GREAT YARMOUTH
51
South of the Congregational Chapel is a school erected upon the site of
a dwelling house and shop which in 1769 was given to the
congregationialists by John Eddridge, for the better maintenance and
support of the pastor.
Row No. 78,
from
Middlegate Street
to
King Street,
called
Pot-in-hand
Row,
from a public house at the east end fronting King Street, now the
property of Messrs. Steward, Patteson, and Co., who, in 1866, took
down the old house and erected the present structure.
Row No. 79,
from
Howard Street
to
King Street.
At the south-
west corner is a public house formerly called the
Three Pigeons,*
after-
wards the
Lobster,
and now the
Jolly Maltsters.
f
Near the
Lobster,
there
was in 1784 a house in so dilapidated a state as to be dangerous to
passengers, and the corporation ordered it to be taken down.
Row No. 80,
from
Middlegate Street
to
King Street.
The ground
between this Row and Row No. 82, fronting King Street, is occupied by
a large Elizabethan house, now divided into two occupations with
modern shops on the ground floor. The front was originally adorned
with moulded bricks forming festoons of fruit and flowers; all vestiges
of which have long been obliterated. The rooms were panelled with
wainscot, having massive wooden chimney pieces reaching from floor to
ceiling. The oaken staircase with its broad and fleet steps and heavy
balustrade was peculiarly characteristic.
t
This house was erected by
George Hardware., Esq.,§ who purchased the site in 1604. He was
bailiff in 1612 and 1621, and represented the town in Parliament in
1614 and 1623. On the first occasion he presented James I.
* This is an ancient sign, now seldom, met with, supposed to mean the three pigeons
or doves which Noah sent successively out of the ark. The original Hebrew word is
Yon&h;
arid there is nothing in the passage referred to in the Bible to know that Noah
thrice sent out the same pigeon. " The
Three Pigeons
expect me down every moment,"
says Tony Lumkin in
She stoops to conquer.
f
A combination of. three was frequent in signs. The
Manners' Tavern
at the north-
east corner of Row No. 61 used to be called the
Three Jolly Mariners.
t
The annexed plate is from a drawing by Mrs. Bowyer Vaux.
§ He bore
az.,
a chev. betw. three dexter hands
arg.
52
THE PERLUSTRATION OF
with one hundred jacobuses as a gift from the town. He took a leading
part in local politics, and was particularly active in an attempt, at that
time unsuccessful, to change the government of two bailiffs to that of a
mayor. This so displeased the majority of the corporation that they
disfranchised him in 1629; but in the following year he was reinstated
by royal authority. He died in 1635, leaving this property to his son,
Thomas Hardware, who in 1640 sold it to Leonard Osborne, of whom it
was purchased by Robert Harmer, who was bailiff in 1652. He left it to
his son, James Harmer; and it soon afterwards fell into the hands of
mortgagees until, in 1682, it was purchased by Richard Huntingdon,
who is described as a "merchant and one of the aldermen and burgesses
of the said towne." He had served in 1648 as lieutenant in the Train
Bands; and had taken an active part in municipal affairs as a member of
the corporation, until dismissed at his own request, "being for a long
time employed in the great affairs of the nation." In 1661
he was
presented with apiece of plate for his services in defending the town"
against the complaints of Lowestoft;" and in 1666 he was elected to fill
the office of bailiff,* and again in 1676
;
* Bower, then confidential agent, reported to government that the election of Mr.
Huntingdon and Mr. Thaxter caused " general rejoicing in Yarmouth, they being "the only
two likely to make a thorough reformation in the affairs of the town, and take away
scandal by having his a majesty's affairs more readily attended to." Huntingdon however
appears to have displayed more good sense than Bower had expected. One cause of
uneasiness was the spreading of false news. " Finding no one willing to " give the names
of those who are spreading strange reports," says the agent in a despatch to Secretary
Williamson, "I called on Bailiff Huntingdon and asked him "what became of William
Downing, examined for having reported that the Duke of Albemarle was a close prisoner
in the tower, and that forces were coming down to Yarmouth to disarm the trained bands;
but he made light of it and said it was an idle discourse. I told him that the first authors
and the adders thereto ought to be prosecuted; and told him of the report that Lord
Townshend was put out of his deputy lieutenancy for not pledging the pope's health, and
Mr. Howard put in. "He says that several persons were examined, but they past it from
one to another, " and so," says the discomforted agent, " it rests no where." The fire of
London in 1666 excited great alarm. A French seaman was brought before the magistrates
for saying that "it were good news if Yarmouth were on fire." On his examination he
would not admit that he could speak a word of English. '' Most people," says Bower a
report, "judge the city to have been wilfully set on fire by the French and Dutch who lurk
about it."
