FRIARS LANE

In 1271, Henry III, gave the Blackfriars permission to take in a piece of ground five hundred feet square, called Le Stronde. The conventual buildings were finished in 1273, and in 1314, Edward II gave them permission to enlarge their property. Thomas Fastolfe, who had the keeping of the passage in the King's name, under Sir John De Bottetout, the Lord Admiral in 1295, was a principal benefactor. Correspondence to and from Thomas Fastolfe can be found in the Papal letters.

Skull found at Blackfriars site by Rye and Trett.

In the cellar of a house on the south side of Friars Lane, was seen built into the wall, a stone gargoyle, which no doubt came from the church of the Black Friars, as also did some corbels built into the face of the south west‑tower. There is a drawing of these opposite p. 429, P.P. vol 2.

About the year 1525 "the church and quere of the backfriars was burned with fire, and before the end of that century the walls were pulled down, and the very foundations digged up and dispersed to other uses." (Manship)

In the excavation of the Blackfriars Monastic Church site at Friars Lane.

Edmund Hercock, was the last Prior, and by him the convent was probably surrendered. In 1542 the whole site was granted by Henry VIII to Richard Andrews, who seems to have been a dealer in this description of property. In due course a more extensive portion of the precinct including the monastic gardens, were conveyed by Nicholas Mynne, to Roger Drury, the second son of William Drury of Bestford, by Dorothy his wife, daughter of William Brampton of Letton. Having taken up his residence in Yarmouth, he was made a Free Burgess, and elected Bailiff in 1584. He represented the town in Parliament in the memorable year of 1588, was again Bailiff in 1593, and died in 1599, buried at Rollesby. By his will he gave the Blackfriars (lands) to his second son, together with his lands at Rushmer, Mutford and Bradwell. Roger Drury the second son, who became possessed of the Blackfriars under his fathers will, granted in 1618, a lease to Hamon Claxton of Gray's Inn for the term of 1000 years, under which, the property, much divided, remained.

Mark Trett in the excavation (see also in Victoria Rd for Trett family)

At the north‑west corner of Friars Lane there was a fine old house, which early in the seventeenth century was purchased of William Browning, by John Robbins. He was of a Warwickshire family seated at Claverton, Stratford on Avon, and settled in Yarmouth as a merchant, where he acquired a considerable fortune. He entered the corporation, and took an active part in the municipal affairs. In 1626 he opposed Neve's scheme for changing the local form of government so often referred to. In 1634 he filled the office of Bailiff. By his will made in 1639, after bequeathing 5 pounds to the church, 5 pounds to the haven and 5 pounds to poor, he devised his Warwickshire property to his eldest son John Robbins, together with a brewery in Yarmouth, and bequeathed his Friars Lane house to his second son Robert Robbins. The latter pulled down the old house and built another, which had a cut‑flint front with stone dressings and dormer windows to the roof.

Here in 1655 Robert Robbins filled the office of Bailiff. He died in 1659. John Robbins his son, succeeded to the Friars Lane House, in which, while filling the Office of Bailiff in 1692, he had had the honour of receiving and entertaining William III, when his Majesty landed at Yarmouth on his return from one of his visits to Holland. Great preparations were made to receive the King, and Mr Palgrave went to Sir Thomas Allin at Somerleyton with a letter from the Bailiffs begging the loan of his coach and horses. The King upon landing was attended upon by the corporation in their robes of office, and conducted to Bailiff Robbins house. Colours (flags) were displayed, guns fired, and the militia raised. In due course, Robbins lost, spent or squandered the family fortune, and died in 1707, aged 64.

massive stone pillar from the monastery.

Early in the 18th.century, the house became the house and residence of Andrew Bracey, and in 1734 was conveyed via Charles Le Grice to Edmund Cobb, who in 1754 settled it upon his wife. Cobb died in 1787 leaving two daughters, Ann, the eldest, married William Hurry, and Mary, the youngest, married Thomas Ives. Early in the 19th century, this house was occupied by Admiral Lord Gardiner K.C.B., when in command of the North Sea Fleet, and here died on the 22nd. of March 1811. Charlotte, Lady Gardiner, his wife. It had been purchased in 1808 by Capt Parker R.N., afterwards Admiral Sir George Parker K.C.B., who after Lord Gardiner left Yarmouth, resided here for nearly 40 years, and then and for many years after, the ground in front was open down to the river.

In 1865 the house was purchased by the local board of health and partly demolished for the purpose of widening Friars Lane. On removing the white bricks by which it has been cased a fine old flint front was brought to light. The ornamental ironwork still remaining upon it. The undemolished part of the house was rebuilt and turned into a liquor shop called the Sceptre. The Sceptre public house, occupied before the second world war by the Greaves family, is further described under "South Quay". The next house fronting south stood within a paved court, having next to the street a row of trees. The greater part of the court was added to Friars lane. This house was, with many others surrounding, successively the property of families‑ Robins, Bracey, then Le Grice, and in 1734 was conveyed to Edmund Cobb. William Hurry resided here for many years and died at the house of his son in law Mr. Morris of Normanston, in 1807 aged 73. David Tolme who married one of the daughters of William Hurry purchased in 1808, and resided there until his death in 1825, aged 72.

Graves outside the Sceptre, 1930’s.

