52°29N 1°45E, pop (2000e) 65 800. Port town and resort in Suffolk, E England, UK; on North Sea, 62 km/38 mi NE of Ipswich; Lowestoft Ness the most E point in England; railway; transport equipment, fishing and fish processing, radar and electrical equipment, yachting, tourism; Royal Naval Patrol Service Memorial.emorial.
Lowestoft is a town in Suffolk, East Anglia, England, lying between the eastern edge of The Broads National Park at Oulton Broad and the North Sea. Nearby Lowestoft Ness is the most easterly point in the United Kingdom and is twinned with the French town of Plaisir (in Yvelines "département" and Île-de-France region) and Katwijk in the Netherlands. The pronunciation is varied:
Lows-toft Loosetarft Low-stof Low-eh-stoft Law-storft Lowes-tof Low-es-tof Low-starftThere is no agreed correct pronunciation and it varies even amongst locals.
Geography
The town is divided in two by Lake Lothing, with the northern half being the commercial centre and the southern half being the holiday resort.
The town has two piers: to the south is the Claremont Pier and just over half a mile (1 km) to the north of that is the South Pier (so called because it is placed on the south side of the harbour and river mouth).
The seaward boundary of the harbour is a strip of land known as the Old Extension, or the North Extension.
Lowestoft railway station, which serves the town gives regular connections to Norwich and Ipswich. That link included Lowestoft North station, the site of which is now occupied by Beeching Drive, located just to the east of the A12 opposite the Denes High School.
History
The name is said to come from toft (a Viking word for "homestead"') and Loth or Lowe (a Viking male name). Over a period of three centuries, the original name of "Hloover's Toft" was contracted to "Lowestoft".
In the Domesday Book, Lowestoft is described as a small agricultural village of 20 families, or about 100 people.
In the Middle Ages, Lowestoft developed into a fishing port. Great Yarmouth saw Lowestoft as a rival and tried to push it out of the herring trade.
The rivalry has never completely gone away - in the English Civil War (1642 - 1651) Yarmouth took the side of Parliament and Lowestoft took the Royalist side, possibly so that co-operation would not be required. However this was not taken very seriously, as Lowestoft's defences consisted of a rope across the High Street and a single, unmanned, unloaded cannon.
In the 1665, the first battle of the Second Dutch War was the Battle of Lowestoft near the town.
During the 1790s, Lowestoft's fishing community established their own "Beach Village", living in upturned boats.
In the 19th century, the arrival of Sir Samuel Morton Peto brought about a huge change in Lowestoft's fortunes. Peto started by building a rail link between Lowestoft and Norwich, and links with other towns soon followed. He also established Lowestoft as a flourishing seaside holiday resort.
During the Second World War the town was used as a navigation point by German bombers.
Lowestoft has been subject to periodic flooding, the most memorable was in January 1953 when a North Sea swell driven by low pressure and a high tide swept away many of the older sea defences and deluged most of the southern town.
Until the mid 1960s fishing was Lowestoft's main industry. However, a large fisheries research centre which is a part of Defra is still located in south Lowestoft.
The Eastern Coach Works was another big employer and in the 1960s it was a regular occurrence to see a bare bus chassis being driven through the town to the coach works by a goggled driver.
Brooke Marine and Richards shipbuilding companies who together employed over a thousand men also went out of business at about the same time.
Details of Lowestoft's recent history, in words and photographs, can be found in the many books written by Jack Rose and Malcolm R.
Lowestoft porcelain
During the second half of the 18th century, a factory in Crown Street produced soft-paste porcelain ware.
Lowestoft collectors divide the factory's products into three distinct periods, Early Lowestoft circa 1756 to 1761, Middle-Period circa 1761 to 1768 and Late-Period circa 1768 to the closure of the factory in 1799.
During the early period wares decorated with Chinese-inspired scenes (Chinoiserie) in underglaze blue were produced.
Useful books: Early Lowestoft by Chris Spencer (christopherspen@aol.com)
Lowestoft Air Festival
For two days each year, Lowestoft beach plays host to the Beach Air Festival.
