Lowestoft Market and Fairs

When the Lowestoft township relocated itself onto the cliff-top during the first half of the 14th century, it had considerations to take account of other than the demands created by its inhabitants’ domestic requirements (these being mainly concerned with the terracing of the cliff to make it usable, the laying out of house-plots and a road system, and the management of the scores to give access to the beach and Denes). The royal grant of a market and fair in November 1308 to the lord of the manor, John de Dreux (Earl of Richmond), was a crucial one in the town’s development, helping it to eventually become the dominant community not only in Lothingland Half-hundred but in most of the neighbouring Mutford jurisdiction also. There was no guarantee, however, that the grant of a market per se (with or without accompanying fair) was a guarantee of economic success. 

Within Lothingland itself, apart from the Half-hundred market located at Gorleston (right to hold, awarded 1211), Somerleyton had been granted a market in 1227, Flixton a similar privilege in 1253, Belton the right of market and fair in March 1270, and Oulton similar privileges in February 1307. In Mutford Half-hundred, Kessingland was awarded a market and fair in October 1251 and Carlton Colville the same privileges in October 1267. None of these communities developed and prospered in the way that Lowestoft eventually did. Therefore, there must have been factors other than founding-grants alone which enabled certain enterprises to flourish and others to fail. One contributory factor towards the latter process, which has been noted, was too close a proximity of markets to each other – and Lothingland and Mutford half-hundreds certainly showed this characteristic in no uncertain manner!

It is possible (perhaps even likely) that a manor with a resident lord, directing his (or her) own demesne in the traditional way, may not have produced conditions conducive to the practice of commerce – especially where the introduction of a market was concerned, with its accompanying inconveniences and intrusions. But it has been noted that in Suffolk, with its absence of boroughs (and their rules and restrictions) and its abundance of market towns, the manorial system was capable of accommodating and stimulating trade with a range of facilitating mechanisms. With the added convenience of a non-resident lord (at least, as far as the tenants were concerned – and perhaps even the bailiff, or steward), activity beyond merely working the land must have been made easier. The starting-up of a market, if the venture established itself and became successful, was then a means of creating revenue for the landlord and income for the traders themselves – to say nothing of the service provided to the surrounding area from which the market derived its viability. Thus, the initial establishment of the Lowestoft market must have taken place with the support of the manorial lord (John de Dreux), who, in turn, had presumably been persuaded of the venture’s success on the advice of his bailiff – the latter working in collaboration with the influential chief tenants of the manor (proto-community leaders of their type), who were not only convinced of their town’s growing influence and importance, but bent on advancing it.

Once the privileges of market and fair had been established, of course, venues for holding these events had to be found – something which may not have been possible in the original settlement because of it being situated next to the two common fields, where the land was needed for food production and couldn’t really bear the loss of ground being given over to market-space and even more so to a fairground. Scrutiny of the Lowestoft High Street even today (with road-widening having taken place at either end during the 1890s) suggests that it was possibly sufficiently broad originally between Swan Lane and Blue Anchor Lane (Mariners Street and Dukes Head Street) to have accommodated market stalls – a usable width of thirty to thirty-five feet being available. Such a location would have established the classic middle-of-town site for a medieval market. However, it must have been realised (even at the time) that the area was not suitable because of the congestion it would have caused on the narrower sections of the roadway, to north and south, and in the cross-lane area to the west also – the latter being particularly restricted for the movement of people and merchandise, especially if horses and carts were present.

The solution was to adopt an edge-of-town location, upwards of half an acre in area, where the new main street met a roadway from the old settlement area running along the northern edge of the South Field (later to become known as Beccles Way and, later still as St. Peter’s Street). This not only gave plenty of space for trading activity, but easy access and egress also along both roads – as well as ample space for any livestock traded on the land opposite. It is noticeable that freehold houses occupied part of this sector of the old common field, but that a gap was left directly in front of the market-area – showing that the dwellings post-dated the establishment of it. The sowing of grass into what had previously been arable space (stripped up on a north-south alignment), to eventually form three separate pasture areas, may well have been carried out early on in the relocation of the town. It would have provided close-at-hand grazing for the inhabitants’ livestock, as well as for beasts brought to market from outside – and a pond was probably dug at much the same time for watering the animals, taking advantage of a low spot where the spring-line came close to the surface of the ground. This particular spot is now occupied by Nos. 75-83 Arnold Street, and water was certainly encountered when the footings for this small terrace of dwellings were put in.

