Great Yarmouth Rows

Up until the 19th Century, houses in Great Yarmouth were only allowed to be built within the confines of the town wall.  Because of this, the houses were built as close together as possible.  This, in turn, led to the formation of The Rows.  There used to be 145 rows in the town, but this has since reduced in numbers.  People lived very close together.  The rows were that narrow that if people opened their doors at the same time, they would touch each other.

A typical Row

As you can see from the above picture, you can see how narrow the rows were with families living there.  This was led to the doors being made to open inwards to prevent such accidents.  The rows were so narrow that a troll cart was made so goods could be transported down them.

A Troll Cart

There is now a pub in the town which is part of the Weatherspoons franchise called The Troll Cart.  The rows weren't numbered until 1804, and they had names such as Kittywithces Row (no 95) and Bayley's Row (no 97).  There is also Body Snatchers Row named after the body snatching from St Nicholas Church (now Minster).  This is Row 6.

Many of the rows were destroyed in WW2, but there are still quite a few rows that still survive today.  As you walk around the town you will pass many rows, namely Kittywithches Row and Broad Row, which has many shops down it, and Turners Bank Row (no 55).  By the 1950's many of the remaining buildings were knocked down for new housing and shops.  Today you have Gt Yarmouth Row Houses (Row 111).  You will find 2 houses here which have been made into museums.  The merchants house dates back to 1603 and in the neighbouring building you can see how people used to live.

Gt Yarmouth body snatchers

Over the years Great Yarmouth has had many gruesome crimes which have gone down in history.  One such  crime which was quite prolific was body snatching.  Body snatching was the digging up of freshly buried bodies to sell to doctors and students in medicine.  The bodies were then used for anatomy and used to train and experiment on.

One of the most notorious body snatchers was one Thomas Vaughn.  In 1827 it is said he exhumed at least 10 bodies from St Nicholas Church graveyard.  These bodies would then be sold to surgeons and students in London for large sums of money.  These body snatchers would get more money if they delivered corpses of children.  Sir Astley Cooper was the son of the Vicar of St Nicholas Church. And it was him that used to employ the body snatchers to carry out such tasks.  The body snatchers were paid between 10 - 12 guineas for each body that was transported.

Plaque to Thomas Vaughn

Thomas Vaughn went to prison for these crimes, but only served 6 months in prison.  But when he was caught wearing the clothes of the bodies he had dug up, he was transported to Australia.  High fences now now surround what is now called Great Yarmouth Minster.  These were erected after 1827 to prevent such crimes.  The plaque on the gates of Great Yarmouth Minster was unveiled in 2011 as showed in the picture.

Thomas Vaughn hid the bodies he has exhumed in his home in Row 6, which is now called Body Snatchers Row until they were collected for transport.

A typical row in Gt Yarmouth

These were, of course, such terrible crimes and I can't imagine the pain the families must have gone through.  It is hard to imagine that people in a professional manner would commit such grizzly crimes.

Charles Dickens visits Great Yarmouth

There have been many notable famous people visit Great Yarmouth over the years, but one of the most famous people who have visited here was Charles Dickens.  Charles Dickens lived from 1812 - 1870 and his books and stories have been made into films which are still loved today.

Charles Dickens visited Great Yarmouth twice in 1848 and 1849, staying in the Royal Hotel.   There is also a plaque dedicated to him at The Feathers in Gorleston, where he also visited.  He described the town as "The strangest place in the wide world."  Great Yarmouth is immortalized in his 8th novel, David Copperfield.  This is a semi-autobiographical book.  In the book David Copperfield was born in Blundeston in Suffolk.  In the book he talks about the smell of the fish.  The herring fishing industry was thriving at the time.  It is believed that Dickens saw an over turned boat on the Denes.  In David Copperfield an upturned boat is used as a home.

Charles Dickens

There are also several streets and roads which are dedicated to Charles Dickens:-

• Barkis Road - A Dickens character
• Copperfield Avenue - A Dickens character
• Dickens Avenue - Charles Dickens
• Micauber Avenue - A Dickens character
• Peggoty Road - A Dickens charcter.

In the nineteenth century Great Yarmouth would have looked very different.

As you can see from this picture, this is the Quay and town hall in the distance.  Charles Dickens would have seen a very different Great Yarmouth to the one we know today.  Although he found it a strange place, he still evidently made an impact on the town with David Copperfield.

Great Yarmouth Fishing Industry.

Great Yarmouth is steeped in history and by walking around the town you will see remnants of its history from the old Roman walls and the buildings.  As you walk along the Quayside, little remains of the fishing industry, but it was once a thriving, bustling place that was alive with people lined along the Quay cutting and gutting the herring that came into the port.

The Fisher Girls

The herring fishing trade had reached its peak in 1930.  It was said that you could walk walk from one side of the river to the other as there were that many boats in dock.  Although there were men and women come to Gt Yarmouth from all over the Country, they mainly came from Scotland.  The men would go out on the Drifters to fish, and the women would stand by the Quayside gutting fish, very similar to this picture.  This was extremely hard work, especially in the winter months when it was cold, as you can only imagine.  The fishing industry, however, can be dated back as far back to the 10th Century when Great Yarmouth was known as a fishing settlement.  In the early part of the 20th Century the average catch was around 530 million fish.  That's extrodinary, isn't it?  With new rules and regulations coming into force preventing the fishermen from fishing, the industry died.

Lydia Eva

The Lydia Eva is the last surviving steam powered herring drifter.  This is now docked in Great Yarmouth and is a free to enter museum depicting the life of the fishing industry and how the men would fish on a daily basis.  The ship isn't that large and from visitng this, you can get an idea of life was on board.  This drifter was built in Kings Lynn and was in use as a fishing drifer for 9 years when it was sold at the end of 1938.

Lydia Eva

The fishermen usually fished at night.  The reason for this was because the fish tended to rise to the top of the ocean at night.  They would throw the nets out and drag the fish in this way.

  

The Fishermen

From this picture, you can get an idea of what life was like on a drifter.  The nets would be thrown in to the sea vertically.  Once their nets were full the ships would make their way back to the dock slowly as to keep the nets in a straight line.

Life was definitely hard for both the men and the women back then.  But it was certainly a very enriching and rewarding era for the town .  

The Lydia Eva

Time & Tide Museum