James Woodforde and Yarmouth
Woodforde's first visit, 1775
Approaching the North Gate, Yarmouth, from the Norwich road, showing the tower of St Nicholas's church after losing its original spire and its four tower pinnacles, engraving by J. Grag after a drawing by W. Brand, 1807 [Private collection]Woodforde and his friend Washbourne Cooke set off from Oxford on 10 April 1775 to view Woodforde's new parish of Weston Longville, nine miles north-west of Norwich. The journey via London took three days, and when they arrived at 10 o'clock in the evening they found the Norwich city gates locked. On 27 April Woodforde, with Cooke, made his first excursion to Yarmouth having been to the theatre at Norwich the previous evening and lodged at the King's Head.
We got up pretty early this morning and at 7 o'clock we got into the Yarmouth Coach to go to Yarmouth about 22 Miles from Norwich - We breakfasted on the road - and got to Yarmouth about 4 o'clock - where we dined & spent the afternoon at the sign of the Wrestlers kept by one Orton, near to the Market Place.
Having chronicled the towns through which he passed between London and Norwich, Woodforde frustratingly records nothing of his journey from Norwich to Yarmouth. What is fairly certain is that they entered Yarmouth through the North Gate.
The wall and gates
The North Gate no longer stands; it was demolished in 1807. Between 1776 and 1812 all ten gates in Yarmouth's town wall were pulled down. However, sections of the wall remain. It was in the year 1260 that King Henry II granted a licence to the burgesses of Yarmouth . . .
to enclose the town with a wall and foss [moat] as long as the said burgesses towards us and our heirs shall well and faithfully behave themselves.
The North West Tower, Yarmouth, engraving by John Sell Cotman, 1818 [Private collection]In the absence of stone the walls were built largely of local flint and mortar. The towers were made circular or 'D'-shaped to avoid having to use stone to reinforce square corners.
Building work commenced in 1276 (or 1285) but ceased during the Black Death. Yarmouth was badly hit: it is estimated that 7000 pople died out of a total population of 10,000 in 1348. The North Gate is thought to have been built out of the profits made by the undertakers.
More than 23 feet (7 metres) high and 2280 yards (2.1 kilometres) long, with ten gates and 16 towers, the wall wasn't completed until around the year 1400. The wall is not a full circuit. It encloses the town on three sides, with the river Yare being the defence on the west side.
On approaching the North Gate Woodforde and Cooke could not have been unaware of the North West Tower, drawn by the Norwich School artist John Sell Cotman in 1818 and still standing, rather detached from its section of wall, on the North Quay.
After taking a coach along the shore and visiting the fort Woodforde and Cooke returned to the town.
The Church of St Nicholas
Overnight on 24–25 June 1942 more than 1500 German bombs were dropped on Great Yarmouth, virtually destroying the historic church of St Nicholas. The church was begun by Herbert de Losinga, Bishop of Norwich, and consecrated in 1119. Bishop Losinga was also responsible for the foundation of Norwich Cathedral. The stone from Caen in Normandy used for the cathedral was landed at Yarmouth and some of it was used in the early St Nicholas church.
Woodforde's diary doesn't offer any observations of the church. It was in a semi-ruinous state at the time of his visit. If, however, had he looked north-west from his vantage point outside the Wrestlers he would have observed that the 186 feet (57 metre) high wooden spire of the church was twisted – the result of being struck by lightning in 1683. It was taken down in 1803, but the spire was an important landmark for mariners making passage along Norfolk's treacherous coastline and a new but shorter spire was built in 1807.
Navigation landmarks on the Norfolk coast, showing Gorleston Church and the spire of St Nicholas' Church, Yarmouth, The English Pilot, 1752 [David Rumsey Map Collection through the Internet Archive]Restorations were carried out in Victorian times, and the bombed-out church was rebuilt within the surviving walls from 1957 by Stephen Dykes Bower in what Nikolaus Pevsner disparagingly refers to as 'imitation-Gothic'. It remains the largest parish church in England, but without its former spire.
Woodforde does, however, mention admiringly the organ and the organist at St Nicholas's.
27 April 1775 . . . we went to the Church & saw that, and heard I think the finest Organ I ever did hear. The Organist, Mr. Chicheley stone blind played on it.
