Lowestoft
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Lowestoft | |
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| Population | 57,746 (2001 Census) |
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| OS grid reference | |
| District | Waveney |
| Shire county | Suffolk |
| Region | East |
| Constituent country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | LOWESTOFT |
| Postcode district | NR32 (north), NR33 (south) |
| Dial code | 01502 |
| Police | Suffolk |
| Fire | Suffolk |
| Ambulance | East of England |
| UK Parliament | Waveney |
| European Parliament | East of England |
| List of places: UK • England • Suffolk | |
Lowestoft (pronouned IPA: /loʊs tɔft, -tɒft, -təf/) is a town in Suffolk, East Anglia, England, lying between the eastern edge of The Broads National Park at Oulton Broad and the North Sea.
Nearby Lowestoft Ness is the most easterly point in the United Kingdom and is twinned with the French town of Plaisir (in Yvelines "département" and Île-de-France region) and was twinned with Katwijk in the Netherlands until that relationship ended in the 1990s.
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[edit] Geography
The town is divided in two by Lake Lothing, with the northern half being the commercial centre and the southern half being the holiday resort.
The town has two piers: to the south is the Claremont Pier and just over half a mile (1 km) to the north of that is the South Pier (so called because it is placed on the south side of the harbour and river mouth). In the early part of the 20th century, the Claremont Pier had a T-shaped pier head and was used as an embarkation point for the passenger steamships that operated between London to the south and Great Yarmouth to the north.
The seaward boundary of the harbour is a strip of land known as the Old Extension, or the North Extension. Over the last couple of decades the Extension has been the site of activity supporting the North Sea oil and gas industry; particularly the construction of rigs. For many years before that, for example in the 1960s, the Extension was unused by any industry, being derelict but showing signs of an earlier period of industrial activity in its old railway tracks and buildings.
Lowestoft railway station is centrally placed within the town, as well as also being within walking distance of the beach, providing services to Norwich along the Wherry Line and Ipswich on the East Suffolk Line. Some services also continue on through to London Liverpool Street along the main line from Ipswich. All services are operated by 'one'. There was also a direct link to Great Yarmouth's Southtown station, until it was closed in 1970 as a result of the Beeching Axe. That link included Lowestoft North station, the site of which is now occupied by Beeching Drive, located just to the east of the A12 opposite the Denes High School. Some of the original route to the west of the A12 has now been made into a non vehicular public right-of-way, after having been left unused and overgrown for many years.
[edit] History
The name is said to come from toft (a Viking word for "homestead"') and Loth or Lowe (a Viking male name). The town's name has been spelled variously: Lothnwistoft, Lestoffe, Laistoe, Loystoft, Laystoft. In the Domesday Book, Lowestoft is described as a small agricultural village of 20 families, or about 100 people. Rent for the land was paid to the landowner Hugh de Montfort in herrings.
In the Middle Ages, Lowestoft developed into a fishing port. Great Yarmouth saw Lowestoft as a rival and tried to push it out of the herring trade.
The rivalry has never completely gone away - in the English Civil War (1642 - 1651) Yarmouth took the side of Parliament and Lowestoft took the Royalist side, possibly so that co-operation would not be required. However this was not taken very seriously, as Lowestoft's defences consisted of a rope across the High Street and a single, unmanned, unloaded cannon.
In 1662 two old women, Rose Cullender and Amy Denny, lving in Lowestoft were accused of witchcraft by their neighbours. They were tried at the Assize held in Bury St. Edmunds by one of England's most eminent judges Sir Mathew Hale. The jury found them guilty on thirteen charges of using malevolent witchcraft and the Judge sentenced them to death. They were hanged at Bury St. Edmunds on 17th March 1662.[1]
In the 1665, the first battle of the Second Dutch War was the Battle of Lowestoft near the town.
During the 1790s, Lowestoft's fishing community established their own "Beach Village", living in upturned boats.
In the 19th century, the arrival of Sir Samuel Morton Peto brought about a huge change in Lowestoft's fortunes. Peto started by building a rail link between Lowestoft and Norwich, and links with other towns soon followed. He developed the harbour and provided mooring for 1,000 boats. This gave a boost to trade with the Continent. He also established Lowestoft as a flourishing seaside holiday resort.There is a road named after him in Lowestoft, called Peto Way, which does take you to Lowestoft's train station. During the Second World War the town was used as a navigation point by German bombers. As a result it was the most heavily bombed town per head of population in the UK. Old mines and bombs are still dredged up and have been hazardous to shipping.
Lowestoft has been subject to periodic flooding, the most memorable was in January 1953 when a North Sea swell driven by low pressure and a high tide swept away many of the older sea defences and deluged most of the southern town.
