James Woodforde and Yarmouth

Woodforde's third visit, 1778

The Bridge Inn, Lenwade, c.1905, although probably little changed from when Woodforde commenced his journey to Yarmouth [Private collection]Although James Woodforde spent the second half of his life in Norfolk, he continued to think of himself as a Somerset man, the county of his birth and upbringing. While his health permitted he made regular visits to his family in Somerset and welcomed them when they stayed with him at Weston parsonage.

The Spring months of 1778 were a busy family time for him. William Woodforde (Nephew Bill) remained at the parsonage seeking direction to his life. In late April his cousin James Lewis turned up at Weston like the proverbial bad penny, 'from Nottinghamshire & on foot and only a Dog (by name Careless) with him – He was most miserably clothed indeed in every respect', but Woodforde made him welcome nevertheless. Perhaps, though, 'bad penny' is an unfair characterisation of someone who led an eccentric rather than a reprehensible life. Before he left, on foot again, Woodforde gave him a guinea (21 shillings).

Cousin Lewis's stay briefly overlapped that of Woodforde's youngest (although six years his senior) and favourite sister Jane, whom he called Jenny or Sister Pounsett.

Jenny hadn't married until she was forty, but then to John Pounsett, a modestly affluent Somerset farmer. On 16 May 1778 the diary records, 'about 7. o'clock this Evening who should arrive at my House in a Post-Chaise & Pair – but Mr Pounsett and and my Sister Pounsett'. He knew thay were coming, but wasn't certain when they would arrive. They stayed for eight weeks and Woodforde did his best to entertain them, including a visit to Yarmouth.

Travelling by post chaise

In the evening of Tuesday 2 June Woodforde, Sister Pounsett, Mr Pounsett, and Nephew Bill, accompanied by Will Coleman, Woodforde's manservant, set off for Yarmouth. They spent the night at the King's Head at Norwich.

The diary doesn't specify whether their transport to Yarmouth was a post chaise and pair (of horses) or a post chaise and four (horses). It is likely, however, that it was a post chaise and pair – no doubt similar to the chaise and pair which Mr Pounsett had rather extravagantly hired to bring himself and his wife the 110 miles from London to Weston.

They usually carried two passengers; but three at a squeeze, as the diary confirms. Woodforde records how, fifteen years earlier, he, his parents and his sister Jenny had set off from Ansford (Somerset) – where his father was rector – for the town of Sherborne some 15 miles distant. The purpose of the excursion was to purchase a gravestone for Woodforde's great uncle Robert Woodforde who had died the previous year.

Here was a precedent for the current journey to Yarmouth: three passengers – Woodforde, his sister Jenny, and Mr Pounsett – in the post chaise, and Nephew Bill on horseback. Happily for Bill the weather was 'fair & fine'. The diary isn't specific about Will, but he probably rode too, as he did on the return journey.

As shown in the image below, it was usual for the horses to be directed by a postillion or post-boy mounted on one of the horses rather than seated on the chaise itself. This had the advantage for the passengers that their view forward was unobscured.

They made a stop at Acle, which was 13 miles from Norwich, where the ostler at the Queen's Head would have harnessed fresh horses to the chaise, and possibly the post boy would have been changed, all while Woodforde's party enjoyed some refreshment before continuing their journey to Yarmouth, a further 12 miles.

'Post chaise' in present-day nomenclature is a misnomer; post chaises didn't carry letters. The terms 'travelling post' and 'travelling stage' referred to an organised system of long-distance travel in 'stages' between 'posts' along prescribed routes. A stage was usually between eight and 15 miles in length depending upon the quality of the road. The inns at which the horses were changed and passengers refreshed were known as 'posting inns', although many were grander than the name implies and later became hotels.

Woodforde's journey to Yarmouth was between the King's Head, a 'posting inn' at the Market Place in Norwich, along a 'stage' to the Queen's Head, a 'posting inn' at Acle, then another 'stage' to The Wrestlers, a 'posting inn' at Church Square in Yarmouth.