Henry Richard Chicheley who was blind from birth, was appointed organist of St Nicholas' Church, Yarmouth on 6 March 1762. He married Elizabeth Gallant of Aylsham in 1766 and had a large family.
In addition to the £40 per annum he was paid as organist he also had a small business as a book-seller, stationer, and music-seller, including the sale of patent medicines, in the Market Place close by the Angel Inn. He would have been aged 35 when Woodforde listened to his playing. He remained at Yarmouth until 1788.
William Faden's Plan of Great Yarmouth, 1797 [Larks Press Edition, 1989, courtesy of David Yaxley]1 North Gate, 2 North West Tower, 3 Wrestlers Inn, 4 Church of St Nicholas
The Church of St Nicholas, Yarmouth, 1824 (viewed from the south-west), engraving by H. Le Ceuc after a drawing by J.P. Neale [Private collection]The Church of St Nicholas had had an organ since 1485, but it was not until 1733 that the organ that was ripped out in 1650 in the fervour of puritanism was replaced. Great Yarmouth is fortunate in having preserved its 'Assembly Books', which are substantially the minutes of the meetings of the Corporation or Assembly. In 1732 the Assembly established an Organ Committee to consider providing two organs for the borough, one at St Nicholas's Parish Church, the other at St George's Chapel. The committee reported that:
Mr Ferrier (foreman of the said committee) who is now at London hath recommended to the committee Mr Abraham Jordan one of the most eminent organ builders in the kingdom to make the organs for both church and chapel
The cost of the St Nicholas organ was £500, the bulk of the funds being raised by public subscription. The Norwich Gazette of 8 December 1733 announced:
The interior of St Nicholas's Church, ILN, 2 September 1848 [Private collection)]
On Thursday the 20th instant, the fine Organ at the Great Church in Yarmouth, made by Messrs Jordan and Harris and approved of by most Judges of Musick in London as a Masterpiece, will be opened with great solemnity, there being a sermon on the occasion, likewise Mr Purcell's grand Te Deum and Jubilate, will be performed by several voices and instruments.
The organ was reconstructed periodically, and there is no known image of its appearance in Woodforde's day, but it can be glimpsed – although elaborated in external ornamentation – in a drawing for the Illustrated London News in 1848 marking the restoration of the church.
One of the finest surviving organs made by Jacob Abraham is now in St George's Church, Southall, Middlesex, having originally been installed at the church of St George, Botolph Lane in the City of London.
Following the destruction of 1942, the rebuilt St Nicholas Minster acquired a Compton organ in 1960, seen here.
The Wrestlers Inn
Notice of a celebration at the Wrestlers, 25 January 1758, Norwich Mercury 28 January 1758 [Private collection]
The Wrestlers was the pre-eminent hostlery in Yarmouth in 1775, and its distinction grew through its association with Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson who stayed there in 1802. It was a venue for celebration and lively conviviality as a report in the Norwich Mercury of a gathering there in 1758 in honour of King Frederick II (the Great) of Prussia, Britain's ally in the Seven Years War, amply demonstrates.
The name of the inn appears in different publications with a singlular possessive apostrophe, or a plural possessive apostrophe, and as a simple plural. However, Charles Palmer in his monumental The Perlustration of Great Yarmouth, 1874, when writing about the inn, records that:
Wrestling was a favorite game with the English from an early period, and down to the reign of George III. was considered a manly accomplishment among gentlemen. Hence this sign is to be found in many places. In the last century this Inn displayed a very-large sign of three wrestlers, nearly as large as life, two in action and one looking on; and hence it was frequently called The Three Wrestlers.
Job Smith's trade card for the Three Wrestlers [© The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 licence]
Part of the the Wrestlers Inn remaining on Church Plain, Great Yarmouth [photo Alan Ovenden 2024]A trade card for the Three Wrestlers in the name of Job Smith depicts the image of two wrestlers in action and one looking on as described by Palmer.
Job Smith purchased the premises in 1743 with John Orton the tenant until 1783. Whether this card was printed in the 1760s or the 1780s we cannot be sure, but it confirms the name as The Wrestlers.