However, future performances are under threat, as just £60,000 was raised in donations from the 400,000 spectators at the 2006 festival, despite a recommended £1 donation fee.
Wind turbine
A large wind turbine, built in December 2004, is located by the sea on the edge of town.
The construction of the wind turbine began on Tuesday 7 December 2004 with a 108 m high crane lifting the 71 tonne Tower Lower Section.
The hub height is 80 m (262 ft).
Each of the 3 blades weighs 10 tonnes and is 44.8 m (147 ft) long.
A competition was held in 2005 by the 'Lowestoft Journal' newspaper to name it.
Literary and artistic connections
Lowestoft has a number of literary and artistic connections.
In the 1840s, Charles Dickens came to stay with Sir Samuel Morton Peto. Lowestoft's Beach Village became, along with Blundeston village, the inspiration for David Copperfield.
The nineteenth century writer and traveller George Borrow lived in Oulton Broad for many years. Joseph Conrad came to live in Lowestoft in 1878 from his native Poland. Edward Fitzgerald, the translator of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam, lived in Lowestoft. Sebald, who taught at the University of East Anglia and was tragically killed in 2001, wrote about Lowestoft in The Rings of Saturn.
The composer Benjamin Britten was born in Lowestoft in 1913.
Glam rock band, The Darkness was formed in Lowestoft but spent their formative years in London. Three of the four founder members were raised in Lowestoft. Stuck In A Rut tells of the band's desire to 'escape' from the town, making reference to 'the Barnby Bends' and 'the Acle Straight', popular nicknames for local roads; and Hazel Eyes starts with the lyrics "I hail from the flatlands of East Anglia/In a town that once could boast prosperity."
Also, scenes from Coronation Street were filmed at a local hotel.
In 2006, Lowestoft's Kirkley High School was subjected to the Gene Simmons experience when the KISS bassist brought Rock School to the town. The school itself (as well as the town in which it was filmed) was thoroughly misrepresented, showing only the oldest or less well maintained parts of the building, as well as focusing on the bad aspects of the school and virtually none of the positive parts. Despite this obvious misrepresentation of Lowestoft and Kirkley High School, the Channel 4 programme was a relative success.
Places of interest
The Royal Naval Patrol Service Memorial, located in Belle Vue Park. The East Anglia Transport Museum is located in Carlton Colville a suburb of the town, which has a collection of working Trams, Trolleybuses and a Miniature Railway, as well as various buses and other transport artifacts, many with local connections. Suffolk Wildlife Park is located to the south of the town. Pleasurewood Hills is located in the north of the town. However, it suffers from a lack of investment Ness Point the most easterly location in the British Isles is located in the town, close to the wind turbine. The Broads National Park is located near to the town and some of its walks are in Carlton Marshes located in Carlton Colville, a suburb of the town. In the meantime the South Lowestoft Relief Road has been built.
Over the past few years £14m has been spent on the redevelopment of Lowestoft town centre, and an additional £30m has been paid for the construction of the South Lowestoft Relief Road (Opened
27th June 2006). The main focus of the Sunrise scheme was to completely overhaul the 1970's built town centre, providing new paving, lighting and trees, and to bring it up to modern standards.
The Lowestoft Relief Road (that opened on June 27th 2006) was a £30m scheme that coincides with the sunrise scheme to alleviate traffic on the usually congested London Road South (formerly the A12). The road then joins with the Lowestoft Bascule Bridge by means of a 4 laned tidal flow system.
Lowestoft does have the problem of local government not finding out or asking the wishes of local people, and instead imposing badly thought out, expensive schemes which are if anything detrimental. The most serious mistake has been the failure to exploit the centrally situated Lake Lothing as an area for recreation and waterside homes, and instead the derelict industrial areas have simply been replaced by misplaced unattractive industrial and commercial buildings which create a bad impression of Lowestoft for people driving past.
Suburbs and surrounding villages
To the north of Lake Lothing:
Gunton Normanston Oulton Camps Heath Roman HillTo the south of the lake:
Kirkley Pakefield Bloodmoor Hill Rosedale Park Carlton ColvilleNearby villages to the north are:
Corton BlundestonNearby villages to the south:
Kessingland Gisleham
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