Abstract
This detailed study stands as the prequel to David Butcher’s well-received book on the later history of Lowestoft, 1550–1750, published a decade ago. Battling with far fewer surviving documentary sources than were available to illuminate the later period, the author is obliged to offer a reasoned, if necessarily unproven, account of the earliest development of the Anglo-Saxon settlement, as Hluda’s toft or homestead. In keeping with the sparsity of both archaeological and documentary evidence available to elucidate Saxon developments before the Domesday Survey of 1086, its foundation can be no more precisely dated than sometime between the fifth and seventh centuries.
As for its location, the author has rather more certainty, suggesting its proximity to the roundabout at the junction of Normanston Drive, Rotterdam Road and St Peter’s Street. This is central to his thesis, since the focus of the initial settlement is well inland, and not directly overlooking the open sea, in marked contrast to the later township. His argument runs that, in this earlier period, this was primarily a settlement that farmed the land, rather than one that depended more directly on the sea. Indeed, the spine of his narrative is an elucidation of the long gradual process whereby a largely agricultural community became more maritime-centric. Topographical and cartographic evidence is presented to show the long-lived medieval three-field system (North Field, South Field and South-West Field) initially dominating the locale and thus the local economy.
The relocation of the new town, no longer over Hluda’s farmstead, but a mile to the east, laid out along a long street overlooking the open foreshore, is seen as a crucial event in the town’s history. It finally established the settlement’s new focus and its distinctly maritime future. The earliest pottery recovered from properties newly built on that cliff top High Street has been dated to the early fourteenth century.
But there is a possibility that there is an intervening stage in this urban development process, overlooked by Butcher. The town map of 1618 (Map 6) shows a compact gridded settlement between the church of St Margaret (certainly established by 1135) and the cliff edge. Might this be the site of the community listed in the Hundred Rolls of 1274: facing westwards towards its field system and eastwards towards the sea, that is to say, a settlement of both farmers and of fishermen? Be that as it may, we can all agree that, by the time of the Market Charter of 1308, which established a Wednesday market and a July Fair, the fundamental change, or urban maritime expansion, had certainly begun in earnest. The labour required in the laying out of this new cliff-top town and the terracing required considerable resources, as the author clearly demonstrates. This all represents a very deliberate corporate or collaborative effort, but is surprisingly not directly documented. It nevertheless seems to have been resounding vote for fishing over farming.
Readers of this journal will be particularly drawn to chapters 4 and 5, where details of Lowestoft’s fishing and other maritime-related activities are fleshed out. The role of the mackerel fisheries in the spring and summer and the all-important herring season each autumn are discussed, together with the types of small shallow draught boats then in use. These could be hauled directly onto the beach, the common Denes, the extensive open foreshore area where nets could be dried and repaired and fish-houses erected to preserve the catches. The battles against the dominant local force of Great Yarmouth, its unforgiving Norfolk neighbour, are also spelled out. Indeed, a feature of the whole book is its constant reviewing of the wider picture and the political constraints and economic opportunities offered in an uncertain world where war, plague, politics and crop shortages were both unpredictable and commonplace.
Even the sea played a crucial but not always benign role with its extreme floods, silting harbours and expanding sand spits. Perhaps some contours on the maps of the suggested medieval topography would have helped highlight the most vulnerable locations, while an indication of the changing levels of the highest and lowest tides during this formative period might also have been informative, given the extensive use made of the foreshore by fishing communities.
All in all there is much to admire in this deeply perceptive and absorbing book. It is, on the one hand, a study of a single coastal town, but throws up many more general questions. For example, the author touches on the conditions and catalysts for urban change, on the interdependence and interactions (positive and negative) of coastal communities, on the mixed benefits of living off the land or husbanding the sea. Those more familiar with the histories of better-known ports such as Yarmouth, Ipswich or Dunwich will find much of interest in this reasoned study of Lowestoft before 1554. By that date, Hluda’s humble inland farm had been relocated – perhaps twice – and the port now listed at least four ships of 100 tons or more, a figure greater than any other Suffolk port at that date.