reads: -A full time independent day school for pupils aged 10-18 yrs old providing a grammar school style education leading to O and A levels. Now this once grand house on the High Street is divided into flats.CREDIT: Lowestoft High Street, The Butcher, The Baker and The Candlestick Maker by Crispin Hook 2016 Get the book
Current Address: 63 High Street Old Address: Not applicable East or West Side: East side When built: Known as “Holm View” this Grade II listed building in the classical Georgian style dates from the mid 19th century. It was built for William Youngman, a Lowestoft brewer. To the east it over-looked his extensive brewery, “The Eagle Brewery”, in Rant Score. Brief history/features: An earlier property on this site is described as a messuage (a dwelling house with outbuildings and land) divided into two tenements with fish houses and land. An early 17th century building here was destroyed, along with many others on this side of the High Street, in a great fire that engulfed them on 10 March 1645. At that time it was owned by a Lowestoft merchant named John Arnold, the value of the house and contents that were lost were calculated to be £183, over £42,000 by today’s reckoning. Former Notable Owners: William Youngman, a wealthy brewer and son of another brewer of the same name. Youngman was one of Lowestoft’s most influential residents in the 19th century. He was the first Mayor of Lowestoft in 1885 and was elected again to that post in 1901. Little known fact: William Youngman’s name does not appear in any local census return after 1871 because he and his family wintered in Bournemouth every year. He died there on 7 June 1904 aged 84. When his Will was proved later that year his effects were assessed at £180,380 – over £22 million by today’s reckoning!
Architecture
In this writer's comments on 61-62 High Street, and then proceeding to give information on the unlisted Nos. 64-69, no account was taken of No. 63 - which does not appear under its postal number in its own listing. It features, instead, under the name of "Holm View", which may well have been given to it by William Youngman (brewer), who lived there during the second half of the 19th century and died in June 1904, aged 83 years. He was Lowestoft's first elected mayor, on the town being granted borough status in August 1885, and a considerable benefactor to the town. The house's name probably derives from the Holm Sandbank, which lies offshore from the town and would have been visible from the back of the dwelling - particularly during times of neap tide.
The company of Youngman & Preston had been founded by 1844 and had its Eagle Brewery at the bottom of Rant Score, and Benjamin Preston (William Youngman's partner) lived at the southern end of the High Street (on the opposite side of the road) in No. 116, which is now a now retail premises. During the 1890s, both men paid for the restoration of the north and south aisle roofs in St. Margaret's Church, where Youngman was churchwarden from 1863-1904. Following the deaths of both partners, the brewery was eventually acquired by E. Lacon & Co. Ltd. of Gt. Yarmouth in 1919 and brewing ceased to be carried out there in 1922.
In 1721, this messuage was held by John Ellis and is described as consisting of two tenements, with yard and fish-houses, abutting onto the High Street to the west and and Whaplond Way (Whapload Road) to the east. It had previously been held by the long-established Arnold family (mariners and merchants), with John Arnold named as tenant in the Manor Roll of 1618 - having succeeded his father (also John) in July 1597. Prior to the Arnolds' occupancy, it had been held at some stage by Robert Hodds (merchant), who was one of the town's wealthiest citizens of the first half of the 16th century - shown as paying £5 tax, levied on goods valued at £100, in the Lay Subsidy of 1524-25.
The property passed from the Arnold family in 1680 to William Patting (merchant) and his wife Martha, and it was later transferred to his son (also William) following the death of his mother and by terms of his father's will. The date is not able to be determined, but William Patting Snr. died in July 1695. John Ellis and his wife Margaret were admitted to the holding in November 1721. CREDIT:David Butcher
We're standing at the top of Rant's Score looking north, possibly or probably one of the oldest existing photographs of the area. If you look carefully we can indicate that to you the background there you can see right up here where the Town Hall would eventually be built you can see what appears to be a small tower. That's almost certainly the cupola of the Old Town Chamber that was demolished in 1859-60 to build the Town Hall. So, this picture is possibly as early as 1859-60. So we're looking up and we can see that as we look both through the pictures you can see how it's evolved. Just to put a context to the whole thing, this building here is what would become Barclays Bank.
Many of these properties, these low, mean properties, have disappeared as we shall see. If we look next to the bank, to the south of the bank, two small little cottages. Those would disappear by the time we come to the next photo. This is looking up much later. And you can see here the Town Hall is now being built where the Town Chamber once was.
And you can see that the buildings on the west side are far bigger and more elaborate than in the earlier picture. On the left hand side and here is the bank and here where I mentioned there was two rather mean, small buildings they've disappeared and this grandiose building has been built. One big house taking up the plots of two properties, and this was built for one of the wealthiest families in Lowestoft, the Youngman family who were wealthy brewers. In my opinion what we're looking at here is as Lowestoft grew in the 19th century, the fishing fleet got bigger, more and more industry came to town, more and more people came to town, the town certainly started to become much wealthier and it's reflected in the style of the buildings.
I should say this picture is early 1870s. We know that these properties on this side, these low properties here were probably erected in 1876 with big three, four storey Italianate style buildings, so these have all gone. The photographer told them if they were moving, they'd all come out as blurs. I wouldn't be surprised if that's not a mother. And two daughters to be honest with you. The other thing that's always interesting, we've looked at others... again this picture is taken on a very bright sunny morning, judging by... east is to the right of the picture. Judging by the strong shadows, the sun is well in the east and this is quite an early morning picture. But once again all of the shop fronts have put their awnings out to protect their goods from the strong sunshine. CREDIT: Ivan Bunn from transcript - Poetry People - High Street Histories
Mid-C19 town house.