GREAT YARMOUTH
5 3
and three years later he was returned to Parliament for the "borough,
having Sir William Coventry* for his colleague. In 1686 the election of
Sir William Cooke
f
and Sir Thomas Friend by the corporation alone, as
the practice had been, was set aside; and Huntingdon was returned by
the freemen at large together with George England, Esq. He died in
1690.
t
From Huntingdon this house passed into the possession of John
Cotman, Esq., who was mayor in 1742 and again in 1755. He died in
1773, aged 66 years; leaving two daughters and co-heirs, one of whom,
Mary, became the second Wife of Nathaniel Symonds, Esq.; and the
other, Elizabeth, married James Turner, Esq., the father of the late
* Fourth, and youngest son of Lord Keeper Coventry. He was first employed as
Secretary to the Duke of York, afterwards James II.; and became a Commissioner of the
Admiralty in 1662, and in three years was knighted and made a Privy
Councillor
. In 1667
he became a Commissioner of the Treasury; but being forbidden the court on account of
having sent a challenge, to the Duke of Buckingham, he threw up his employment and
retired into the country in disgust, where he died in 1686, aged 60, Burnet says he was the
best speaker in the House of Commons. There is an engraved portrait of him.
f
He was the sixth son of "William Cooke of Linstead, Suffolk, by Mary his wife,
daughter and co-heir of Thomas Astley, Esq., of Melton Constable, and grandson of
'William Cooke, who married Mary, one of the daughters and co-heirs of Ralph Shelton,
Esq., by Prudence Iris wife, daughter and co-heir of Edward Calthorpe, Esq. He was
created a baronet in 1663, and bore
gu.,
on a fess.
or.,
three trefoils
az,,
in chief a lion
pass.
arg.
Page's
Suffolk
p. 249.
t
Dean Davis in. his diary gives an account of his illness. " Jan. 6.—Visited Capt.
Huntingdon and prayed with him, being in a desparate condition with gangrene in the
foot. Jan. 9.— Visited Capt, Huntingdon and found him insensible of "his danger,
insomuch that he did not bid me pray for him. Jan. 11.—Visited Capt. Huntingdon, and
saw his foot dressed and a toe cut off, which he felt not. Jan. 17.—Visited Capt.
Huntingdon and prayed with him." When the poor man died the dean was at Hoveton, and
he hurried, back to attend the funeral. "We " left Hoveton," he says, Jan. 24,
"
about nine
in the morning, the ways being very
"
deep and the air foggy. About twelve o'clock we
came to Mautby to Mr. Calle's where we dined, and at three mounted again for Yarmouth,
in order to attend the funeral. Arrived there a quarter-past four. I went directly home and
dressed myself, and met the corpse in the street at the row's end. After the funeral I
returned with, the bearers to Capt. Fuller's, and was presented by Mrs. Fuller with a pair
of doe gloves and a ring." The dean’s host at Mautby was the Rev. Andrew Calle, who
had been presented to that rectory in 1671 by Sir Robert Paston. He bore on a fess, betw,
two cheverels, three escallops.
54
THE PERLUSTRATION OF
Dawson Turner,
Esq,,
as already stated. It next became the property of
the Rev. S. L. Cooper, by whom it was sold in 1800 to Harry Verelst
Worship, Esq., who resided here for the long period of fifty-nine years,
dying there in 1859, aged 85.*
The family of W
ORSHIP
has been of long continuance in Yarmouth,
and for many generations its members have mostly been buried in the
churchyard of the adjoining parish of Caister. William Worship, who
died in 1770, aged 60, lies there,
f
as do William Worship, who died in
1784, aged 51, and John Worship, who died in 1805, aged 61. Mr. H. V.
Worship was the son of the second Mr. William Worship, mentioned in
vol. i. p. 197. He married, in 1800, Sarah, eldest daughter of Thomas
Dade, Esq., by Sarah his wife, only daughter of the Rev, Francis Turner
(vol. i. p. 305). She died in 1863, in her 91st year, leaving two surviving
sons, of whom Francis, the elder, filled the office of mayor in 1857, and
is a Deputy-Lieutenant for Norfolk, and a Magistrate for the. Borough;
and William, the younger, filled the office of mayor in 1859 and 1867.
The arms of Worship are
arg.,
on a bend
az.,
three cocks' heads erased
or.,
combed and wattled
gu.
Crest, a cock's head as in the shield.
Row No. 81
, from
King Street to Dene Side.
