Entrance to row 117 The two most remarkable and noteworthy features of the ancient Borough of Great Yarmouth, that remain unchanged to the present day, are the Parish Church, and the unique series of long, narrow passages, known by the general name of Rows. The wonderful proportions and interesting features of the renowned Church having been duly examined, these singularly confined thoroughfares next claim the attention of the intelligent visitor. On seeing them for the first time, the query naturally arises in the mind, why were they constructed in this peculiar manner, so opposed to all prevailing ideas? Thoughtful minds have ingeniously surmised sundry motives; but the preponderating belief is probably the most correct one, viz., the builders’ desire to economise the limited area at their disposal within the walls of the fortifications. In early times the population of Yarmouth grew apace; numbers of enterprising persons from various places being attracted thither by the flourishing fishing operations that were carried on here. Manship, in his History of Yarmouth, states that within four hundred years from the time when “from a sand in the sea, by the deflection of the tides, Yarmouth grew dry and firm land, whereby it became habitable; the population grew to a great multitude, over whom, at the beginning of the Reign of Henry I., a Provost was appointed.” It may be mentioned, by the way, that it was in this reign the Parish Church of St. Nicholas was built. The population of Yarmouth, in the year 1348, numbered ten thousand. We can, therefore, without difficulty, understand how valuable space would be in those early times, and how general the desire to make the most of it.It is interesting to notice that Manship, who wrote in the year 1619, opined a very different reason for the circumscribed limits of the Rows. When contemplating them patriotically, he prognosticated, with glowing satisfaction, the bad half-hour that awaited any rash invader, who might incontinently venture to approach them, feeling assured the brave and hardy inhabitants “of those seven score passes” would render a good account of themselves on any such occasion. [4] But we must quote his own words. He says: “The number of them (‘the Rows’) at this day be 140; whereby every householder to his private dwelling hath of all necessaries very convenient conveyance, and the same in time of hostility, for the defence and safeguard of the town, is very meet and necessary, for one man against twenty, with shot and powder, is able to make resistance.” Continuing the subject, he says: “These buildings, although dissevered and disjoined each from the other by Rowes or Lanes, the same being in number, as I have before declared, one hundred and forty, yet is there not any more division in comeliness, to be by the eye discovered, amongst them, than unpleasantness to the ear in music, consisting of many discords which do make a perfect concord. The streets being contrived and built in such warlike manner, flankerwise, with such convenient distance from the walls (fortifications) aforesaid, that the enemy having gained the walls, and entered the town (both which God forbid), may with few men, be enforced to retire, and the town recovered without any great danger sustained.”

It seems the most reasonable supposition that the Rows were constructed as we see them, in order that as large a population as possible might be concentrated within the narrowest limits, to make the work of fortifying the town as easy a matter as possible, and give, at the same time, greater security to the whole.

A Yarmouth Row The following imaginative idea may be taken for what it is worth, namely, that the ground plan of the Streets and Rows were suggested by the fishermen’s nets, when spread out in long lines upon the Denes for drying, a narrow pathway being left between the nets of each fisherman, the pathways representing the Rows.

It has been sagely remarked by a reflective writer that the Rows “seem to have been so constructed, that in the event of an unusually high tide, the water might flow through them.” And in like manner observes another, “if the water swept over on one side, it would make its escape at the other as if through a grating.” Had such a contingency been in contemplation, surely a greater breadth would have been given to allow the water a freer flow.

