HERITAGE

Recorded on Suffolk Heritage Explorer (Internet) as Monument record LWT 368.

Centring on OS 1:25000 Series Map reference TM59 539939. 

Lowestoft 

The Domesday Survey details (1086) relating to these two communities have been presented and examined in another article, so there is nothing to be gained from repeating what was said there. What can be usefully done, by way of follow-up, is to look at what is known of their function during the centuries following on from William I’s great audit of his realm and reveal something of their manorial status and history.

Lothingland

The original grant of a market in Lothingland Half-hundred was made by King John in the year 1211 – three years after Great Yarmouth had received its charter of incorporation (March 1208) with specifically stated preferential trading rights in its own local area. With Crown income solely in mind, the monarch either had no idea of the contention and strife these opposing privileges would cause or was not concerned about them in any way.

The collection of superstitions which follows is not seen, in any way, as definitive. It simply records a number of the more commonly held beliefs once current in East Anglian fishing communities. Not all of them were peculiar to fishermen only; some had (and may still have) currency among seafarers in general, while others can be traced well inland. But no matter how extensive their area of circulation, all of them are interesting for what they tell us of the human mind and the way it works when faced with natural powers beyond either its understanding or its control.

The term denes is an earlier version of dunes. It derives from OE dūn, meaning “a hill”, and became applied to coastal sandhills during the late medieval period – being first identified in a printed source dating from the year 1523. In Lowestoft’s case, any undulating effect may never have been very great as a result of tidal action and the effect of the wind, and the progressive development of scrub-growth of one kind and another would have moderated this even further.

Produced to assist with the building’s regeneration and future uses

1. The Lowestoft community relocated itself (onto what is now the High Street area of a much expanded town) from what was probably its original location about a mile to the south-west, in an area now occupied by a large municipal cemetery between Normanston Drive and Rotterdam Road.

• Domesday Lowestoft (1) 
• Domesday Lowestoft (2) - Original/Latin 
• Domesday Lowestoft (3) - Akethorp

Domesday Lowestoft (1)

The further back in history that any researcher tries to go, the more difficult it is to make progress because of diminishing, usable, documentary sources. This is what makes Domesday Book so valuable. 

A good deal has been written about the scores over the years - not all of it accurate. What follows here is an account of these footways, working from north to south, and looking at them in both a topographical and historical context. The main sources used for the study are a Manor Roll of 1618 (which gives a complete account of landholding in the parish, together with location and tenancy stated) and a series of Manor Court minute books dating from 1582-85 and 1616-1756.