In addition to the main market-space, there was a separate area for trading in grain further to the north, between Tylers Lane (Compass Street) and Swan Lane (Mariners Street), on the site of the present-day Town Hall. This probably gave recognition to the commodity’s importance in the medieval economy, whereby its staple role was thought worthy of its being given distinction in its own right. On a practical level also, the number of people buying corn of different types and the transport needed to convey it would have benefited from a separate, dedicated market-space, and there were convenient entry and exit routes to the north, west and south. A market cross was set up on the site, close to a chapel-of-ease built for winter worship when the roadways leading westwards to the parish church of St. Margaret’s were befouled with mud. The latter building was licensed in 1350 by William Bateman, Bishop of Norwich, which may perhaps indicate that the new town was well established on its site by then – having been completed by the time that the Black Deathbrought devastation and disruption during 1348-9. At a later date, both it and the corn cross seem to have undergone reconstruction into an almost integrated edifice – and this remained in use until 1698, when it underwent major changes to create the predecessor of today’s Town Hall (the latter being built in the Italianate style and opened for use in 1860). This particular structure consisted of a triple-arcaded corn-trading area (with folding wooden doors) fronting the street, with a civic meeting-room above and with a rearward range housing the chapel-of-ease set at right-angles to it. It became known as the Town Chamber,or Town Chapel, because of the two different uses.

Additionally, an overspill market area was created in the year 1703 close to this site, on the other corner of Tyler’s Lane (Compass Street) with the High Street, by demolishing an inn called the New White Horse and rebuilding it further along to the west, next to the “Queen’s Head” establishment. This was done because the main market place had undergone encroachment from houses being built upon it – thereby reducing its functional area (something which was quite a common occurrence in England throughout both the Late Medieval and Early Modern periods). Much later on, this market extension was used to provide car parking for Town Hall staff and part of it remains today as a small public amenity space, with the rest of it built over by the eastern section of the terrace of eleven town houses which occupies much of the southern part of Compass Street itself.

So much for the market areas; but what of the fairstead? The original royal grant allowed for an eight-day celebration beginning on the vigil of the parish’s patron, St. Margaret of Antioch (19 July), and this was superseded in December 1445 by a re-grant to the lord (William de la Pole, Marquis of Suffolk) allowing two fairs to be held: on the feast day of St. Philip and St. James (1 May) and on that of St. Michael and All Angels (29 September), with three celebratory days on either side of each festival. In both cases, awarding the privilege made no difference to the place where the event was held. A misconception as to the venue (and that of the market) was created in the 1790s by Edmund Gillingwater, the late eighteenth century historian of Lowestoft, when he wrote that both market and fair were originally held “below the town” – assuming from this that The Denes was the place in question. It would appear from this misunderstanding that, at some point, the Latin phrase infra villam (“within the town”), in the wording of the grant, had been mistakenly translated as “below the town” by applying the classical Latin meaning of the preposition, not that of its medieval successor.

The main market-place in the old town part of Lowestoft has not been used for its intended purpose for some considerable time, but it retains something of its original, open nature through being used as a car park (though it had once been increasingly encroached upon by houses and inns during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries). The fairstead was situated not far from it to the north-west, with the annual (then six-monthly) event being staged on the common land immediately abutting the township on its western edge. This vestige of heath-land, which was obviously an eastwards extension of Church Green, was known either as Fair Green or Goose Green, with the side-street running to and from it bearing the name Fair Lane (now Dove Street). The dual use suggested by the two names is an interesting one, with changes of function obviously in operation depending on what was required of the land. Given the way that geese foul any location they inhabit for any length of time, it is to be hoped that they were removed from their pasture well before the fairs were held! Another possibility, suggested in some of the manorial documentation, is that the northern sector was in fact the part where the fair was staged and the southern one the portion reserved for grazing geese.

As with the market place, this particular area (now known as St. Margaret’s Plain) has remained partly open in nature and is, in keeping with life’s current demands, also used as a car park and children’s play-area. The rest of the common-pasture, lying south of the fairstead, has long been built over, though a vestige of the old landscape can still be detected. There was once a pond, located on the southern boundary of the land’s eastern sector, which was obviously put there for the watering of livestock. Indeed, it was known as The Watering, and it also served as the site of the town’s ducking stool. It was situated at what is now the bottom end of Thurston Road, near to where that particular piece of highway joins the blanked-off section of St. Peter’s Street, and in spite of the over-layering of concrete and tarmac it is still possible to detect a depression where the pond once stood.

