An Historical Account of the Lowestoft Denes  

The term denes is an earlier version of dunes. It derives from OE dūn, meaning “a hill”, and became applied to coastal sandhills during the late medieval period – being first identified in a printed source dating from the year 1523. In Lowestoft’s case, any undulating effect may never have been very great as a result of tidal action and the effect of the wind, and the progressive development of scrub-growth of one kind and another would have moderated this even further. With Gunton Score (much later, to become known as The Ravine) acting as the northern boundary of the parish in the coastal sector, anything further to the north lay in the parish of Gunton itself – a new creation of the century following the Domesday Survey (1086), formed from land previously belonging to Lowestoft and Corton and not found in recorded, official documentation until the year 1198.

It is probably safe to assume that the Denes became of primary importance in the history and development of Lowestoft after the community moved from its original site somewhere in the north-eastern sector of what is now the municipal cemetery (bounded by Normanston Drive and Rotterdam Road) during the first half of the fourteenth century. The area constituted the largest of the town’s seven areas of manorial waste (or common) – land that was of little use for agriculture, but served as a valuable resource for other purposes: the rough-grazing of livestock, the taking of small timber and brushwood for a variety of purposes, the cutting of gorse to fire bread ovens, the extraction (where permitted) of sand and clay, and the gathering of dead bracken for animal bedding. Controlled access was available to residents, but was supervised by the manor’s steward (or bailiff) and fees were charged for the use of facilities and materials. One thing strictly forbidden to users, however, was the capture of rabbits – and even as late as the year 1712 a local farmer, Charles Boyce of Gunton, was fined the sum of 5s in the annual manorial leet court for poaching the animals out on the Denes. Another infringement of the rules was the digging of sand and gravel, with a 3d fine imposed for anyone caught doing so.

This particular area was always the most strictly controlled of the town’s commons – providing rough grazing only, out of the traditional uses of such land. However, its main importance quickly became use as an open-air wharf to service fishing activity and maritime trade, as both these enterprises assumed growing importance and significance during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Until the first harbour works were built (1827-30), Lowestoft had no man-made port facilities. Ships had to anchor offshore between the beach and outlying sandbanks, and cargo of all kinds had either to be sent out to them or brought inshore by ferry-boats. Even after the first harbour had been completed, its limited facilities meant that such use continued. It was only after Samuel Morton Peto had greatly expanded dock-capacity and brought the railway to Lowestoft, during the 1840s and 50s, that the Denes were no longer needed for their traditional maritime function. Even the shipbuilding, which had traditionally been carried out on the shoreline (from Crown Score southwards), was able to move into the inner harbour west of the bridge. 

Records of the Late Medieval and Early Modern periods show widespread trading contact with other north European nations – much of it unlawful in strict legal terms. Great Yarmouth was the local head-port and Lowestoft was supposed to conduct its trade through that town. Obviously, this was both inconvenient and expensive in terms of both time and carriage, so Lowestoft “did its own thing” and traded directly offshore from where it was situated. This led the Great Yarmouth officials to describe its rival as “a place of great smuggling” and it wasn’t until 1679 that more than three centuries of argument and strife were finally resolved. In the January of that year (with further privileges confirmed in May), Lowestoft was granted port-status in its own right – thus freeing it from Yarmouth’s supremacy and interference.

Apart from the maritime trade in goods of a widely varying nature (coal, timber, pitch, hemp and cordage, canvas, pig-iron, grain, malt, bricks, pantiles, butter, and linen and woollen cloth), there was also much activity centred on fishing. This consisted of two main methods of capture: drift-netting for herrings in the autumn and early spring and for mackerel during the late spring/early summer, and hand-lining for cod and other demersal species during the winter and early spring. The ferry-boats mentioned two paragraphs above doubled up as longshore fishing-craft, propelled by either oars or sails, while the larger vessels combined fishing further from shore with overseas trading-voyages according to seasonal activity and the dictates of economic opportunity. For over three hundred years (from the early fifteenth century to the middle of the eighteenth), Lowestoft ships, in varying numbers (never large), sailed northwards every spring to Faeroe and Iceland to line-fish for cod and ling – a venture that must have been hazardous, but which also yielded good profits in the event of the voyage being successfully completed. 

