Markets and Fairs in Lothingland and Lowestoft

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. No positive, first-hand identification of the person, or body, to whom the grant was made has been found by the writer, but in at least one printed secondary source it is said to have been to the “men of Lothingland”, in return for a gift to the king of one palfrey (a small riding-horse, especially for women). Specific reference to the source of this information cites the Patent Rolls of 13 King John (May 1211 to May 1212), but the published reproduction of these royal grants and authorisations has the years 1209-12 missing. If the manor itself (together with its revenues) was wholly in the hands of the King at the time of the granting of market privileges, it is conceivable that he might have conferred this right in exchange for the lesser gift of a horse – be it a one-off payment or an annual one. But this would have been in addition to the annual fee for leasing the title from the Crown.

The term “men of Lothingland” (if this was the expression used of the grantees) probably referred to leading landholders in the Half-hundred. The manor of Lothingland was a royal one which, in typical fashion, was leased to private individuals as a means of generating revenue for the Crown. It is recorded that from Easter 1199 onwards the estate was held by the brothers, Geoffrey and Reginald du Bois (al. de Bosco), for an annual rent of £61 4s 0d, but there is no indication of their length of tenancy. It had presumably terminated before 1211, with full title temporarily returning to the monarch, in order for the grant of a market to be made to residents of Lothingland. The following year, it was leased once again – to William de Longspée, Earl of Salisbury (half-brother of John), who seems to have remained in occupation until his death on 7 March 1226.

The location of the market place must have been at the northern end of Gorleston parish, on low-lying, open ground adjoining the River Yare, opposite what was in those days the undeveloped beach area well to the south of Great Yarmouth town. Using the terminology of today, it would have been located somewhere in the area where Malthouse Lane joins Beccles Road and Southtown Road, and it was troubled by tidal inundation from time to time because of its proximity to the water. William de Longspée had it moved during his time as Lothingland lord and also changed the day it was held from Sunday to Thursday. The area providing the new market-place was probably on slightly higher land to the north of its original siting, thereby making it closer to Southtown than to Gorleston – which is no doubt why the residents of the former community felt able to encroach upon it and build houses, as recorded in the Hundred Roll enquiry of 1274-5. The description given in the Hundred Roll of this encroachment being “thirty feet on all sides” suggests a trading-area of square proportions, and the fact of its being built upon would seem to imply limited use of the facility at best. 

Following the death of William de Longspée, leasing of the Half-hundred manor was taken on  by Roger Fitzosbert (lord of Somerleyton) for a period of three years, at an annual rent of £80 – the grant itself being made on 8 May 1226 and backdated to Easter (19 April). During his tenancy, Fitzosbert, contested Great Yarmouth’s trading privileges, even going so far as to claim the right of taking certain customs duties in the Norfolk port – a move which simply prompted the burgesses there to make counter-claims of their own and assert their authority over the Suffolk side of the river. He seems to have been unsuccessful in making his investment in the Half-hundred pay and, on 17 July 1230, title was transferred to the “men of Lothingland” – the length of lease stated as being for one year as from 24 June, but with no rental cost referred to. The grant was renewed or confirmed on 17 April 1231 – at an annual payment of £70 – and further re-iterated on 27 April, in the same sum, when it was also declared to be “in perpetuo”.

This particular term is probably to be taken as meaning “for as long as it lasts”, rather than “for evermore”. And, indeed, the manor of Lothingland was conveyed in due course by Henry III to Dervorgille de Balliol, in December 1237, in exchange for lands held by her in Cheshire. The annual rental remained at £70 and the men giving evidence in the Hundred Roll enquiry were in no doubt that the £10 differential between the £80 paid by Roger Fitzosbert and the lesser sum charged thereafter (still current in 1274-5) was the result of Great Yarmouth’s interference in Lothingland’s commercial activity and the detriment resulting therefrom. As far as the market itself is concerned, those testifying in the Hundred Roll process maintained that the residents of Southtown (or “Little Yarmouth”, as it was referred to at the time) had made their encroachments onto the trading-area after Dervorgille de Balliol had become lord of Lothingland – which suggests both a lack of use and the effect of the remoteness of an absentee landlord. There is no record of any order being given for the encroachments to be cleared, but there is slender evidence of the market-place being moved once again in recognition that the houses were a permanent feature. The southern end of Gorleston High Street, near the junction with Baker Street and Church Lane, broadens out into what looks very much like a former trading-space, and it is possible that this is where the failing Lothingland market ended its days.

