Early Medieval

869-70 - Township’s name possibly changed to the Scandinavian form of Hloðver’s toft, following the great Danish invasion of these years. For about 100 years, East Anglia was part of the so-called Danelaw and eight of today’s sixteen parishes in Lothingland have place-names which have Scandinavian elements in one way or another. 

They are as follows: Ashby, Corton, Flixton, Gunton, Lound, Lowestoft, Oulton and Somerleyton. There is some debate about Ashby, which may have its first element deriving from Old English aesc, meaning “ash tree”. 

Mid-late 6th century? - Founding of Lowestoft as Hluda’s toft, meaning “the homestead of Hluda” - with Hluda itself translatable as “the loud one”. On the evidence of the layout of ancient tracks and other landscape features, the location was possibly somewhere in the north-eastern sector of what is now Normanston Cemetery. 

700,000 years ago - Early humans (hominids) present, using flint tools in what is now Pakefield. These anthropoids long pre-dated Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens. The cores and flakes found date from roughly halfway through the Lower Palaeolithic age, which stretches from c. 1.5 million to 200,000 years ago.