Old Lowestoft Scores Trail Walk with live map

Name: Old Lowestoft Scores Trail
Difficulty: Hard - several sets of steep steps. Not suitable for mobility scooters, prams, push chairs
Length: 2.5k (1.6 miles)
Terrain: Steps, pavements, paths, crossing roads

Summary: The walk follows most of the Lowestoft Scores (and passes or crosses them all).The map is interactive. Scroll down for text, photos and video clips.

(there's other walks on this site which travel one or more Scores, and lots of other information. There's a list on the right).

Google Map of Scores Trail

We start at the top of Herring Fishery Score. To the south is Lowestoft Police Station, a good example of 70's architecture. On the north side is the Wheatsheaf pub. There's an interesting piece of brickwork near the signage.

Turn north, and head up the High Street for 120m. Check out Old High Street Stroll on this website for more information on the houses and buildings in the street. There's sometimes a dog asleep in the window of Number 117...

Just past Steel and Co is Spurgeon Score. Turn right and drop down the side of the cliff on narrow flagstone steps. About 100m along there's a small alley to your left – Maltsters Score. It isn't the prettiest of views. Turn down here, and at the end go left again.

Here is the crinkle-crankle wall (also known as a crinkum crankum, serpentine, ribbon or wavy wall). Round here we prefer crinkle-crankle. They are said to be like this because the design offers structural strength to a single-brick-course wall.

A bit further is a restored section, featuring herring sculptures. Go up the steps – the brickwork on the left must be a couple of hundred years old. (As an aside, there were brickworks all over – here's an OS map from 1905 in Gisleham, just south of Pakefield).

Follow the Score right and left and you'll come to an archway under buildings. There are cobbled, sloping steps.

You come out onto the historic High Street, just opposite the Triangle Sails, and in better times, the market. Turn right and head north for about 20m.

You'll come to South Flint House (1586) and nestling besides that beautiful building, Wilde Score. Much of the top part of this Score was restored in 2019 by volunteers and experts from the Old Lowestoft Scores and Great Yarmouth Rows project. On your left is the Lowestoft Heritage Centre, well worth a visit, and down the path, turn right and you come to the top of another part of a previous restoration scheme. The herring-infused steps lead down to Cumberland Place. About-turn and retrace your steps.

On the High Street (you've done about half a kilometre so far) turn right and head north (the sea should be to your right) for 150m. You will pass Rant Score. This is a horrible junction, be very aware of cars heading down Rant Score without indicating that's what they are about to do. Keep on the High Street and you will come to Martin's Score. There's a permanent poster about the so-called (there's some dispute about what it actually is) Armada Post (pic) immediately on your right.

Some old brickwork walls, which on a sunny day seem to radiate a rich redness, and steep steps.. The steps themselves slope, and can propel you unexpectedly faster than you intended to go! Navigate the steps safely and continue to the end, Whapload Road.

Turn left. (Pic of BirdsEye eagle)

Walk about 100m and turn left up Crown Score. This Score was being repaired but Covid-19 happened and restoration ground to a halt. This means there's only one side of the steps available, and it feels a bit tricky to navigate, but it's used constantly, so it's not a deal-breaker, in my opinion. There are funky little crap sculptures at the bottom (pic), and the wall on the right is an interesting flint and brick construction.

At the top, you're back on the High Street, opposite the increasingly dilapidated closed Crown Hotel. Turn right, and walk about 100m, past Uncle Sid's Zero Waste Store, where King George 11 stayed briefly in 1737. and Number 41, where Oliver Cromwell stayed in 1643 (not in this actual building as it now is, of course). There's a plaque. Turn right down Mariner's Score.

The archway was lovingly removed and re-built in 2019 ( Old Lowestoft Scores and Great Yarmouth Rows project). This is a particularly pleasant looking Score, with a very sturdy central hand-rail, but again, be aware the steps themselves slope.

On Whapload Road, turn left and walk 400m, past BirdsEye and the newly opened (2020) Ness Park, until you come to The Lighthouse Diner (locally famed for its breakfasts). Turn left into the open space, and veer left slightly, and you come to the bottom of a steep slope leading into the woods of Sparrow's Nest. This is part of Arnold's Walk (pic of warning sign). Storm up the slope, keeping an eye out for wildlife,

until you come to a path T-junction. Turn right. Go across Light House Score, there's the Lowestoft High Light Lighthouse on your left, along the top of the bowling green with the Maritime Museum to the left of the green, until you come out above the Nest area with another museum , restaurants, a stage, children's play area and the remains of Sparrow's Nest Theatre, now used by Lowestoft Moviemakers. Sparrow's Nest has a lot of history, not least its role in 2^nd World War.

Walk past the cafe, still heading north, and up to the corner. The ovally-shaped grassy areas used to be a series of ponds, but were victim of cuts in the 1990's (I think). 

Go through the entrance, and cross the road. Be aware of traffic coming from your right. There's a very distinct thrumming noise made by the tyres of vehicles coming down The Ravine.

Climb up the elegantly curved steps into Belle Vue Park and you will come to the War Memorial, and old cannons pointing seawards. Keeping the sound of traffic to your right, skirt the park, past the Victorian pedestrian bridge (currently closed for maintenance) until you reach the exit onto the main road. (You've walked about 2.5k). This is where the Old Lowestoft Scores Trail ends, but...

It's worth wandering through this pleasant woody area, much inhabited by grey squirrels. If you head generally south through the park, you come out at Cart Score. This is now the 'up-road' of The Ravine's 'down-road'. It's exceptionally dangerous to walk down, or up, Cart Score.

On the corner of the Score is a roofed entrance to the Sparrow's Nest, and it's worth popping through for the view, especially in the winter when the sea is not obscured by clouds leaves.

And, lastly, Cart Score marks the northernmost point of the High Street...

Words and Photos: John Ellerby (January 2021)