All the catches made, of whatever type, were landed directly onto the beach and processed in buildings situated at the bottom of the cliff or on the first terrace above (all gear and other materials were also stored there). Limiting this account strictly to the two main species caught (herrings and cod), the former were either dry-salted on the ground or brined in vats before a lengthy period of smoking turned them into red herrings, while the latter were further salted (having undergone that treatment on board ship to preserve them) and dried prior to being sold for cooking in a manner of different ways. An important by-product of the cod fishery was the livers. These were put aside, after gutting and salting, and stored in small, sealed wooden casks. Once the boats had returned, the casks were opened and the livers boiled in large iron coppers located on the northern sector of the Denes. The oil thus produced was known as train-oil (from a Dutch word traen, meaning “oil”) and was used to fuel household lamps and provide a dressing for newly-made leather. 

The trench housing the fire-pits where the process was carried out is mentioned by Edmund Gillingwater in his An Historical Account of the Ancient Town of Lowestoft (1790), p. 110, and is still detectable today. It is situated near the surviving net-drying racks and was originally about 80-90 paces long (on a north-south alignment) by 3-4 paces wide. It was filled in at some point with material different from the gravelly deposits underlying the Denes and makes its presence known by a slight depression in the ground and differing vegetation from that surrounding it. As part of the formation of Ness Park, its presence has been retained and indicated by a low-profile bund on either side with accompanying rope barriers, but its most northerly part (fortunately not too extensive) was lost to part of the area’s landscaping work. It would be good, at some point in the future, to have archaeological investigation of the feature. Lowestoft does not have a good record when it comes to loss of heritage caused either by inattention or calculated disregard. 

The net-drying racks themselves (usually referred to in earlier times as spars) are of more recent historical origin, dating from the late nineteenth-early twentieth century. They remained in limited use right into the 1970s, latterly supporting trawl-nets rather than the herring gear they had been originally designed for. Close scrutiny of the structures reveals that many of the uprights are split railway-track sleepers, with the horizontal cross-pieces made of re-used telegraph poles. Trawling, of course, was a late arrival in Lowestoft, coming into the town from Thames-side Barking and from ports in Kent and Sussex during the middle and later parts of the nineteenth century – an arrival triggered by the availability of excellent, unexploited fishing-grounds in the East Anglian-Dutch sector of the North Sea and by the harbour improvements introduced by Peto, referred to above.

Regardless of type, however, all fishing-gear (in the days before plastic filament became the norm) required regular treatment against the damaging effect of constant immersion in salt-water. The earlier tanning agent used before cutch (resin from the acacia catechu tree) was introduced for cotton-fibre was a solution of either ash or oak bark steeped in water – much the same as was used to produce leather from raw cow-hide. The hemp-twine nets were soaked for a while, then spread out on the ground to dry. Manorial records of the seventeenth century show that townspeople were allowed the privilege of drying their nets without any charge being made, but fishermen from other parts of England paid 1s 4d as a seasonal fee and foreigners had to find 2s 8d. A common misconception, still prevailing, is that “common land” belonged to local people. It didn’t! It was part of the manor: open to public use, but with fines (fees) payable for the services granted.

Given the size and appearance of the Denes today, it may be appropriate to reproduce the words of Thomas Howard, the third Duke of Norfolk, written in a report concerning local coastal defences in May 1545 as the country prepared for war with France. Modern spelling is used, but the original grammatical structure retained. “At Laystofte [sic], for small ships of 10 or 12 foot draught are two very good roads called the North Roads and the South Roads, in either of which a number of mean [small] ships may ride against all winds. Between the landing place and the town is at least 40 score tailor’s yards, and the landing place is more than half a mile in length. The town have made bulwarks of earth at each end of the road and in the middle, with three or four small pieces [cannon] in each. The town is as pretty a place as I know any few on the sea coasts, and as thrifty [reliable] and honest people in the same, and right well builded; but surely if an army royal [large force] should have come thither, considering the bulwarks, which should beat [traverse] the road, be but of earth, as banks made of turves, and so far distant from the town, I think it should be no great adventure [risk] for a good puissance [force of men] to land there and burn the said town.”

A number of things strike the reader – not least of which are the compliments paid to the architectural quality of the town and the prosperity and good character of its inhabitants. But perhaps the most revealing comment concerns the size of the Denes, at the time – probably measured from Whapload Road to the shoreline. A tailor’s yard (or ell) was forty-five inches long and “forty score” (800) of these measures out at 1,000 yards – about five times the width of the area today. Then there are the references to the three earth-and-timber gun emplacements, which guarded the sea-approaches. One was at Ness Point itself, with the other two located at a distance on either side, and all of them contained medium-range cannon (the “pieces” referred to) known as slings. The manufacture of these guns during the month of February 1540, in the Tower of London, is recorded in the published Letters and Papers Foreign and Domestic series, as is the appointment of three named gunners to man the emplacements (Nicholas Sendall, James Haymys/Hines and Simon Legge) – each of them to be paid 6d per day for his services. It is also interesting to note that, in 2003, during archaeological excavations inside and outside the Old Schoolhouse located on Wilde’s Score (now the Lowestoft Heritage Workshop Centre), a spherical piece of limestone about the size of a tennis-ball was found – almost certainly a piece of shot dating back to the sixteenth century.