Reasons for Designation
Holm View, 63 High Street, a mid-C19 town house, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest:
* it is a good example of a mid-C19 town house, well-proportioned and characterised by fine architectural detailing in the classical style;
* those parts of the interior that were available for inspection retain good quality fixtures and fittings, notably the tessellated floors, ornate plasterwork and elegant staircase.
Group value:
* it contributes to the architectural quality of the High Street and has group value with a considerable number of listed buildings, particularly nos 59, 62 and 134-5 which have varying origins as houses and shops from the C18 and C19.
History
The name Lowestoft is Scandinavian in origin and may be translated as Hloover’s toft – the homestead of Hloover. The town relocated to the cliff-top from an earlier site, about a mile to the south-west, during the period 1300-1350, partly because of increasing maritime activity (especially herring-fishing) and the need it created to be closer to the sea, and partly because of the difficulty of accommodating an expanding population in-situ without building houses on valuable agricultural land. The area chosen for the new site was low-grade coastal heath, used mainly for the rough-grazing of livestock which became a more useful asset to the manorial lord as building-land. The main street is of sinuous alignment, following the natural curves of the cliff. The better-off members of the community lived along the High Street whilst the less affluent largely resided in a gridiron side-street area to the west. Lowestoft was thus a planned late medieval town.
The High Street was lined with burgage plots containing prosperous merchants’ houses for much of the medieval and early modern period, and the cliff-face was made usable by terracing. The cliff-top itself provided an area behind the houses for the storage of household goods and materials; and the first step down was multi-purpose, sometimes planted with fruit trees and used as an amenity area, but also functioning as a place for putting all kinds of household waste. The second and third stages down were mainly taken up with the buildings that serviced fishing and other maritime enterprise: curing-houses, net-stores, stables and the like. Access from the cliff-top to the sea was provided by footways known as scores (three of them widened for use by carts) – a word deriving from the Old Norse ‘skora’, meaning ‘to cut’ or ‘to incise’. These had originally started life as surface-water gullies down the soft face of the cliff – a natural process that lent itself to use as tracks.
The chief trade of Lowestoft and the source of its prosperity remained herring fishing until the C19. Then in 1827 the harbour was created, and in 1832 the navigation continued through to Oulton Broad, giving access to the River Waveney and Norwich. Samuel Morton Peto was brought in to construct the outer harbour, and he ensured the arrival of the railway in 1847 as well as developing the land south of the harbour as a seaside resort. The town was bombarded by the Germans in 1916 and suffered considerable damage from 178 enemy raids in the Second World War. Post-war reconstruction involved new roads being cut through the northern part of the town. In the later years of the C20 the fishing industry has almost completely declined.
Holm View, 63 High Street, was built in the mid-C19. It was the home of William Youngman, a brewer and JP as well as the first mayor of Lowestoft in 1885-1886 and again from 1901-1902. The house appears on the first edition Ordnance Survey (OS) map of 1886 facing west onto the High Street with two narrow ranges to the rear, most likely service areas, with attached glasshouses. The detached building shown to the south of the southern rear range was built as a stables and billiards room for William Youngman. This has since been heavily altered and is now in use as a scout den (2020). The southern rear range of the house shown on the 1886 map has been removed, as have the glasshouses. When Holm View was first listed in 1977 it was described as offices but it has since been converted into six flats.
Details
Mid-C19 town house.
MATERIALS: red brick laid in Flemish bond with stucco dressings and a slate roof covering.
PLAN: the building faces west onto the High Street and has a rectangular front range with a short rear cross-wing to the south and a long narrow single-storey range to the north.
To the south-east of the house, the detached two-storey former stable block and billiards room is excluded from the listing, having been extensively altered.
EXTERIOR: Holm View is in a Georgian classical style with rendered rusticated quoins and a dentilled modillion eaves cornice. It has two storeys and an attic in four bays under a pitched roof with gable-end chimney stacks with moulded and dentilled oversailing stone cornices. The attic is lit by two dormers with glazed sides under open pediments supported by consoles. A four-panelled, double-leaf door is set to the right of the elevation within a semicircular arch opening, the edge enriched with egg-and-dart. The original door furniture survives, including the decorative brass ring handles and letterboxes and the cast iron doorbell plate. The door is set within a handsome doorcase with unfluted Corinthian columns on high plinths supporting a dentilled pediment. To the left are three two-over-two pane horned sashes, all within rendered surrounds with hoods on consoles. There are four similar sash windows above.
The rear three-storey cross-wing is lit by a two-storey canted bay window with two-over-two pane sashes with dentilled cornices. A semicircular arch doorway to the right has double-leaf panelled doors with glazed upper panels. To the right again, the rear elevation of the main range is lit on the ground and first floors by sash windows with margin lights, and there are two smaller sashes above. The projecting single-storey range, seen on the 1886 OS map, is rendered and has new windows and a door.
INTERIOR: only the hall, staircase and one other room were available for inspection. The entrance hall has a cast iron Art Nouveau fireplace and an elaborate modillion cornice enriched with waterleaf and bead-and-reel mouldings. A panelled archway with a plasterwork swag leads to the elegant dogleg staircase. This has a panelled spandrel, an open string with carved tread ends, and two stick balusters per tread supporting a scrolled handrail. The hall and first-floor landing have elaborate tessellated floors in blues and browns, edged in guilloche and a wide band of scrolled foliage. On the landing is a wide fitted sideboard with panelled doors and consoles. On the ground floor, the rear (east) room has a moulded cornice and wide frieze with a delicate foliate design. It also retains a round ceiling rose with acanthus leaf decoration and panelled window shutters. CREDIT: Historic England
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