First into Friars lane from the Sceptre, on the north side were the fish houses that belonged to the Tuck family in 1930. Sutton's were the largest firm curing fish, but there were many smaller businesses, such as Tucks, some with only one small smoke house. Suttons had very large fish-houses to the south and there were huge expanses of ground used as barrel stores on which the youngsters used to climb and play.

Frederick Jarrad Tuck, the fish curer and exporter and his wife Elizabeth had two children. The eldest, May Alice was born at no.5 Shuckford's buildings on 28/9/1921, beside St.Nicholas Road, and the younger child, Ronnie, was born at Mariner's Road (7th.Oct.1925), where Fred had a fish shop. The other children in the family were Fred, a guardsman in London and Tom, who emigrated to Australia. The fish shop was disposed of when they moved to his premises on Friars Lane, and they lived in the house there beside the smoke house. Much of the fish was sent to Italy and Egypt. Elizabeth also worked in the fish-house, putting the herring onto the "speets" prior to curing. Fred's father, George William, had been a fish curer before him with premises at Middlemarket Lane. Occasionally the children would help assemble the wooden boxes from Porter's box factory. The fish when boxed up would be sent straight off from southtown station, with the labelling stencilled on the side. The fish when bought from the fishwharf would first be steeped in brine for some weeks before being cured. The steeps in the Friars Lane premises were built up above ground, of concrete. There were some four or five of them, and a very large quantity of fish could be stored for smoking in due course. The house at no. 5 Friars Lane, was between the Sceptre and the fish house. Further up the road on the corner of Middlegate, was a public house. The house at no. 5 was of three stories, quite symmetrical in appearance from the front, the door flanked on each side by a window, and with three windows on each floor above. The front door opened directly onto the street. There were six bedrooms, with two at the back facing the fish house. Two on each floor faced Friars Lane. On the ground floor the two main front rooms on either side of the hall likewise had a window out onto the road. At the back was a large kitchen (with range and gas cooker) that was very dark due to the fish-house behind. There was a back yard and a passage leading onto Friars Lane. Heating was by coal fire, and lighting was gas. There was no running water, except a cold tap in the kitchen. Visitors were taken in during the season. May joined the A.T.S., on a search-light unit, and then as a clerical worker in the war, posted to London and then Egypt. Fred and Elizabeth evacuated to Filby. In the walls of the house at no. 5, there was a lot of salt in the walls thought to have derived from brine getting into the ground from the steeps. One of the rooms in the house had been boarded to cover over the salt, but the nails rusted and showed through. The rooms had fine high ceilings. Elizabeth would let no-one into her kitchen at any time.

Smoking the herring

Fred had to work at night, rising from time to time to kick the fires together in the fish-house. There was a good stock of fish still in the steeps after the season had finished, so that when an order was received, say for a thousand boxes of herring there would be plenty of fish available to fulfil it. Fish would still be available in March, and perhaps only run out for a very short period in the summer. Fred also had a shop in the amusement arcade on Marine Parade, selling boxed fish to summer visitors. When business was brisk in the autumn there would be perhaps five staff working at the fish-house. One man would be responsible for taking the fish from the steep.

Another would wash them in a basket. The fish would then go through to the hanging-house where the women would put them onto the speets, after which a man would place the speets across poles called the "loves", hanging them across the smoke house, high above the ground. In a big smoke house there might be perhaps four fires. If "whites" were being produced, then there would be wood fires, but if the end product was to be the red herring, the sawdust was used all round the walls of the house. It was lit with fine wood dust - "shruff"- and with the saw-dust on top the fire to produce reds was kept in for two weeks or so. Nowadays red herrings are produced by dying them before smoking, but then they were produced by long slow smoking.

With several smoke houses being used the process was more or less continuous, as they moved from one house to another, filling one and then emptying another. Upstairs in part of the fish-house the boxes were kept, and it was possible to open and close shutters on the windows to regulate the air and smoke. These shutters were called "wickets". There were ropes running up to the top wickets over a pulley, so that the door or wicket could be raised or lowered according to the wind direction. To get up the smoke house and hang the speets was not easy. The loves were stout pieces of timber running from one wall to another, but these were positioned for the herring and not so as to make it any easier to climb up! The loves would hang all the way up to the top of the building, and were just the right distance apart to allow the speets to rest on them. Each speet would have 18 or 20 herring on it. One man would be standing on the loves at the top of the building, with another below and yet a third below him, so that the speets could be passed up from man to man. This was not without danger, and sometimes a man might slip or lose his balance, and be badly injured or even killed by the fall. There were generally three levels of loves in these particular smoke houses, in which the top levels would be filled first, then working across the next level down, and so on. The fires when lit would need attention every two or three hours until the herring was fully smoked. The fire would be kicked together, being lit upon the ground, and more wood put on as necessary. The herring when smoked and ready to be packed way entirely dry, so the fires could not be too fierce or else the tails of the fish on the lowest speets might catch fire, so ruining the fish. Indeed with a small house the lower loves would not be stacked with fish at all.

Immediately beyond the Tuck's smoke houses, was a fish-house belonging to Mr.Beezor. Robert Beezor however dealt with fresh herring that were packed in ice and sent by rail, or sold on a market stall. Past Middlegate on the same side of the road was yet another fish-house, the Scottish curer's (H.Inkson). Stimpson's was a general shop including grocery. A bootmaker, William Algar, was to be found on the corner of King Street. On the south side of Friars Lane was a cheap and very quick hairdresser, Mr.William Dyball. George and Harry Porter from no. 8 worked in Tuck's fish-house.