HERITAGE

Among the many interesting features to emerge from close study of the 507 wills and 100 probate inventories which have survived for the period indicated in the title are the rates of literacy able to be determined in the various occupational groups which formed the town’s socio-economic structure. Even today, there would probably be argument (or at least discussion) among specialists in the field as to what literacy means. The same holds true for historians.

The Novel David Copperfield is well known for its central figure’s connection with Blundeston, Great Yarmouth and the Peggotty family – but, scarcely known at all for David’s brief acquaintance with the town of Lowestoft, as revealed in Chapter 2 of the novel.

The largest administrative task by far to demand both the attention and the time of the parochial authorities in Lowestoft during the Early Modern period was relief of the poor – a weighty responsibility placed upon English parishes by the formative Poor Law Act of 1601. And the fortunate survival of Overseers of the Poor account books for the period 1656-1712 (Suffolk Archives, Ipswich - 01/13/1/1&2) reveals much about the implementation of this legislation.

The first almshouses in Lowestoft were provided by John Manyngham, the parish vicar from 1457-78. The exact year of institution is not known, but they were located on the north side of Fair Lane (now Dove Street) near its junction with West Lane (now Jubilee Way). And they seem to have remained in operation, in some form – undoubtedly with alterations made – into the final quarter of the 19th century, when White’s Directory of Suffolk (1874), p.

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.

Centuries of Ongoing Change

Denmark Road, Flensburgh Street and Tonning Street: three closely connected roads near the shopping-centre and railway station of the Suffolk coastal town of Lowestoft (the UK’s most easterly community). What possible connection can there be between this trio, the most southerly located of the Scandinavian countries and two towns in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein?

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