Lowestoft

Lowestoft, a municipal borough and seaport on the Suffolk coast, 118 miles NE. of London by rail, and 49 from Ipswich, has of late years rapidly grown in favour as a watering-place, its healthfulness and the picturesqueness of its neighbourhood, combined with its easy means of access to the Broads (q.v.), all tending to its popularity. The older part of the town, which lies to the north, is built on a cliff facing the sea, on its summit being a lighthouse (1874) 123 feet above the sea-level, whilst at its base, on the Ness—the most easterly point of land in England—stands another lighthouse (1866). The modern part of the town, which has a fine esplanade 800 yards long, extends southwards into the parish of Kirkley, and is separated from the old town by the harbour, formed partly by two piers extending seawards 1300 feet, and partly by Lake Lothing, a piece of water stretching inland two miles: adjoining the harbour is a dock (1883) with a depth of water at low tide of 13½ feet, and extensive fish-markets (1865-83), the property of the Great Eastern Railway, who in 1887 conveyed inland from the port 26,935 tons of fish, principally herrings, mackerel, and soles. On the new South Pier is a splendid pavilion, opened in 1890. Other features of interest in the town include the parish church (of which Whiston, the mathe- matician, and Potter, the translator of Greek plays, were former vicars), 183 feet in length, and surmounted by a tower and spire 120 feet high, dating from the first half of the 14th century; town-hall (1857), noticeable for its stained-glass windows; hospital (1882), with accommodation for thirty in-patients; and Bellevue Park (1874), not far from which was found the clay formerly used in making Lowestoft china. The principal incidents in the history of the town have been visitations of the plague in 1349, 1547, 1579, and 1603, on the last occasion the disorder raging with such fury that 280 persons died within five months and 316 in the year; its occupation in 1643 by Cromwell, who entered the town at the head of 1000 troopers, and, seizing several royalists, sent them prisoners to Cambridge; its partial destruction by fire in 1644; a great naval engagement, which took place off the coast on the 3d June 1665, when the Dutch were defeated with loss of eighteen ships; and the landing of George II. on his return from Hanover, 14th June 1736. Pop., including that of Kirkley, (1801) 2509; (1841) 5304; (1891) 19,150. See works by Gillingwater (1790) and Nall (1866).