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Great Yarmouth Minster
Regent Road
Great Yarmouth (Gernemwa, Yernemuth) lies near the site of the Roman fort camp of Gariannonum at the mouth of the River Yare. Its situation having attracted fishermen from the Cinque Ports, a permanent settlement was made, and the town numbered 70 burgesses before the Norman Conquest. Henry I placed it under the rule of a reeve.
In 1101, the Church of St Nicholas was founded by Herbert de Losinga, the first Bishop of Norwich, and consecrated in 1119. This was to be the first of several priories founded in what was a wealthy trading centre of considerable importance. In 1208, King John granted a charter to Great Yarmouth. The charter gave his burgesses of Yarmouth general liberties according to the customs of Oxford, a gild merchant and weekly hustings, amplified by several later charters asserting the rights of the borough against Little Yarmouth and Gorleston. The town is bound to send to the sheriffs of Norwich every year "one hundred herrings, baked in twenty-four pasties", which the sheriffs are to deliver to the lord of the manor of East Carlton, who is then to convey them to the King.
A hospital was founded in Great Yarmouth during the reign of Edward I by Thomas Fastolfe, father of Thomas Fastolf, Bishop of St David's. In 1551, a grammar school was founded, and the great hall of the old hospital was appropriated for its use. The school was closed from 1757 to 1860 but re-established by charity trustees and settled in new buildings in 1872.
The 41-metre-tall (135 ft) Britannia Monument, built in 1817
Yarmouth Jetty by John Constable, 1822
In 1552, Edward VI granted a charter of admiralty jurisdiction, later confirmed and extended by James I. Elizabeth I came to Great Yarmouth in July 1578. In 1668 a charter from Charles II extended the borough boundaries to also include Little Yarmouth (also known as Southtown), which lay on the opposite bank of the Yare in the parish of Gorleston in Suffolk. In 1703 a new charter from Queen Anne replaced the two bailiffs by a mayor. In 1673, during the Third Anglo-Dutch War, the Zealand Expedition was assembled in the town. In 1702, the Fishermen's Hospital was founded. In the early 18th century, Yarmouth, as a thriving herring port, was vividly and admiringly described several times in Daniel Defoe's travel journals, in part as follows:
Yarmouth is an ancient town, much older than Norwich; and at present, tho' not standing on so much ground, yet better built; much more compleat; for number of inhabitants, not much inferior; and for wealth, trade, and advantage of its situation, infinitely superior to Norwich.
It is plac'd on a peninsula between the River Yare and the sea; the two last lying parallel to one another, and the town in the middle: The river lies on the west-side of the town, and being grown very large and deep, by a conflux of all the rivers on this side of the county, forms the haven; and the town facing to the west also, and open to the river, makes the finest key in England, if not in Europe, not inferior even to that of Marseille itself.
The ships ride here so close, and as it were, keeping up one another, with their head-fasts on shore, that for half a mile [800 m] together, they go cross the stream with their bolsprits over the land, their bowes, or heads, touching the very wharf; so that one may walk from ship to ship as on a floating bridge, all along by the shore-side: The key reaching from the drawbridge almost to the south-gate, is so spacious and wide, that in some places 'tis near one hundred yards from the houses to the wharf. In this pleasant and agreeable range of houses are some very magnificent buildings, and among the rest, the custom-house and town-hall, and some merchants' houses, which look like little palaces, rather than the dwelling-houses of private men.
The greatest defect of this beautiful town, seems to be, that tho' it is very rich and encreasing in wealth and trade, and consequently in people, there is not room to enlarge the town by building; which would be certainly done much more than it is, but that the river on the land-side prescribes them, except at the north end without the gate....
Going to Sea, Yarmouth, Norfolk, England, 1883, by Oswald W. Brierly
In 1797, during the French Revolutionary Wars, the town was the main supply base for the North Sea Fleet. The fleet collected at the Yarmouth Roads, from whence it sailed to the decisive Battle of Camperdown against the Dutch fleet. In 1803, Captain George Manby was appointed barrack-master at Great Yarmouth; during his time in post he invented the Manby mortar.
