Part 1 (1/2)
The New Hand-Book to Lowestoft and its Environs.
by Anonymous.
PREFACE.
LOWESTOFT is not only considered a very healthy and pleasant watering place, but, from various causes, is a.s.suming a position of such importance, as to render it more than probable that visiters will arrive in numbers augmented every season: this work is intended primarily for their use; at the same time, it is hoped it will he found interesting to the residents generally, being a verbal and pictorial description of the place of their abode, and a repository of facts and incidents connected with its history. The writer wishes it to be distinctly understood that the book professes to be, for the most part, a compilation; he has not therefore thought it necessary-except in a few special cases-to give authorities, or the usual indications of quotation.
_Lowestoft_, _March_, 1849.
HAND-BOOK TO LOWESTOFT.
SITUATION OF THE TOWN AND ITS GENERAL FEATURES.
Lowestoft is situated upon the most Easterly point of land in England.
It stands upon a lofty eminence, and commands an extensive prospect of the German Ocean.
Enthroned upon an ancient hill it rests; Calmly it lifts its time-worn head; and first Of all Old England's busy towns, whispers Its orisons, and greets the rising morn.
It stands upon a dry soil, upon the summit of a cliff, and enjoys a most salubrious air-keen, but bracing; and not being exposed to any of those unwholesome damps and vapours, which generally arise from low grounds and marshes, it is rendered not only a pleasant, but a very healthy situation.
The princ.i.p.al street, three-quarters of a mile in length, running in a gradual descent nearly North and South, is on the brow of the hill. The houses built on the Eastern side of the street have all a view of the sea; many of them have an extensive prospect, and most have, in addition, terraced gardens which slope downwards towards the sea: these gardens, when viewed from the beach, present a very pleasing appearance, thickly planted as some of them are with fruit and ornamental trees, and shrubs, the roots of which, binding the soil, prevent it from being precipitated into the regions beneath. A considerable number of the houses on this side of the street are, in consequence of these natural advantages, let in the summer season to individuals and families frequenting the town; those on the western side of the street, having no special advantages of this kind, are not so much in request.
Below the cliff, or terraced gardens, the fish-houses are to be found, where the greater part of the staple business of the town is carried on.
To the North and South of the town there are large sandy plains, called the denes, which probably were originally covered by the sea. Towards Corton they are very extensive, and are covered with a peculiar vegetation: there, and near the beach, may be found amongst others, the following plants-
The Eryngium Maritimum (Sea Eryngo) Glaucium Luteum (Yellow-horned Poppy) Ononis Spinosa (p.r.i.c.kly rest-harrow) ,, Cochleria Anglica (English scurvy Gra.s.s) Tussilago Farfara (Colt's Foot) and under the fish-houses and old walls, The Urtica Pilulifera (Roman Nettle)
which is a rare plant of a _noli-me-tangere_ character, having a very severe sting.
Lowestoft is the only market town in the island of Lothingland, which island is situated in the North-east corner of the county of Suffolk, and is formed by the German Ocean on the East, by the river Yare on the North, by the Waveney on the West, and Lake Lothing on the South. Its length from North to South is about ten miles; and its breadth, from East to West about six miles. It contains sixteen parishes, and during the Saxon heptarchy was part of the kingdom of the East Angles.
This last remark very naturally introduces us to consider some circ.u.mstances connected with
THE HISTORY OF LOWESTOFT.
And Lowestoft has materials for a history. That history, like all which worthily bears the name, reaches far back into the ages that are past.
Old Romans, brave Saxons, fierce Danes, have left some vestiges of their connexion with the place, however faint they may, at this distance of time, have become. It has had its feuds with men who dwelt across the Yare, and n.o.bly defended its own natural rights; it took no silent part in the civil commotions of the middle of the seventeenth century; and was no craven in the latter half of that century, in the wars with the Dutch and others.
Its religious history partakes of the various characteristics of the several ages as they have pa.s.sed. Priories and candles are dimly seen in the dark ages; image wors.h.i.+p in the time of popery; image breaking in the time of puritanism; learned dissent in the time when liberty arose; warm-hearted methodism in the time of revival; vicars varying in their tenets, from the unmitigated Romanism of Scroope, to the learned Arianism of Whiston; and from that, to the Evangelicism of the present regime.