Until the mid 1960s fishing was Lowestoft's main industry. Fleets comprised drifters and trawlers, with the drifters primarily targeting herring while the trawlers caught cod, plaice, skate and haddock, etc. By the mid 1960s the catches were greatly diminishing, particularly the herring. Consequently the drifter fleet disappeared and many of the trawlers were adapted to work as service ships for the newly created North Sea oil rigs. A large fisheries research centre which is a part of Defra is still located in south Lowestoft, this is due to be relocated together with plush offices for Waveney District Councillors in an area presently occupied by eight businesses.
The Eastern Coach Works was another big employer and in the 1960s it was a regular occurrence to see a bare bus chassis being driven through the town to the coach works by a goggled driver. Installing the bus's superstructure, body work and seats was the job of Eastern Coach Works. Both double deck and single deck buses were built there and sent all over the country.
Brooke Marine and Richards shipbuilding companies who together employed over a thousand men also went out of business at about the same time.
Details of Lowestoft's recent history, in words and photographs, can be found in the many books written by Jack Rose and Malcolm R. White.
[edit] Lowestoft porcelain
During the second half of the 18th century, a factory in Crown Street produced soft-paste porcelain ware. Items still exist, and there are collections at the museum in Nicholas Everett Park, Oulton Broad, and at the Castle Museum, Norwich. The factory produced experimental wares in 1756 and first advertised their porcelain in 1760.
Lowestoft collectors divide the factory's products into three distinct periods, Early Lowestoft circa 1756 to 1761, Middle-Period circa 1761 to 1768 and Late-Period circa 1768 to the closure of the factory in 1799.
During the early period wares decorated with Chinese-inspired scenes (Chinoiserie) in underglaze blue were produced. This type of decoration continued throughut the life of the factory but scenes were gradually simplified. Overglaze colours were used from about 1765.
[edit] Lowestoft Air Festival
For two days each year, Lowestoft beach plays host to the Beach Air Festival. Starting in 1996, the event has gained in popularity over its 10 year duration and the 2005 show attracted a supposed 350,000 people over the two days.1 Stalls all along the seawall sell such items as 'genuine red arrows hamburgers' and 'RAF imitation gold bracelets'. One of the most infamous events in the show's history is the Harrier crash in 2002. The pilot flooded the engine and had to eject to safety, picking up a broken ankle in the process. However, future performances are under threat, as just £60,000 was raised in donations from the 400,000 spectators at the 2006 festival.
[edit] Wind turbine
A large wind turbine, built in December 2004, is located by the sea on the edge of town.
The Turbine is named ‘Gulliver’ this was picked from suggestions given by local residents in the local WDC publication The Lowestoft Journal.
The construction of the wind turbine began on Tuesday 7 December 2004 with a 108 m high crane lifting the 71 tonne Tower Lower Section. The 65 tonne Tower Middle Section, 46 tonne Tower Top Section, 83 tonne nacelle and 54 tonne, 92 m diameter Rotor Blade Assembly were erected on Friday 10 December 2004. The new turbine began generating electricity in January 2005 and has a generating capacity of up to 2.75 MW, although the original proposal was for an even bigger 3.2 MW turbine.
The hub height is 80 m (262 ft). The blade tip height is 126 m (413 ft). The nacelle assembly weighs 83 tonnes and is 11.2 m (37 ft) long, 3.3 m (11 ft) wide, 3.8 m (12.5 ft) high, making it the biggest wind turbine on mainland UK as of April 2005.
Each of the 3 blades weighs 10 tonnes and is 44.8 m (147 ft) long. The overall diameter of the rotor assembly is 92 m (301 ft). The blade tips slice through the air at about 150 miles per hour. The turbulence this generates accounts for the pulsating "whooshing" noise audible when you stand underneath. This sound, combined with the height, weight and dimensions, prompted the owners to conduct tests for "subsonic" sounds and vibrations after several people complained of feeling "nauseous" and suffering from "Ground level vertigo" when standing nearby.
[edit] Literary and artistic connections
Lowestoft has a number of literary and artistic connections.
In the 1840s, Charles Dickens came to stay with Sir Samuel Morton Peto. Lowestoft's Beach Village, along with Blundeston village, became the inspiration for David Copperfield.
The nineteenth century writer and traveller George Borrow lived in Oulton Broad for many years. Joseph Conrad came from his native Poland to live in Lowestoft in 1878. Edward Fitzgerald, the translator of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam, lived in Lowestoft. W.G. Sebald, who taught at the University of East Anglia and was tragically killed in 2001, wrote about Lowestoft in The Rings of Saturn.
The composer Benjamin Britten was born in Lowestoft in 1913. He lived on the seafront at 21 Kirkley Cliff Road until 1933.