Prior to 1678 the
space between this row and the present opening leading to Regent Road
was waste ground., which in that year the corporation granted to
Benjamin England, Esq., who however made no use of it; and on his
death it descended to George England, Esq., his nephew and heir, who
in 1719 sold it to John Andrews, Esq., the great fishing merchant, of
whom mention will be made. He covered the ground with fish houses
and other buildings. In 1775 these premises were purchased by John
* He received his baptismal names from Harry Verelst, who went to India "by land"
in 1772, then considered a great achievement, and became Governor of Bengal; in which
capacity he had a dispute with an Arminian merchant residing at Oude, who brought an
action against him for an assault and false imprisonment, and obtained a verdict for
£
10,000 damages, which sum was paid by the East India Company who justified the
proceedings of their officer. He died in 1785. It was to him that Hoole dedicated his
translation of the
Orlando Furioso.
He was related to the celebrated flower-painter, Simon
Verelst, who died in 1710.
f
He voted at the County election in 1734 for Coke and Morden; and in 1768
William Worship and William Worship, jun., voted for Wodehouse and De Grey.
GREAT YARMOUTH
55
Smith, who devised them to the Rev. John Bull of Inworth and Rector of
Pentlow in Essex, whose only daughter, Frances, married G. B. Smith of
Yarmouth, where she died in 1840; and eventually in 1792 the property
was purchased for the purpose of erecting a building thereon, "to be
used, occupied, and enjoyed as and for a meeting house for the worship
" and service of God by the people called methodists, founded by the
"Rev. John Wesley," that body having so greatly increased in number as
to render the building, already mentioned (vol. i. p. 147), quite
inadequate for their accommodation.* This chapel, after a lapse of forty-
five years, also became unequal to the requirements of the Wesleyans,
who disposed of the building, and in 1837 erected a new and more
commodious chapel to the east of Deneside Road, upon ground, just
within the town wall, which had been previously occupied by Mr.
Howes as a carpenter's yard.
f
1
The houses and shops, No. 14, 15, 16, and
17, now occupy the site of the first-mentioned chapel.
At the house at the north-west corner of Row No. 81, died John Berney
Crome
2
, the eldest son of "Old Crome" (see vol. i. p. 161). He practised as a
drawing master, and was also a landscape painter, mating "moonlights" his
peculiar study;
J
but he wanted the rare
* The circuits of Wesleyan ministers are periodically changed. In 1781 Dr. Samuel
Warren, a native of Norfolk, was appointed to Yarmouth. He was the father of Samuel
Warren, Esq., Q.C.., author of
Ten Thousand, a Year.
There is an engraved portrait of
Dr.
Warren; as also of the Rev. Samuel Botts, a distinguished Wesleyan preacher, who was
born at Beverley in 1759, and after travelling for thirty-one years, died at Yarmouth in
1812, and was buried in St. Nicholas' churchyard, where he has a long laudatory epitaph.
f
A large fire occurred there in 1801, when in the occupation of Howes and
Hodskinson.
See how yon waning orb, with mournful light,
Looks out upon the scene; her beaming eye
is dimmed with haze, a sable drapery
Of waving clouds half hides her from the sight.
The fitful breeze heaves with a broken sigh,
While gurgling waters through the calm sad night,
Responsive join the plaintive melody.
All nature seems in sorrow's garb bedight!
Alas ! the eye is clos'd that erst would gaze,
Eudymion like, on the change-loving face.
Still is the hand whose subtle power would trace
Thy charms, fair queen! and shed thy trembling rays
On mimic rivulet with magic grace,
Winning from envy's self, the meed of praise.
1
Now the site of the “British Home Store”
2
Palmer’s Addenda:
J.B.Crome
- the works of the younger Crome have
increased in value of late years. In 1875, Christie and Manson sold “Off the
Coast of Norfolk” for £115.
56
THE PERLUSTRATION OF
genius of his father. He had an elegant mind and was much liked in
society. In his later years he grew enormously stout; and died in 1842,
aged 48. Frederick Crome, a younger son of “Old” Crome, a clever
etcher, was for some years in the bank of Messrs. Gurneys and Turner,
and a daughter was a successful painter of fruit and flowers from nature.
There is a portrait of "Old Crome" in the council chamber at Norwich,
and also a bas-relief profile bust on a monument erected to his memory
in
the Church of St. George, Cowgate, Norwich, forty-seven years after
his death, principally through the exertions of J. B. Morgan, Esq.
Row No. 82
, from
Middlegate Street
to
King Street,
called
Worship's South Row.
