Transcribed from the 1897 Edward J. Lupson edition by DavidPrice, , using scans from the BritishLibrary.
WRITTEN FORVISITORS.
THE
ANCIENT ROWS
OF
GREAT YARMOUTH:
Their Names. Why soConstructed,
AND
What Visitors have written about them,
ALSO A DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF
YARMOUTH BEACH.
“And the Rows! them long bars of thegridiron,
That Dickens hev wrote on—so quare;
Them ere Rows are a great institution,
In the town at the mouth of the Yare.”
———:o———
Illustrated:
PRICE TWOPENCE.
———:o———
Yarmouth:
Edward J. Lupson, Church Plain.
ENTERED ATSTATIONERS’ HALL.
p. 3THE ROWSOF GREAT YARMOUTH.
The two most remarkable andnoteworthy features of the ancient Borough of Great Yarmouth,that remain unchanged to the present day, are the Parish Church,and the unique series of long, narrow passages, known by thegeneral name of Rows. The wonderful proportions andinteresting features of the renowned Church having been dulyexamined, these singularly confined thoroughfares next claim theattention of the intelligent visitor. On seeing them forthe first time, the query naturally arises in the mind, why werethey constructed in this peculiar manner, so opposed to allprevailing ideas? Thoughtful minds have ingeniouslysurmised sundry motives; but the preponderating belief isprobably the most correct one, viz., the builders’ desireto economise the limited area at their disposal within the wallsof the fortifications. In early times the population ofYarmouth grew apace; numbers of enterprising persons from variousplaces being attracted thither by the flourishing fishingoperations that were carried on here. Manship, in hisHistory of Yarmouth, states that within four hundred years fromthe time when “from a sand in the sea, by the deflection ofthe tides, Yarmouth grew dry and firm land, whereby it becamehabitable; the population grew to a great multitude, over whom,at the beginning of the Reign of Henry I., a Provost wasappointed.” It may be mentioned, by the way, that itwas in this reign the Parish Church of St. Nicholas wasbuilt. The population of Yarmouth, in the year 1348,numbered ten thousand. We can, therefore, withoutdifficulty, understand how valuable space would be in those earlytimes, and how general the desire to make the most of it.
p. 4It isinteresting to notice that Manship, who wrote in the year 1619,opined a very different reason for the circumscribed limits ofthe Rows. Whe