The children's author and illustrator Michael Foreman was born in 1938, and spent his childhood years in Pakefield where his mother kept the grocers shop on Pakefield Triangle. He attended Pakefield Primary School, and played on Hilly Green - stories of which are recorded in his book War Boy. The grocer's shop has latterly been a fishmongers, although it is currently a charity shop.
The Television comedy writer Andrew Marshall, probably most famous for the BBC 1 situation comedy 2 Point 4 Children, also lived in Lowestoft and attended Pakefield Primary School.
Glam rock band, The Darkness was formed in Lowestoft but spent their formative years in London. Three of the four founder members were raised in Lowestoft. Justin Hawkins, Dan Hawkins and Ed Graham all attended Kirkley High School. Several of their songs are either about or make reference to the town: Black Shuck is a retelling of the famous local legend of the same name; Stuck In A Rut tells of the band's desire to 'escape' from the town, making reference to 'the Barnby Bends' and 'the Acle Straight', popular nicknames for local roads; and Hazel Eyes starts with the lyrics "I hail from the flatlands of East Anglia/In a town that once could boast prosperity."
Also, scenes from Coronation Street were filmed at a local hotel.
In 2006, Lowestoft's Kirkley High School was the subjected to the Gene Simmons experience when the Kiss bassist brought Rock School to the town.
British rap DJ and presenter of the BBC Radio 1 Rap Show, Tim Westwood was born 3 October 1957 in Lowestoft. He also presents the UK version of the MTV show Pimp My Ride.
[edit] Places of interest
- The Royal Naval Patrol Service Memorial, located in Belle Vue Park.
- The East Anglia Transport Museum is located in Carlton Colville a village to the west of the town, which has a collection of working Trams, Trolleybuses and a Miniature Railway, as well as various buses and other transport artifacts, many with local connections.
- Suffolk Wildlife Park is located to the south of the town. It concentrates on African animals and has amongst others, Cheetahs, Lions, Hippos, Rhinos and Giraffes. It is also home to the United Kingdom's only Aardvark.
- Pleasurewood Hills is located in the north of the town.
- Ness Point, the most easterly location in the British Isles, is located in the town close to the wind turbine.
- Oulton Broad, the most visited area of the broads by tourists, is located in the town. Motorboats are able to be hired to travel on the broads, however tours are also available. Powerboat racing also occurs every Thursday throughout the summer, hosting local boats and occasionally a round of a national or international championship throughout classes of powerboat.
- The Broads National Park is located near to the town and some of its walks are in Carlton Marshes located in Carlton Colville, a suburb of the town.
- Corton Nudist Beach is located in Corton in the northern suburbs of the town.
- The town is also well renowned for its beaches, three of which are the holders of blue flags.
[edit] Waveney Sunrise Scheme And Associated Works
Over the past few years £14m has been spent on the redevelopment of Lowestoft town centre, and an additional £30.8m has been paid for the construction of the South Lowestoft Relief Road (Opened 27th June 2006).The cost of providing third river crossing to alleviate the constant traffic jams was estimated at £20m .The main focus of the unpopular Sunrise scheme was to spend £14 million to completely overhaul the 1970s built town centre, providing new paving, lighting and trees, and to bring it up to modern standards by replacing the not very old existing paving, lighting and mature trees.
The Lowestoft Relief Road (that opened on June 27th 2006) was a £30m scheme that coincides with the sunrise scheme to alleviate traffic on the usually congested London Road South (formerly the A12). The road cuts through a corridor from the Bloodmoor roundabout in Pakefield, through to Horn Hill. The road then joins with the Lowestoft Bascule Bridge before continuing north to Great Yarmouth. The road itself is single carriageway with a 40mph speed limit, and is now classified as the A12.
[edit] Suburbs and surrounding villages
To the north of Lake Lothing:
- Gunton
- Normanston
- Oulton (not to be confused with Oulton Broad)
- Camps Heath
- Roman Hill
- St. Margaret's
To the south of the lake:
- Kirkley
- Pakefield
- Bloodmoor Hill
- Rosedale Park
- Carlton Colville
To the west of the lake:
Nearby villages to the north are:
Nearby villages to the south:
[edit] Famous people from Lowestoft
- Benjamin Britten
- Terry Butcher
- Chris Hardman a.k.a. Lil' Chris
- Justin Hawkins - Darkness band member
- Dan Hawkins - Darkness band member
- Ed Graham - Darkness band member
- Tim Westwood
- Karl Theobald
- Steve Smart - Kiss FM DJ
- Samuel Morton Peto
- Tom Crisp
- Ben Stebbings
- Michael Foreman
- Andrew Marshall - Television comedy writer
- Kevin Gook - Legend
