Martins Score
Current
MartinsScore
Lowestoft
United Kingdom
Originally it was named as Gowing's Score until 1850. This score has two claims to fame. The first records the visit of John Wesley on the 11th October 1764. Wesley preached in the open air with his back to a garden wall. In his journal he noted, "A wilder congregation I have never seen".
The second, which cannot be substantiated, concerns the small post set against a wall on the south side. It was originally put there in 1688, and has since been renewed in 1788, 1888 and 1998. The post bears the initials TM' and is commonly known as the Armada Post'. The theory asserts that as 1688 was exactly 100 years after the Spanish Armada, the post was erected to commemorate the event and the part that Lowestoft merchant Thomas Meldum's vessel "Elizabeth' played in the victory.
The fishing boat plaques designed by Paul Amey form an outdoor gallery of Lowestoft's nautical history. The ships were chosen by Peter Parker, director of the Lowestoft and East Suffolk Maritime Museum.
History
Local Historian David Butcher has the following to say about today's image:
The Lowestoft “scores” were originally surface- water drainage channels down the face of the cliff, used by people to move to and from the beach. A number of such runnels, in the course of being created, are visible on Gunton Heath - and Tramp’s Alley itself was once known as “Lopham Score”. The word “score” derives from ON “skora”, meaning to cut or incise, and it is still in use with regard to material such as card, leather and wood.
Once Lowestoft had relocated to the cliff c. 1300-1350, the face was terraced from end to end before the building-plots were set out, and the scores were gradually walled, stepped and surfaced. But the ones used by vehicles - “Gunton” (The Ravine), “Gallows” (Cart), “Rant” (still the same) and “Henfield” (bottom of old Nelson Street) didn’t require steps! Martin’s Score is not an original one, only becoming adopted as such during the late 18th or early 19 century. The so-called “Armada Post” (on the opposite side of the score to the one seen here) has a small brass plate with TM 1688 on it, but it’s unlikely to have anything to do with the 1588 Spanish invasion attempt as centenaries are of late 19th century origins mainly. The TM has been liked with a late 16th century mariner named Thomas Mildram (who reputedly contributed a fire-ship to the English fleet), but he lived towards the bottom of what is now Old Nelson Street. A much more likely association is a late 17th-early 18th century merchant, Thomas Mighells, who lived in an earlier house on the site of 55 High Street. He had
extensive property to the north of what is now Martin’s Score and was probably asserting his right of access to and egress from it (doing so, coincidentally, in 1688) - to ensure that passers-by
knew that they had no customary right of entry.
Architecture
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