On the south side of this row, and extending to
Row No. 85, is a chapel belonging to the General Baptists, formerly
called Bethabara Chapel. At the south-west corner of this row, and
occupying the space between it and Row No. 85, is a small house,
fronting west in
Blind Middle
street, which was the residence of H
ENRY
S
WINDEN
, the historian of Yarmouth. He was a bookseller, a
schoolmaster, and a land surveyor
;
but these occupations, it is to be
feared, brought him but a scanty income. Nevertheless, Ives, who had a
short but intimate friendship with him (terminated only by death),
testified to his having been "a gentleman, a scholar, and a christian."
During a period of twenty years, Swinden, with great assiduity and
untiring industry, made collections for his
History;
in which he was
assisted by Mr. Thomas Barber. Swinden had permission to examine the
town records, and he appears to have done so most carefully. He also
received through the hands of Ives some communications from that
eminent antiquary, Thomas Martin of Palgrave. In 1770 the town
council, "willing to promote so useful a work," voted £50 to be paid to
Swinden on his completing his
History,
and delivering ten printed
copies to be preserved in the hutch. "With this encouragement Swinden
prepared his book for the press; and it was "printed for the author by
John Crouse," then residing in the Market Place, at Norwich. It was
issued in weekly parts, containing three pages of letterpress, at sixpence
each; William Eaton being the Yarmouth bookseller by whom the parts
were distributed to the subscribers. Swinden, however, did not live to
see the completion of that which had been the cherished object of his
GREAT YARMOUTH
57
thoughts for so many years; he died on the 11th of January, 1772, being
then only in the 56th year of his age. Ives, who had taken great interest
in Swinden's labours, superintended the completion of the publication,
wrote a preface to the work, and in the north aisle of St, Nicholas'
Church erected a mural tablet to his memory. Swinden, in his capacity
as a land surveyor, prepared a plan of the town on a scale of thirty-three
yards to one inch; the whole measuring four feet nine inches by two feet
four inches. It was, after his death, purchased by the corporation, who in
1779 permitted Mr. Armstrong to make a copy, which, on a reduced
scale, is now usually found bound up with Swinden's
History.*
It is
probable that all Swinden's papers passed, after his death, into the hands
of Ives, and were dispersed on the premature death of the latter in 1776.
Swinden's
History;
although dull and incomplete, is a mine in which all
subsequent historians of the town have worked; affording as it does
rather the materials for a history than a succinct history in itself. He has
printed in his pages all the town charters, and also many documents now
utterly lost.
T
HOMAS
B
ARBER
, who, as we have seen, assisted Swinden, was for
forty years a clerk in the Custom House. With indefatigable industry he
formed a considerable collection of books, coins, antiques, and
autographs; and took great interest in all that related to the history of his
native town. He was a man of reserved and eccentric habits. After his
death a sum of £2,000 in specie was found in an old box in a closet in
his bed room; and a considerable amount of Silver in the drawers of his
bureau. He died in 1785, intestate. Among his collections was "a piece
of Queen Elizabeth's coronation robe, of flowered crimson satin,
wrought with silver and gold, from Sir Edward Coke's family." His
library, described as a valuable one, and his M.S.S., comprising a
History of Bungay and an Account of the Monastery of St. Bennet at
Holme, were purchased by Richard Beatniffe, the eminent bookseller at
Norwich, author of the
Norfolk Tour.
Beatniffe, who had been
apprenticed to Hollingworth, the
An original plan of the town drawn by Swinden in pen and ink
1
is now in the
possession of Mr. W.
N, Burroughs. It has some remarks upon it, written by
Swinden in red ink, and appears to have been prepared with much care and labour.
1
This sounds like yet another Swinden original, for the map in the Great Yarmouth
Central Library (2007) is entirely in pencil, althought there are a very few faded red
ink inscriptions on it. See RRH for plentiful details of Swinden’s map.
VOL II.
58
THE PERLUSTRATION OF
celebrated bookbinder at Lynn, died in 1818, aged 80. He dealt in old
books, and among other collections purchased that of the Rev. Dr. Cox
Macro of Barrow, consisting principally of black letter and early-printed
books. A Scotch nobleman (probably Lord Home) once asked him the
price of a Bible. Beatniffe took down the book and named the sum.
“O
mon,” quoth his lordship, "I could buy one for much less in
Edinburgh." " Then go to Edinburgh for one," said the bookseller,
replacing the volume. Thomas Barber had a book
plate engraved with the following shield—
or.,
two
cheverells betw. three fleurs de lis
gu.,
being the
armorial bearings of the Barbers of Suffolk ; and for a
crest, out of a ducal coronet
gu.,
a bull's head
arg.*
Neville says (in 1772), " had a visit from Mr. Thomas
" Barber, who seemed much pleased with what he
saw, although I could not show him half my curiosities. He particularly
admired my Greek medal."
f
Neville frequently availed himself of the
services of Mr. Robert Barber, as a shipping agent; for in those days
goods and packages were usually sent by sea to the port nearest their
place of destination.