Post chaises could also be privately hired from the larger posting or coaching inns. It was probably a private chaise from the King's Head which conveyed Woodforde and his guests to Yarmouth from Norwich. The previous day, the 'Lenewade Bridge Chaise' in which they travelled from Weston would have been hired from those available at the Lenwade Bridge Inn.

Woodforde records his daily expediture in the diary. The journey from Weston via Norwich to Yarmouth cost him three shillings and six pence paid to the chaise drivers, and one shilling in turnpike tolls. Their refreshment at Acle amounted to three shillings.

There is however a possibility that Woodforde and his party travelled in Job Smith's 'flying post coach on steel springs'. Job Smith was the owner of the Wrestlers and intoduced the post coach, with six inside seats, in 1764, to encourage visitors from Norwich. John Orton, who Woodforde mentions keeping 'a very good house', was a tenant until 1783 when he was declared bankrupt and the inn returned to the keeping of Job Smith who subsequently sold it. Whether the 'flying post coach' was operating in 1776 and whether Woodforde travelled in it we cannot be certain.

Another visit to the Harbour Fort

The Harbour Fort, Yarmouth, J.M.W. Turner, c.1825, engraved by W. Miller, 1829 [Private collection]Woodforde appeared enchanted with the Denes (the Yarmouth beach and dunes) and the Harbour Fort; he had either walked or been driven there in a Yarmouth Coach on both of his previous visits.

Woodforde was certainly aware that Great Britain was on a war footing; he himself had subscribed a modest five Guineas at a 'Meeting of the Nobility, Clergy &c.' at the Maid's Head in Norwich on 28 January that year. As reported in the Norfolk Chronicle on 14 February, the meeting resolved:

Indeed, as a regular reader of the Norwich and Ipswich newspapers he may have seen a report in the weekly Norfolk Chronicle on Saturday 23 May:

In that same issue appeared a report, which was perhaps just unconfirmed tittle-tattle, but which nevertheless added to the sense of matters afoot:

The threat of invasion led to the fort being strengthened and the area at the entrance to the haven enclosed during the years following Woodforde's visit, as the 1782 Map of the encampments near Yarmouth . . . for the defence of the coast in the Royal Collection shows. A star fort, the South Star Battery, was built on the Denes in 1781 which, together with another known as the North Star Battery, was thought to offer artillery cover over Yarmouth Roads, the offshore anchorage. Furthermore, four regiments (the Cambridgeshire Militia, the 10th Foot, the 20th Light Dragoons, and the West Norfolk) were encamped within a few miles of the port.

Detail from a Map of (Military) Encampments near Yarmouth, drawn by Captain Dan. Paterson, 1782 [Royal Collection Trust / © His Majesty King Charles III 2022]The fort was built either in 1648 or 1653 in anticipation of attack during the First Anglo-Dutch War (1652–54). The attack never materialised; the war was fought exclusively at sea and the fort didn't witness any significant action.

The Dutch had maintained neutrality during the Seven Years War (1756-1763), but when their merchants' lucrative trade with America was disrupted by British interference after 1776 – blockading ports, and searching and seizing ships suspected of supplying war materiel to the rebel colonies – relations with Britain deteriorated. This time, frustrated by its neutrality, Britain declared war on the Dutch Republic in 1780, thereby abruptly severing nearly a hundred years of friendship and alliance between the two countries.

Consequently, Yarmouth, across the North Sea from the Netherlands, found itself once again at war with its erstwhile friend and trading partner, and its short-term prosperity suffered accordingly. The Fourth Anglo-Dutch War (1780–84), as it became known, involved only one naval engagement in the North Sea – the Battle of Dogger Bank, 5 August 1781 – and Yarmouth's defences were not put to the test. Which was probably fortunate for Yarmouth, as it is questionable whether the Harbour Fort or indeed any of the gun batteries would have been effective in opposing a determined invasion.

In spite of the ongoing drama, Old James Johnson was still master gunner there and as Woodforde records, 'was very civil indeed to us as well as his Wife'. They spent some hours at the fort and didn't return to the Wrestlers until 8 pm.

