1600s

CREDIT: Ivan Bunn and David Butcher

Origins

This article is in its original form, with minor alterations. It was published (with editorial adjustments and changes) in English Ceramic Circle Transactions, vol. 21 (2010), forming pp. 49-74 of that journal.

For centuries, the use of alms boxes in parish churches throughout the whole of England was a means of collecting sums of money for charitable purposes – particularly the relief of poverty where it was known or seen to exist. During the 16th century, as a result of general cost inflation (aggravated by Henry VIII’s mindless extravagance and debasement of the coinage, to say nothing of the social and economic problems caused by the Dissolution of the Monasteries), the alleviation of financial distress in the lower levels of society became more and more of a challenge.

Nos. 5 -25 High Street

Nos. 26-33 are part of an overall sequence of town properties (1-271, in all) showing their transfer, as recorded in the manor court minute books.

They relate specifically to what once occupied the land later taken up by Nos. 5-25 High Street.

Extracted in this form from The Town of Lowestoft c. 1720-25: People and Property in a Pre-Industrial Coastal Community (Lowestoft Heritage Workshop Centre, 2019).

(North of Mariners Street)

• Moving from North to South.
• Occupying former agricultural land and of freehold tenure.
• All properties fronting the High Street.

East end of the North Field  

1. John Burgis - house, garden & adjoining arable enclosure (seven-eighths of an acre).

2. Agnes Eastgate - two houses & adjoining garden (half-acre).

Church Way interposing (now St. Margaret’s Road)

3. Thomas Bury - house, curtilage & garden (one acre).

(Parish Register Entries)

The register entries below are presented in as close a way as possible to the original handwritten ones

In 1662, an Act of Settlement for the Better Relief of the Poor was passed by Parliament – a measure soon to become known as the Act of Settlement and Removal, as it aimed at restricting the movement of people from the parishes where they were living in a state of poverty into ones (nearby or further removed) where they believed that they would be better off.

Hearth Tax, as a means of raising money for The Crown, was introduced into England following the Restoration of the Monarchy under Charles II in 1660. It functioned on the principle of being a wealth tax, in that the number of fire-places in a house was taken as indicating the affluence of the occupant. The greater the number of rooms heated, the richer that householder was assumed to be – either as owner or renter.

So-called “Ship Money” had its roots in Late Medieval times, when coastal towns and counties in England were periodically called upon to supply vessels to the Crown for use in naval warfare during times of conflict – mainly with the French. After having suspended Parliament in 1629, following a series of disputes, and not reconvening it again until 1640, Charles I had to find ways of creating revenue other than the rents yielded by the Royal Estate.

• A large, filled-in trench is visible on the North Denes, a little to the east of the net-drying spars. Its presence is indicated by a slight depression in the ground and by the vegetation growing along its length. The latter is much lusher and of a different type from what is to be found on The Denes generally, showing that the trench’s infill is of a different type from the soil around it.
• The dimensions of this feature were originally eighty to ninety paces in length, on a north-south alignment, and c.

The Town of Lowestoft c. 1720

This map was created by Ivan Bunn (former archival assistant at the North Suffolk Record Office, Lowestoft) and the writer, working in collaboration and using manorial documentation as the primary source. See end of text for numbered locations, which are also referred to in the narrative.