Again in 1807, during the Napoleonic Wars, the collected fleet sailed from the roadstead to the Battle of Copenhagen.
From 1808 to 1814, the Admiralty in London could communicate with its ships in Yarmouth by a shutter telegraph chain. Ships were routinely anchored offshore during the Napoleonic Wars and the town served as a supply base for the Royal Navy. Part of an Ordnance Yard survives from this period on Southtown Road, probably designed by James Wyatt: a pair of roadside lodges (which originally housed senior officers) frame the entrance to the site, which contains a sizeable armoury of 1806, a small barracks block and other ancillary buildings. Originally the depot extended down to a wharf on the River Yare and was flanked by a pair of storehouses, but these and other buildings were destroyed in The Blitz.
The former Royal Naval Hospital, now converted into flats
A grander survival is the former Royal Naval Hospital designed by William Pilkington, begun in 1806 and opened in 1811. The hospital consisted of four two-storey pavilions set around a courtyard, with a colonnaded walkway linking them; each block contained eight wards. It served only briefly as a naval hospital, during the last years of the Napoleonic Wars, before being handed over to the Army for use as barracks. In the early 1860s, however, it reverted to medical use, being reopened as a naval psychiatric hospital. It continued to serve in this capacity until 1958, when the premises were transferred to the NHS. After its closure in 1993, the buildings were turned into private residences.
The town was the site of a bridge disaster and drowning tragedy on 2 May 1845, when the Yarmouth suspension bridge, crowded with children, collapsed under the weight, killing 79. They had gathered to watch a clown in a barrel being pulled by geese down the river. As he passed under the bridge, the weight shifted, causing the chains on the south side to snap, tipping over the bridge deck.
Great Yarmouth had an electric tramway system from 1902 to 1933. From the 1880s until the First World War, the town was a regular destination for Bass Excursions, when fifteen trains would take 8,000–9,000 employees of Bass's Burton brewery on an annual trip to the seaside.
During World War I, Great Yarmouth was attacked by the Germans several times. The first occasion was on 3 November 1914 when the town was subject to a brief bombardment. The town experienced the first air raid on England, carried out by the German Imperial Navy's Zeppelin L 3 (LZ 24) on 19 January 1915. Later that year, on 15 August, Ernest Martin Jehan became the first—and only—person to sink a steel submarine while commanding a sail-rigged Q-ship, off the coast of Great Yarmouth. Although he led a crew, the feat is credited to him as the commanding officer. The town was bombarded again by the German Navy on 24 April 1916.
Wellington Pier in 1930
The town suffered from bombing raids by the German Luftwaffe during World War II, as the last significant place Germans could drop bombs before returning home, but much is left of the old town, including the original 2,000-metre (1.2 mi) protective medieval wall, of which two-thirds has survived, and eleven of the eighteen towers remain. On the South Quay is a 17th-century Merchant's House, as well as Tudor, Georgian and Victorian buildings. Behind South Quay is a maze of alleys and lanes known as "The Rows". Originally, there were 145. Despite war damage, several have remained.
The town was badly affected by the North Sea flood of 1953. More recent flooding has also been a problem, with four floods in 2006, the worst being in September. Torrential rain caused drains to block and an Anglian Water pumping station to break down, which caused flash flooding in which 90 properties were flooded up to 5 ft (1.5 m).
On 1 April 1974, the civil parish of Great Yarmouth was abolished.
The southern section of the 2 mi (3.2 km) A47 Great Yarmouth Western Bypass opened in May 1985, with the northern section opened in March 1986. The bypass was re-numbered as part of the A12, until it returned to being part of the A47 in February 2017.
In February 2023, there was an explosion on River Yare when disposal of unexploded ordnance from World War II resulted in accidental detonation.
