HERITAGE

In some ways, buildings are every bit as much historical documents as written sources and can inform the observer of many aspects of human activity in days gone by. Where they have survived in original form, they have much to say of former economic and social conditions – be they domestic, ecclesiastical or industrial in nature. And, if altered and converted at different times, there is just as much to be learned from them. Let us take three of Lowestoft’s buildings, covering these three categories, and consider each one of them in turn within its context.

The foundation called the Good Cross Chapel is a lesser-known part of Lowestoft’s religious history, which once stood in the extreme south-eastern corner of the parish near the junction of the present-day Suffolk Road with Battery Green Road – possibly in the location of what is now the Fish Market entrance.

Mid-Late 18th Century Urban Status and Identity

The field of study constituting urban history is both complex and wide-ranging, combining a variety of sources and a number of disciplines. Economic and social history may unite in helping to explain and illuminate a community’s existence and function, but integration with historical geography and demographic features is required in order to produce a deeper understanding of the human activity which created that entity.

The type of agriculture practised in Lowestoft during the Early Modern era was of mixed variety, as was the case with most other communities in lowland England. And it was not only mixed in combining crops and livestock; it was also mixed in the sense that many of the people who farmed the land had other interests. It is unfortunate that the two key documents which reveal so much about conduct of agriculture in the parish stand in isolation from each other.

Cattle

The amount of grassland of one kind or another revealed in the 1618 Manor Roll (about 170 acres), when compared with that discernible in the 18thcentury Tithe Accounts (about sixty-five acres of permanent pasture, or meadow, and an annual average of twenty-eight acres of the sown variety) may appear to suggest that fewer cattle were being kept in the parish by 1700 than had been the case one hundred years before.

It is unarguable that maritime influences were the major factor in shaping Lowestoft during the Late Medieval and Early Modern periods. Yet, agriculture was also an important element in the development of the town, creating employment for a number of the inhabitants (and limited wealth for a few) and leading to a number of associated trades and occupations. It also acted as a safety-net for the community, something that was always there as part of the economic structure – something that could, in periods of adversity, provide subsistence until better times returned. 

Grain

The potential value of Tithe Accounts books as a source of information regarding historical agricultural practice has long been recognised. The surviving Lowestoft tithe records (Norfolk Record Office, PD 589/80) begin to record details of agriculture in the parish in the year 1698, but there is no reference to the growing of corn until 1749 – the year in which the Rev. John Tanner began to draw the rectorial tithes.

The large expanse of water on Lowestoft parish’s southern boundary provided a freshwater fishery for coarse fish, which had nothing to do with the town’s commercial sea-fishing activities. The mere was always referred to as the Great Water or the Fresh Water during the 16th,17th and 18th centuries (and probably before that, as well) – later becoming known as Lake Lothing during the earlier part of the 19th.

1. Vessels returning from the 1533 Iceland cod fishery voyage: 22 Dunwich, 7 Lowestoft, 7 Orwell Haven [Ipswich] and 1 Orford – making 37 in all. Source: National Archives (Kew), SP 1/80 f.65v.

Lowestoft details

Introduction

First of all, reference has to be made to the geographical advantages of Lowestoft’s position on the East Coast. A substantial number of its male inhabitants made a living from going to sea, while others remained on shore and earned money from processing catches of fish and handling other cargoes. A select minority of these latter even grew wealthy through maritime activity, because they were the people who owned the vessels which caught herrings and cod or which carried merchandise of different kinds.