The King's birthday

King George III as military commander, Benjamin West, 1779 [© Royal Collection Enterprises Limited 2024 / Royal Collection Trust]King George III was born 4 June 1738. Hence, the celebrations in Yarmouth were for his fortieth birthday in the eighteenth year of his reign.

In the circustances in which Britain found itself – at war with its American colonies which had declared independence from the Crown on 4 July 1776, and with France which had signed a Treaty of Alliance with revolutionary America on 6 February that same year – there was perhaps a more than usually patriotic tinge to the birthday celebrations.

Woodforde had spent the early morning shopping and sightseeing with his family. He records that:

Later that morning Woodforde returned to the Fort with his sister in a Yarmouth Coach, while Mr Pounsett and Bill walked there. His friendliness towards James Johnson was rewarded when the cannon were fired in honour of the King. It was reported in 1757 that there were ten 6-pounder and five 24-pounder guns there:

Mr Pounsett and Jenny had taken a walk from the noise of the firing, but Woodforde, Nephew Bill, and Will Coleman remained there until all the cannon had been fired in honour of the King's birthday.

The county militias

The county militias had a long history but had declined in significance until the threat of a French invasion during the Seven Years War caused them to be reorganised by the Militia Acts of 1757. However, it was the Declaration of Independence by the American colonies and their subsequent alliance with France that caused the Cambridgeshire Militia to be embodied in 1778. It assembled at Cambridge in April, was reviewed in May, and marched to Yarmouth where Woodforde saw them exercising in June.

Britain and America had been effectively at war for some time. The Royal Proclamation declaring elements of the American colonies to be in a state of open rebellion was issued on 23 August 1775. The United States' Declaration of Independence was dated 4 July 1776. The diary seldom ventures into international affairs, and the only specific reference to the war with America is found in two entries:

A Proclamation for a General Fast in England and Wales had been made in the name of the King. Two days previously, 11 December 1776, on the recommendation to the states of the Second Continental Congress at Phildadelphia, a Day of solemn Fasting and Humiliation, was also held in America.

Woodforde would have read A FORM of PRAYER to be used In all Churches and Chapels throughout . . . Great Britain . . . upon Friday the Thirteenth of December next. The diary doesn't record that he preached a sermon on the occasion, but a number have survived. Searching for A Sermon on the General Fast, Friday, December 13, 1776 at the Internet Archive will locate eight which are accessible to be read online or downloaded, ranging from a country curate's to one addressed to the House of Lords assembled in Westminster Abbey.

The two battalions of Norfolk Militia were also mobilised in April 1778, with the West Norfolks due to be encamped on Mousehold Heath on the north-eastern perimeter of Norwich. On 9 June, Woodforde, having returned from Yarmouth, rode to Norwich accompanied by his manservant Will Coleman, leaving Mr Pounsett, Sister Jenny and Nephew Bill at Weston parsonage. Of the Cambridgeshire Militia which he had encountered a few days earlier at Yarmouth he had little to say beyond that they were there and were exercising. However, his account of a riot in Norwich that very hot and thundery Tuesday evening leaves no doubt that the recently recruited West Norfolk Militia was in want of military discipline.

He was spending the night at the King's Head Hotel which lay close by the Castle Hill, and consequently,

However, all was calm by the following morning when Woodforde rose at 4 am anticipating another riot. Instead, he watched with the mob as the militia marched out of town.

The Market Place

Richard Beatniffe (The Norfolk Tour, sixth edition, 1808) offers a vivid description of Yarmouth's Market Place:

The west side of the Market Place, as evidenced from John Butcher's painting certainly had the most handsome frontages, including the Angel Inn (shown by the hanging sign) where Woodforde chose to stay during his subsequent visits to the town in 1779 and 1786. Faden's map reveals the east side to be occupied by a 'shambles', a term which refers to an open-air slaughterhouse and meat market, and by the workhouse. A survey of 1797 found the inmates of the workhouse to be, unsurprisingly in Yarmouth, employed in making nets for mackerel and other small sea fish.