He says that going one day to Yarmouth he saw at
Mr. R. Barber's a pair of a new species of pigeon, imported from
Holland, called lace pigeons from a roughness of their feathers
resembling lace. They cost a guinea and a half
in Holland. On the
invitation of Barber, Neville joined a fishing club as a guest. Their
practice was to go up one of the rivers and, after fishing, each member of
the club by turn "entertained the company with, a dinner dressed by the
side of the river, which afforded much fun."
* We shall have occasion to mention the Barbers of Suffolk, and especially those,
who settled in Yarmouth; but the name can be traced in the town up to the 14th
century. Richard le Barber held property here in 1316, paying to the capital lords
of the fee one halfpenny, and to the parties of whom he purchased 4s. of silver and
two hundred herrings for every service. In 1622 Hugh Barber was one of the jurors
appointed by an inquisition to try the rights of the Cinque Ports at Yarmouth.
f
Neville says that Barber had a large collection of coins, chiefly Roman and
English, and some fine medals; also some fossils, and a large collection of prints and
drawings remarkable for their antiquity and oddity. Barber, it appears, had been able to
shew some civility to Snelling, the medallist, who in return sent him some curious
engravings and helped him in the choice of coins.
GREAT YARMOUTH
59
Barber
1
coincided with Neville in his extreme political opinions, as
appears by many entries in the journal of the latter, wherein he styles
Barber "a sensible and honest man, a republican, and an ardent admirer
of the character of Sydney."*
Row to No. 83,
from
South Quay
to
Middlegate Street
At the north-
west corner there stood in the reign of Queen Elizabeth a very old house,
then in a ruinous* condition, the property of Benjamin Cowper, a
prosperous merchant, who, in the year 1596, pulled it down, and on. the
site erected a spacious and magnificent mansion fronting the Quay, and
surrounding on all sides a square interior court with a large garden
towards the east. It had a red-brick front, with a range of gabled dormer
windows on the second floor. This house still stands, although
considerable alterations have been made to adapt it for the requirements
of two residences, it being now No. 3 and 4, South Quay. The whole
exterior has been modernized by easing the ancient front with white
brick, and adding an additional story to No. 3 and a high parapet at No.
4. In the first house there are but few remains of the original decorations,
except a long many-lighted Elizabethan window on the first floor on the
west side looking into the interior court; but in No. 4 several apartments
retain their ancient decorations. The dining room has a carved-oak
chimney piece reaching from the floor to the ceiling, the upper part
being divided by pilasters into three compartments, and in the central
one appears the date 1596, with the initials
B
,
C,
A
, The walls are panelled
in wainscot, divided at regular intervals by fluted pilasters supporting
the frieze. The principal room, on the first floor, is thirty feet in length,
having three windows looking upon the Quay. At the north end,
projecting into the room, is a chimney piece extending from floor to
ceiling, richly and elaborately carved. At either end
* "Writing in 1770 Sylas Neville says—"Nov. 1.—Yesterday went to Yarmouth.
Before dinner was with my friend Barber to see a drawing by young Miles, after a
print of Sir William Paston by Faithorne. Among other memories we drank to that of
Miles Corbet, Recorder of Yarmouth and Member for the Town in the Great
Parliament, and one of Charles Stuart's judges; but the writer sorrowfully adds, last
night and this morning had a headache, occasioned by drinking claret before dinner
with Mr. Barber."
1
Palmer’s Addenda:
Robert Barber
– He and Sylas Neville were of the following
party. “12
th
April 1770, this being the day of Mr. Wilkes’ enlargement from prison,
45 of us met at the
White Horse
, where we had 45 bottles of wine, 45 glasses, 45
pipes 45 wilkes (shell fish), &c”. Youell’s Diary. He might have added, “and made
45 fools of themselves”. Barber was a corn merchant, and Youell the diarist, was
with him some years to learn that business. (Palmer, the snob, here, I feel.) On 11
th
December 1776, Youell recorded – Mr. Mayor was at ours this morning. I believe
my master is endeavouring to make himself a common councilman. I wish he may,
for then he will go to church
2
; it being expected of the corporation that they attend
each Sunday. Barber “had his picture drawn by Edward Miles” in 1770, and died
12
th
October 1781.
2
Youell was himself no Christian, if he thought that mere attendance at church
would achieve any distinction in the eyes of God.