Two centuries or more after the Tudor coastal artillery had been put in place, Lowestoft saw the Denes begin to assume another use – one devoted to leisure activity. During the 1750s and 60s, during an age of increasing social politeness, the town acquired an assembly-room, a soft-paste porcelain factory and sea-bathing facilities. It became a place of resort for local gentry and the increasingly affluent middle orders, and ink-and-wash studies by local artist, Richard Powles (dating from the 1780s), show both beach-area and Denes as places to enjoy for “taking the waters” and for “perambulation”. The latter activity (which combined healthy exercise with taking in and enjoying the local scenic views) took place alongside the grazing of livestock, but this particular use was no longer practised on such a scale as had once been the case. The manor still controlled the area, but the two parish churchwardens (elected annually) had taken on the responsibility of controlling the growth of scrub and of maintaining drainage (similar to their duties on Church Green), as well as seeing that the scores were kept in good order. One of the species of flora naturally occurring on the Denes was the sea pea (Lathyrus japonicus,var. maritimus), the pods of which were eaten by some of the local people – hence, the derogatory nickname pea-bellies once used by the inhabitants of Great Yarmouth for Lowestoft residents.

For centuries, the manor exercised strict control of the Denes, allowing no building to take place there, nor any extraction of sand and gravel. At the beginning of the 19th century, things began to change as the town grew in size and changed in nature, and new houses began to appear as the lord of the manor relaxed restrictions and released land for development. The number of dwellings remained relatively limited, however, and the major encroachment onto the southern sector of the area occurred during the mid-late nineteenth century, leading to the overall creation of the so-called “Beach Village” – always referred to by the people who lived there as either The Beach or The Grit. It is no part of this essay’s intention to cover what may be termed the industrial era’s history of the Denes (including the arrival of the Birdseye Factory in 1949) and much has been left unsaid, including the rise and function of the town’s three beach companies, which carried out salvage operations and life-saving activity from the late eighteenth century onwards. The purpose here has been to produce a summative statement concerning the earlier history of the Denes and show the area’s importance in Lowestoft’s economic and social development.

There had been a handful of dwellings at the foot of the cliff since at least the second half of the 16th century (and possibly even earlier), but these had been randomly located between what is now Cart Score and No. 27 High Street. The best idea to be had as to what the layout of the The Grit’s development looked like during its earliest phase may be found in a map of 1831 by William Cubitt, designer and engineer of the Lowestoft harbour works (1827-30). This shows the local coastline from Corton to Covehithe, with Lowestoft as the main focus, and the concentration of houses to the east of Whapload Road (between the bottom of what is now Old Nelson Street and what was later to become Rant Score East) shows the early stages of that most singular of communities which was to develop below the cliff. There is no structured street-plan in evidence – just a scattered collection of dwellings, placed at random on the ground. 

However, a pronounced increase in the town’s population from mid-century onwards, resulting from the boost in fishing and maritime activity, created by Samuel Morton Peto’s railway links (Norwich in 1847 and Ipswich in 1859) and his harbour expansion and improvements at the same time, saw the whole area reorganised and set out on a geometrical grid-pattern. And it was this regularised, re-structured area of housing which became so much a feature of Lowestoft’s overall townscape. A key aspect of the development focuses on Peto himself. Having acquired the Somerleyton Estate in 1843, as his local residential base (from which to plan and implement his Lowestoft strategy), he purchased the town’s manorial title the following year and, as lord, would have facilitated development of the southern Denes area to create housing provision for a population increasing on the back of his harbour and railway works. When he experienced serious financial difficulties, two decades later, he opted to sell his Somerleyton property to a branch of the Crossley family (carpet manufacturers of Halifax) in 1863 and withdraw from the local area altogether. The Lowestoft manorial title was almost certainly disposed of at the same time, coming into the possession of a member of the local Reeve family of solicitors, who continued to release land for the construction of houses.

As things stand today, with The Grit having undergone demolition and clearance during the 1960s to provide space for the small industrial estate now seen in its place, the surviving, unbuilt portion has great potential as a heritage-area – but any development there has to be set firmly within a sound historical framework. Far too much local history relies for its effect and its capacity to interest people on an accumulation of myth and inaccurate information. The truth is just as good as (and, in many cases, better than) what is popularly believed! CREDIT:David Butcher