The earliest record of the Market Cross is from 1385, but it was rebuilt on several occasions, finally being demolished in 1836. The cross depicted in Butcher's painting was erected in 1729 and would have been the one that Woodforde saw. At one time it was topped by a figure of Justice and probably resembled the Butter Cross at Bungay, some 20 miles from Yarmouth.

1778 was an important year in the development of Yarmouth as a summer resort. Woodforde would almost certainly have seen the Theatre Royal under construction to the south of the Market Place. He frequently attended performances at the Theatre Royal in Norwich, and he would perhaps have invited his party to join him at a play and entertainment in Yarmouth had the theatre been open. However, as one in Holy Orders, it would have been unseemly for him to patronise the other advertised pleasures of the town: the sea baths, the Assembly, and the card rooms.

He did however enjoy his visit to Boulters, which Woodforde calls Boultons, as the diary informs us:

Quakers and the World of Objects: The Acquisition and Maintenance of Daniel Boulter's Eighteenth-Century Museum in Great Yarmouth, written by Dr Sylvia Stevens of the Quaker Studies Research Association, is a fascinating account of what became Yarmouth's first museum. Today, Yarmouth's Time and Tide Museum, set in a restored herring curing works and close by the town wall, continues Boulter's tradition and much more.

As Dr Stevens informs us, Daniel Boulter described himself as a 'Dealer in Curious Books Antiquities and Natural Productions'. It was perhaps the experience of visiting his museum that set Woodforde searching for 'curious pebbles' on the beaches of Southwold, Lowestoft, and Yarmouth when he took 'a little Tour to the South East Coast of Norfolk' in April 1786. Among the antiquities in the Museum Boulterianum were Roman coins, as the diary records:

The twelve caesars remain a fascination for some collectors; and like Woodforde, few can 'spare the money' for original coins, having to be content with replicas which would not have been available in Woodforde's time.

The morning concluded with a visit to the Church of St Nicholas and its extensive churchyard under the town walls, but Woodforde records nothing further. He wasn't a sightseer. Nevertheless, 'Mr Pounsett & Jenny highly delighted with Yarmouth'.

Return to Weston

A Posting Inn, engraving and aquatint, 1787, Thomas Rowlandson (1757-1827) [PD image courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Object No. 59.533.249]On leaving Yarmouth after dinner Bill and Will rode while 'Mr Pounsett, Jenny & myself took the Norwich Coach'. The diary entry, 'For 5. Places in the Norwich Coach I paid – 0 : 12 : 9' should probably read, 'For 3. Places in the Norwich Coach I paid – 0 : 12 : 9' : which would mean that the cost person person was four shillings and three pence. This was the public stage coach service, not a privately hired post chaise.

As advertised in the Norfolk Chronicle, 2 May 1778, and according to the summer schedule, the YARMOUTH MACHINE 'sets out from the Wrestlers at Four o'Clock in the Afternoon, and returns to Norwich the same Day' [to the Black Horse at Tombland].

An aquatint entitled A Posting Inn by Thomas Rowlandson (1757-1827) shows what Woodforde would have referred to as his 'old little cart', alongside a post chaise and pair, and a stage coach.

At the Wrestlers Woodforde's paid, and gave (in gratuities), £1 : 9 : 2 (one pound, nine shillings, and tuppence), no doubt for accommodation for himself, Bill, and his servant Will, and presumably for stabling for the horses. He rather pointedly records that Mr Pounsett paid only £1 : 1 : 0 (one pound, one shilling – a guinea).

They got to Norwich 'by 8. in the Evening' and then 'we took a Chaise directly for Weston, and I thank God, got safe & well to Weston by 10. o'clock'. Excluding purchases of non-essential items, Woodforde spent £4 : 18 : 0 on the family excursion to Yarmouth. According to the Bank of England's inflation calculator, that equates with £660 in late 2024.

James Woodforde and Yarmouth

Yarmouth's literary associations

Woodforde's first visit in 1775

Woodforde's second visit in 1776