An alternative name for Fair Lane found in the 1618 Manor Roll is Bier Lane, which suggests that this was the route by which corpses were once carried to the parish church for burial. The roadway linked directly to a track crossing Church Green and conveyance of the dead (largely shrouded and uncoffined at that time) would have been both direct and expeditious. The other main route to St. Margaret’s was Church Way (now St. Margaret’s Road), which lay at the northern end of the High Street and had obviously once served as the central baulk dividing the stripped-up North Field agricultural space into two major sections. The role of older names in helping to establish the previous use and function of particular areas within an urban (and a rural) landscape has long been recognised, and the last obvious example which can be legitimately cited for Lowestoft (within the present context) is Cross Score. This was the name once given to the footway, Mariner’s Score, before it became known as Swan Score (named after the inn which stood at the top of it, on the southern side) – a reference which must surely have emanated from its proximity to the Corn Cross.

One particular feature of market conduct during both the Medieval and Early Modern periods was regulation of the trading activity which took place, in the interests of the paying customer. Thus, there was close supervision of the price of goods and their quality, inspection of weights and measures in the cause of fair dealing, and the attempt (given the perishability of many foodstuffs) to create as hygienic a selling environment as was possible. With Lowestoft being an unchartered town, there was probably never an official clerk of the market to order affairs and to send six-monthly lists of fines for offences committed to The Exchequer – nor any periodic, inspection visits by the Royal Clerk of Markets. The town’s weekly trading forum functioned under ordinances (or assizes) that were nationally laid down, but were applied by local, manorial process. Thus, its conduct was probably very largely controlled by the annually elected parish constables, the ale-founders (or tasters), and the searchers & sealers of leather – with an overview exercised by the steward. Any irregularities noted were dealt with by the leet court, which met once a year on the first Saturday in Lent. Such a pattern of administration broadly fits in with what has been observed in Newmarket – another Suffolk community which had an absentee lord.

In the absence of any surviving Medieval documentation, the best that can be done is turn to what survives from Early Modern times and express the hope that the procedures recorded matched those of an earlier era (in principle, at least, there is no reason to believe that they would have differed greatly). There is a single volume of leet and court baron minutes for the years 1582-5, but the main sequence of surviving material begins in 1616 and runs through in an almost totally unbroken sequence until the year 1770, when the leet court seems to have reached the end of its useful working-life – holding its last session on 3 March. Property transfers, however, continued to be written up in the court baron proceedings (though with diminishing regularity, as time wore on) right into the twentieth century, with the last entry being made during the 1930s.

Details of market and trading offences, collected from a selection of English counties during the fourteenth and fifteenth century (1353-1458), show eighteen individual trades or occupations involved in cases of deception or poor-quality in the sale of goods: millers, bakers, brewers, fishers, butchers, cooks, poulterers,innkeepers, vintners, chandlers, tanners, shoemakers, tailors, skinners, smiths, spicers, grain-buyers and flour-sellers. Lowestoft was not sufficiently large to have had the whole range of occupations cited (especially at the more elevated, luxury-orientated end of commercial activity), but those shown in bold all feature in its leet court records at one time or another for varying acts of dishonesty in the retailing of goods. Forestalling (the act of selling wares either before the duly appointed starting-hour of market activity or making sale of them on the way to the market itself) is also referred to in the list of national transgressions. And Lowestoft has examples of this practice – as well as of the offence known as regrating: the selling-on of goods (for profit) on the market where they had been purchased. 

As a final word, regarding the Lowestoft market(s), it perhaps needs to be said that The Triangle trading-area of today is a comparatively late arrival on the scene, having been created during the 1890s when the High Street was undergoing notable changes in appearance – as had been the case with much of it from mid-century onwards as the town grew in size and more and more emphasis was placed on retail provision and variety. During the 16th and 17th centuries (and indeed quite well on into the 18th), what is now recognised as The Triangle area had, at various times, had its space largely built over with a malthouse, a brewery, a barn, some stables and an inn called The Spreadeagle. It is hard to envisage such use today – but it was once very much part of the local urban scene.

Most of this article was extracted from Chapter 3 of the writer’s book Medieval Lowestoft (2016) and reshaped to serve its purpose, here, as a description of the town’s market provision over a period of more than 500 years - as well as an outline comment on its fair(s). CREDIT:David Butcher