Rant Score

This has the distinction of being the only one of the original scores, still in use, which seems to have retained a name going back to the late 16th-early 17th century. Though, like a number of the others, it is referred to in the manorial records as a “common score” - the word common having the legal sense of being available for use (without impediment) by all and sundry. It took its name from a family which once held five High Street houses to the south of the score (and the land which went with them, reaching down to Whapload Road), stretching as far as the main dwelling of the Wilde family. Using the layout of today, this means the sites occupied by Nos. 70 & 71 - 72 & 73 - 74 - 75, 76 & 76A - 77, 78 & 79, but with major alterations to the plot-layouts behind, and stopping at No. 80. 

Christopher Rant (gentleman) is recorded as holding all five properties in the Manor Roll of 1618, with reference made to a previous tenant called Roger Rant. This is preceded by an earlier surviving set of manorial court minutes, whereby he is shown to have to acceded to the houses in February 1604 on the surrender of Humphrey Rant. So, presumably, Roger Rant must have preceded Humphrey - though a chain of ownership of grandfather, father and son cannot be definitely established. Christopher Rant mortgaged the block of property in April 1640 to another local gentleman, Henry Jenkenson (who was rather more connected with Oulton than with Lowestoft), and died the following year, in September. His son James inherited the mortgaged property, and he and Henry Jenkenson (the mortgager) allowed a merchant named Thomas Porter to pay off half of the mortgage amount in March 1642 and the residue in January 1654. James Rant had actually relinquished his own interest in his family’s former holding in September 1650 and was then no longer part of the transactions. 

Porter then sold the messuage of what is now Nos. 75, 76 & 76A High Street to John Arnold (merchant) in July 1667 and held onto the rest of the the real estate until December 1675, when he conveyed it to his son, John. John Porter then disposed of present day Nos. 70 & 71 to William Mewse (butcher), together with Nos. 72 & 73 and No. 74 to Benjamin Ibrook (a Southwold merchant who had moved into Lowestoft) - all of this in September 1686. He retained Nos. 77, 78 & 79, but his widow - Mary Baker and her second husband, Thomas Baker, sold the messuage to Benjamin Ibrook in July 1714. Despite these changes in ownership, and all others which followed, Rant Score remained as Rant Score.

            Regarding its location in town, it is halfway between Mariner’s Score and Herring Fishery Score and, given its width, can by taken as the High Street mid-point for vehicular traffic passing to and from the Denes. Before shafts became increasingly used on carts and wagons during the 18th century, the first draught-horse was often harnessed to a pole protruding from the middle of the conveyance’s front, with other horses then set in line ahead - up to two or three in number, according to the size and weight of the load. Four sorrel horses in line (the predecessors of the Suffolk Punch), turning in or out of Rant Score would have been extremely difficult to manage - and this probably accounts for the space  on the opposite side of the High Street, next to No. 133A and Duke’s Head Street (known as Blue Anchor Lane, in earlier times). 

Up until, and into, the third decade of the 17th century, a house stood on this spot - recorded to in the Manor Roll of 1618 by the name Bellman’s at the Hill - the hill in question being the steep slope of Rant Score itself (also found occasionally referred to as Hemming’s Hill). The name Bellman’s almost certainly refers to a seafarer named Thomas Bellman (or perhaps the family he belonged to) who died in November 1572 - master of a trading vessel called the John, of forty tons cubic carrying capacity, which features in a national list of such craft compiled during the year he died. By the year 1650, the house was no longer there. The laws of the manor decreed that copyhold houses in the town (c. 80-85% of the total stock) could be confiscated and demolished, and a new occupant found, if a tenant did not keep his or her dwelling in good repair. This is unlikely to have happened here. Although no record was found in the manor court minute books, it is likely that Bellman’s at the Hill was was demolished to provide turning space for heavy carts and wagons entering or leaving Rant Score. They were, in a sense, the articulated lorries of their time,

The most notable event connected with the score is that of Tuesday 14 March 1643 (1644, by adjustment of the old Julian calendar to its Gregorian successor), when Oliver Cromwell came to Lowestoft from his Cambridge headquarters with a large detachment of cavalry, reinforced by a company of foot-soldiers from the strongly Parliamentarian town of Gt. Yarmouth. He had been advised, from some source or other, that a cargo of Royalist armaments was being shipped into or out of Lowestoft (which of the two, has never been established), and he acted quickly in response to prevent this happening. He may have been in town for as little as two days, putting up at The Swan inn on arrival  (probably with one or two of his leading subordinates), while his main force was quartered at Somerleyton Hall - home of the Royalist supporter, Sir John Wentworth, who had to extend free hospitality to the troops as punishment for his political alignment.

Things came to a head the following day, when certain Royalist gentry from South Norfolk and North-east Suffolk (who had gathered in town) - plus a handful of townsmen of Royalist sympathy - made a token stand against the Parliamentary force, by drawing a chain across the top of Rant Score as a gesture of defiance and having the three cannon brought up from the Ness Point coastal battery placed to as to traverse the High Street to both north and south, with the middle gun aimed at Blue Anchor Lane [Duke’s Head Street] and across the Market Place over which there was, at the time, an open field of fire. Cromwell’s Cavalry would have ridden from Somerleyton through Blundeston and Oulton, down Steyngate Way [Gorleston Road] and along Beccles Way [Normanston Drive and St. Peter’s Street] into town. There was never going to be any kind of military engagement, given the respective size of each side (to say nothing of the urban environment itself), and Thomas Mighells (merchant), forebear of the man referred to in the previous section, acted as intermediary between them. The result was that Cromwell rounded up most of his opponents - including townsmen Thomas Allin (merchant and mariner), brothers Simon and Thomas Canham (mariners), and the vicar James Rous - and took them back to Cambridge, where they were placed under house arrest for a certain period of time before being released.

James Rous gives an account of the incident, in a space in the parish register of the time, between the baptisms for 12 March and 23 August during the year 1643 - and it makes for interesting reading. The entry is dated 1 June 1646, so it was made retrospectively, and the absence of any baptismal records between the two dates cited almost certainly reflects Rous’s period of captivity. The show of Royalist opposition itself  was once taken to indicate that Lowestoft was a town loyal to the Crown, and no doubt some of its inhabitants were (represented by the four taken away by Cromwell). But there would probably have been those people who felt no particular allegiance to either side and there was also a small section of the population which consisted of Dissenters (Presbyterian Nonconformists) - people who would certainly have been on the side of Parliament. One of the most interesting features of this particular time in the town’s history is that when William Canham (gentleman) came to make his will in May 1647, he left the sum of £5 to his fourth son, Simon - to be given to him “when he shall have made his peace with the Parliament of England and returned home to Lowestoft”.

 Jack Rose’s Lowestoft, p. 28 (previously referred to above in Mariners Score), gives two other names for Rant’s Score - though, again, without any further information. Blue Anchor Score and Youngman’s Score are the ones cited and, regardless of use or the length of time attached, might seem to have been connected with the 19th century. The Old Blue Anchor Stores public house still stands next to the space referred to in the fourth and fifth paragraphs, while William Youngman, Lowestoft’s first elected mayor following the grant of borough status made in August 1885, was partner in the Youngman & Preston brewery (which stood at the bottom of Rant Score, on the southern side) and lived at No. 63 High Street. However, it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that Blue Anchor Score might well have derived at some point in the past from Blue Anchor Lane - the old name for Duke’s Head Street.

©2024 CREDIT:David Butcher