Woodforde stayed there again in 1776 and 1778, but for his visit in 1779 he chose the Angel Inn in the Market Place. Perhaps the Wrestlers accommodation had deteriorated. Woodforde described as 'a very good house' in 1776, kept by one Orton. However the registers record that John Orton lost his tenancy in 1783 having been declared bankrupt.
Part of the building remains on Church Plain, but is now occupied by offices. Furthermore, the view to the church of St Nicholas may still be enjoyed much as Woodforde would have seen it, although admittedly across a busy road, and of course lacking the dramatic presence that the church spire, twisted or not, would have brought to the scene.
St Nicholas's church across Bank Plain from the Wrestlers [photo Alan Ovenden 2024]Yarmouth 'Coaches'
A Yarmouth 'coach', seen with two other carts, unhorsed, and adapted for transporting goods, watercolour (detail) by C.J.W. Winter [reproduced by A.W. Yallop 1905]
Yarmouth troll carts were unique to the town. They were used primarily for transporting goods, but during the summer months some were adapted for carrying passengers and became known as 'coaches', as Woodforde describes:
We each took a Yarmouth Coach Just big enough for one Person & drove down to the Fort, and so on upon the Sea Coast & close to the Sea the German Ocean, out of which I drank - We were close to the Sea & sometimes the Water came up to us . . . The Yarmouth Coaches are very droll things indeed the wheels very low & directly under the seat - The Shafts very clumsy & very long, & up in the Air - A very small matter will overturn them, being so very narrow, and not more than a foot from the Ground
The 1777, third, edition of The Norfolk Tour by Richard Beatniffe of Norwich connects a description of the Yarmouth 'coaches' with Woodforde's 'very droll things'.
A cart of singular construction, adapted to the narrowness of the rows of this place, and used in no other town in England, merits a short description . . . The length from the tip of the shafts, or strings, to the extreme of the seat is twelve feet, the breadth three feet and a half, the wheels being two feet nine inches high, are sometimes made of one sold piece of poplar or ash, five inches thick, without tire; but these are not so much used as formerly:they are now generally made with spokes and sellies, shod with tire . . . Over the wheels the seat is placed, upon which the company ride for pleasure, the driver, with a short whip, standing upon the cross staves of the cart, guides the horse with a rein . . . In Summer . . . a number of these carts, which the people of Yarmouth dignify by the name of coaches, painted red, green, or blue, are let out to company who visit the town, and chuse an excursion to the Fort, upon the Deanes, or into the country.
The Harbour Fort
The Mouth of the Yare (detail), George Vincent, 1821 [Towneley Hall Art Gallery & Museum]
Norfolk Heritage Explorer records as much detail of the harbour fort as is currently known from documentary evidence. In summary, the Harbour Fort was built in 1648 or 1663. It is shown on old maps as being a polygonal brick fort with ravelins, two half moon batteries, no ditch and brick crenellations. Inside the fort were barracks, a magazine and a storeroom. The building was generally kept in good repair and well armed. However, reports in 1741 state it was being enlarged and yet by 1746 it was leaking and local people were throwing stones down the air holes. It was dismantled in 1834 after a bastion was washed away.)
Whatever its state of repair, Richard Beatniffe nevertheless encouraged visitors to Yarmouth not to miss the Fort:
In excursions to the Fort, which is about two miles from the market-place, you are drove over the Deanes nearly all the way, from whence there is a most charming prospect of the Sea. For a company to have been at Yarmouth, and not to have rode in one of these carts, to the haven's mouth, the baths, and the whole length of the quay, is to lose perhaps the one of the greatest pleasure this town is able to offer.
Woodforde visited Yarmouth again in 1776, 1778, 1779, 1786, and 1790, and the Fort was a favourite destination which he enjoyed showing to family and friends.
The German Ocean
It is perhaps worth noting that Woodforde refers to the North Sea as the German Ocean. A survey of the maps shown in Raymond Frostick's, The Printed Maps of Norfolk 1574-1840 confirms that 'German Ocean' was normal catrographic nomenclature until the 1780s. It was the map maker John Cary (c.1754-1835) who seems to have led the change: in 1784 'German Ocean or North Sea', but in his New and Correct English Atlas of 1787 it becomes 'North Sea'. Willian Faden followed his lead in 1797, and so it has remained. However, 'German Ocean' remained current in general parlance and in literature until 1914.
Yarmouth's literary associations