Lowestoft in olden times

by Francis Davy Longe

In the return of the King’s estates in the Half-hundred of Lothingland (Ludingland as it was written) we have a rather long account of the King’s Manor of Gorleston, which appears to have been the headquarters from which the royal estates in Lothingland were administered for several hundred years. It states that “Gurth (Earl Gurth, the brother of Harold, killed at the battle of Hastings) held Gorleston in King Edward’s time, and after giving the details of his property in Gorleston,

“There are 24 fishermen belonging to this manor at Gernemutha (Yarmouth) and a beruita (or subordinate manor) in Lothu Wistoft (Lowestoft). [14] It contains four carucates. In King Edward’s time there were five villani (bond tenants of the upper class)—now only three. Both then and now there are ten cottage tenants. Then there were five servi (slaves), now only three. Then and now there are two ploughs employed on the demesne (the Kings own land). In Edward’s time the tenants employed five ploughs on their land, now only three. There is woodland for eight pigs, and five acres of pasture. In King Edward’s time there were thirteen geese, now only eight. There were then and now ten pigs, and 150 sheep.”

We have here the account of a small estate, comprising some 400 or 500 acres of cultivated land, of which part was in demesne, and cultivated for the King, and the rest was comprised in one or two large open fields, which were divided into allotments, and cultivated by the tenants for themselves, all of whom could have their little homesteads, and their shares in the plough-oxen, and other live stock kept on the land.

This estate had not passed from the hands of the Saxon Earl Gurth to those of William without disturbance. Three of the villani and two slaves had disappeared. They had, perhaps, been in Earl Gurth’s army, and had fallen with him at Hastings. Several acres of land had fallen out of cultivation, and though the pigs and sheep had remained at the same number, the geese were reduced from thirteen to eight.

Besides the King’s berwick there was a small manor in the parish called Aketorp, belonging to a freeman named Aylmar, a priest, probably the priest of the parish. His name tells us that he was an Englishman, and not one of the Conqueror’s Frenchmen. His little property consisted of 80 acres, on which there were three cottage tenants. One plough was used on the demesne. There were seven other tenants who had land requiring half a plough. (They must have had other means of supporting themselves.) There was wood for five pigs, and one acre of pasture.

Priest Aylmar had not been disturbed by the Conquest, and his little property was in the same condition in 1085 as it was in 1066. The rest of the land in the parish would be common or waste land, over which the cattle, sheep, and pigs of the lords and their tenants could roam and feed.

So far as Domesday furnishes us with express authority, the population of the parish in Edward’s time consisted of 31 different families. But I think that there may have been a few others—poor freemen—not belonging to these estates, and not coming within the scope of the survey, who gained a living partly by assisting the tenants in their agricultural work, and partly as fishermen, having their boats on the shore or at Kirkley Haven, which was quite alive at this time. These men would be the earliest representatives of the free population of the parish which was destined in after times, when trade had sprung up, to form the main population of the town of Lowestoft.

The church is not mentioned, but, as there was a resident priest, there can be no reason to doubt that there was a parish church—probably a small wooden building on the site of the present church. Churches were more numerous in Suffolk and Norfolk in Saxon times than in any other part of England. Several churches are mentioned in other parishes near, apparently because they had some substantial amount of glebe land belonging to them.

Neighbouring Parishes.

We shall understand somewhat better the picture which Domesday gives us of Lowestoft if we take a glance at the accounts which it gives of some other parishes in the immediate neighbourhood.