Maltsters Score

Yet again, another of the old town’s access paths between the High Street and the Denes, but one which seems to have gone out of use at some point during the late 17th-early 18th century and become part of the site of what is now No. 88 High Street - whose plot once ran down the cliff-face as far as Whapload Road. A reference found in the manorial records of property-transfer says that the southern boundary of the property had once been a “common score” - and the Revd. John Tanner’s listing of copyhold properties in the town (compiled c. 1720-25 and previously referred to in Crown Score and Martin’s Score) gives the following description of the messuage as follows: “One messuage, with a decayed malthouse and yard”, in the tenancy of Thomas Ward (who was member of a well-known Nonconformist family of merchants and brewers). The document also makes no mention of a score being present.

            At a later date (not known, but possibly recorded somewhere) it must have gone back into use, still associated with No. 88 High Street and, at some point, having the entry-point incorporated in the building - a feature still to be seen. The Manor Roll of 1618 refers to the property as being a house belonging to Robert Skarth (brewer), who also held another dwelling, almost opposite, on the other side of the High Street - this particular messuage having a brewhouse and barn built thereon. Thus, a strong connection with the brewing of beer and the malting process which preceded it is associated with this part of town during the earlier years of the 17th century and probably with a certain period of time during the 16th as well.

            This means that the name of the score may possibly have some kind of residual element in it, going back to the time when the malting of barley took place nearby. But there is another, perhaps more likely explanation which is to do with No. 89 High Street immediately next door. This building, for a relatively short period during the middle of the 19th century, functioned as a public house known as The Jolly Malster (1851-67) - one of the tied houses belonging to Morse & Woods, whose brewery was located on the south side of what is now Crown Street West. By 1871, the property had become a bakery - but with reference being made in the Census Return of that year to “Maltsters Score”.

            The book Jack Rose’s Lowestoft, p. 28, also makes reference to it having once been known as Salter’s Score - which may have had a connection with Salter Street, located dead opposite across Whapload Road in the Beach Village, with the name presumably deriving from that of a one-time local resident. Another name found referred to (though without specific reference) is Garden Score - though not in the publication mentioned above. The Crooked Score has been given an airing, as well - apparently a reference to the sudden right-hand turn at the end of the tunnel-like entrance from the High Street, with some irregularity of alignment thereafter. Stories grew up (probably during late Victorian times, when all kinds of local myths and legends were concocted) that drunken seafarers making their way home down to the Beach Village area were assaulted there and relieved of their valuables. Stories which do not stand up to documentary study.

            About two-thirds of the way down, the score is blocked off from reaching Whapload Road and is diverted to the right into Spurgeon Score. But not before revealing to the passer-by what is perhaps its most distinctive feature: the presence of two sections of brick-built serpentine wall (or crinkle-crankle walls, as they are usually referred to in Suffolk, which has the largest surviving concentration of them in England). They largely date from the 18th and 19th centuries and there is no mystery as to the mode of construction. It is simply the means of erecting a barrier one brick thick, without having to create buttresses or pillars at periodic intervals to support it. The opposing curves do that themselves and the result is a pleasing length of wall (usually of no great height), whose vertical undulations give added visual interest to something which might otherwise go unnoticed.

            There has been a lot of speculation over the years as to the origins of crinkle-crankle - but, while Edward Moor, Suffolk Words and Phrases (1823), p. 91, has the word crinkled (adjective) meaning “twisted”, there is no reference to crinkle-crankle itself. Nor is there in Robert Forby, The Vocabulary of East Anglia, vol. 1 (1830), p. 82, where crinkle (verb) is said to mean “wrinkle” or “twist”. J.G. Nall, An Etymological and Comparative Glossary of the Dialect and Provincialisms of East Anglia (1866), p. 536, replicates this and it is not until A.O.D. Claxton, The Suffolk Dialect of the 20th Century (1954), p. 28, is reached that Crinkly Crankly [sic] is specifically referred to in relation to serpentine walling. Therefore, it looks very much as if the term was comparatively late in formation. Late 19th century, perhaps, or even early 20th.

©2024 CREDIT:David Butcher

Florence nee Redgrave & William Marr (Flo & Bill). Our Mum, Hazel Mewse at that time, home on leave, WW2, visited her grandparents & took this pic outside their home in Maltsters Score. Their windows taped to help prevent shattered glass due to bomb blasts. The lives of these people? Terry Down & Lucy Martin..stoic!? How much more would any of them want to take. CREDIT: Janice Marjoram Facebook