It is also possible (perhaps even likely) that the Half-hundred of Lothingland, although some forty square miles in area, was not sufficiently well populated at the time to support a viable market – especially one that had its centre of trade located in the far north-eastern corner. This made ease of access a matter of difficulty for a substantial number of the local communities, and added to this was the market-place’s proximity to Great Yarmouth, the major town on the East Anglian coast between Dunwich and Lynn. Not only did this highly developed urban area dominate trading activity to the north of the river Yare, it was also able to exercise a restrictive influence to the south and west by virtue of a judgement of 1228 which gave it control of the area occupied by Southtown and Gorleston. Thus, although the grant of a market to the lord(s) of Lothingland may have had a degree of prestige about it, local factors militated against the privilege in terms of it ever being of a profitable  nature and able to make money for its holder.

Lowestoft

The town has been noted as “probably the successor to Lothingland as a commercial centre”  – in the online Gazetteer of Markets and Fairs in England and Wales to 1516, vol. 2 (2003), p 332 – but this shows some degree of topographical misunderstanding. Lothingland, in being a half-hundred, was not a trading centre in itself, but an administrative area consisting of eighteen individual parishes and as many hamlets and outliers. Its market-place was situated in Gorleston, which was the hub of the manor during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, but which then diminished in importance as Lowestoft was granted manorial status in its own right (a fact first referred to in the year 1212) and grew steadily in importance thereafter. It is important to note that when John de Dreux (Earl of Richmond) was awarded the right of a market and fair, on 15 November 1308, the conferring of these Crown privileges refers specifically to his manor of Lowestoft, not that of Lothingland – of which entity he was also lord. Therefore, the grant had nothing to do with Lothingland per se, but was conferred upon one of its individual subsidiary manors – held by the same lord.

The market-day was Wednesday and the fair an extended one, beginning on the vigil of St. Margaret (19 July) and lasting for a total of eight days. With many fairs being granted only a three-four day duration, it would seem that high expectations were held of the one awarded to Lowestoft (which may reflect the town’s growing economic strength), but no records exist to show whether or not they were fulfilled. Nearly a century and a half later, on 14 December 1445, the lord of the manor of the time – William de la Pole, Marquis of Suffolk – was awarded a re-grant of the weekly market and of two fairs per annum: the first on the feast day of St. Philip and St. James (1 May) and the second on St, Martin’s Day (11 November), each with a three-day period on either side of the festival. With two seven-day fairs replacing the original eight-day one, it would seem that Lowestoft was enjoying a period of economic prosperity – but, again, no records have been found to show this.

The surviving leet court records for the seventeenth century, and for much of the eighteenth, show that the market was a buoyant enterprise – though its annual proceedings were dealing with the trading misdemeanours that took place with almost predictable regularity. Surprisingly perhaps, Edmund Gillingwater, Lowestoft’s late eighteenth century historian, has very little to say about the market and gives little insight either into the conduct of the fairs. All he has to reveal is that, according to a document lodged in the diocesan registry at Norwich, the re-grant of privileges awarded to William de la Pole in 1445 entitled him (via his steward) to hold courts of market and fair. He also reveals that, in 1768, the lord of the manor (Sir Ashurst Allin) allowed the townspeople, upon their request, to move the fairs from the green where they had been traditionally held onto the market place – suggesting perhaps that they had declined in size and importance and no longer required such a large venue as the area where they had been traditionally held. This was called Fair Green and was located in the northern part of what has long been known as St. Margaret’s Plain. The market place in question was likely to have been the overspill trading area created in 1703 (on the corner of what is now Compass Street’s southern junction with the High Street), as a result of the main one having its space reduced by the building of houses on it. It stood only a short distance from Fair Green, along Fair Lane(Dove Street) and Tyler’s Lane (Compass Street).

This article formed Appendix 5 in the writer’s book Medieval Lowestoft (2016), serving to give an outline overview of market provision in Lowestoft and the wider area of Lothingland Half-hundred. It has had minor changes made to suit its use here CREDIT:David Butcher