These Rows, as might have been anticipated, have been objects of much interest to Visitors generally, but especially to those of antiquarian tendencies. The minds of some have been so impressed with their old-world appearance, that on returning to their distant homes, they have relieved themselves by relating wonderful descriptions of them to the unfortunate individuals who had not yet seen them. Some have excitedly rushed into print, and gladly made known to whole neighbourhoods, through their local press, the striking phenomena they had witnessed here. One described the Rows to wondering readers as “fearsome apertures in the street,” and then soothingly added, “but there is nothing to fear.” Another, we imagine, well-versed in country life, said they were “like rabbit burrows.” A third descriptive writer asserted that “many of the ancient thoroughfares might be appropriately termed cracks in the wall, they are so narrow.” Another less excitable individual wrote, “many of them are so narrow that you can easily touch both sides at once, by stretching out your hands while walking through, and it surprises the stranger not a little to be told that these were the only communications between the principal thoroughfares of the town.” The critical pen of another scribe declares them to be “very long alleys—needless alleys I should say, if the architects had only known what they were about in the days when these alleys were made.” Ah! yes! and then, before leaving the consideration of them, he thus describes their capabilities. “They are so narrow that neighbours can shake hands across their little street.” Another, condescendingly, describes the way in which it may be done. “The inhabitants might lean out of their windows and shake hands.” Still further capabilities were seen by another imaginative writer. “You can put your hand out of your bedroom window and put out the candle in your neighbour’s;” and, I suppose, if necessary, borrow the candlestick; but this he omitted to state. One, whose presence had, doubtless graced continental cities, as well as honoured the Rows of Great Yarmouth, saw in them other possibilities, and stated “for intricacies they can compete with the most confined of those of any Continental City you can mention, where the inhabitants can converse and shake hands from upper stories, visit each other in night-caps, quarrel in the upper world, or carry on a general confab, peacefully or otherwise.” Somewhat more definitely wrote another: “They are passages between parallel streets, some with shops on either side like Union Passage in Birmingham, but most of them only a few feet wide, with dwelling houses on each side, where a jump from one window to another would be an easy task for a gymnast.” Who can but admire the following graphic description? “What a quaint old town. The fine Market Place is like an open plain; the scores of narrow ‘Rows’ running out of it may be likened to burrows leading in all manner of directions. However does each denizen find his, or her dwelling? Do they never get mixed, and give it up for a bad job? Some of these Rows are too narrow to permit of a man falling down if he got crosswise.” Having investigated them with the eye of an antiquary, another gentleman described the Rows as “the long series of narrow passages, running from one principal street to another, numbering 145 in all, with houses on each side. Although none of them are sufficiently wide to allow of other than pedestrian traffic, many quaint old-fashioned houses, dating several centuries back, bearing both external and internal evidence of great expense and labour being devoted to their erection and decoration. In fact, old Yarmouth is full of interest to the antiquary and to the curiosity seeker.” Of course, the visitor with an eye to sanitation, has not allowed the Rows to be unexplored. They have borne the scrutiny, and we may breathe freely now the verdict has been given. “A remarkable appearance is presented to the visitor by the number of long narrow lanes called ‘Rows’ that run east and west of the town. It leaves little room for doubt of the healthiness of the place when these Rows are examined, for their cleanliness and orderly appearance must surely render them conducive to the highest possible standard of health; and if these observations can be applied with as much appropriateness to the internal sanitary arrangements of the dwellings—as I have reason to believe it may—the Corporation may congratulate themselves on the success of their efforts in this respect.”

Yarmouth Row

We will now present the reader with the observations of writers who have less cursorily investigated this wonderland. A writer in a metropolitan newspaper gave the following well-considered description:—“These openings are the famous Yarmouth ‘Rows,’ 154 in number, running parallel to each other, between the river and the sea, and so narrow that the meanest London Lane would look a very Regent Street if placed alongside of them. I measured one, it was the narrowest I saw, and found, that at the entrance, it was little more than two feet across. It is probably reserved for thin natives, since no fat man, with all his clothes on, could safely venture to tread it. In all points of comparison, however, but narrowness, the Yarmouth Rows have a decided advantage over the London Lanes, and it is this that makes their appearance so extraordinary to a Londoner. He naturally associates poverty, filth, squalor, and all sorts of misery and crime with courts in which the inhabitants can shake hands with each other out of the opposite windows, or step at one stride across the so-called street or lane. Everyone with a watch to lose, carefully shuns such localities, or instinctively buttons up his coat if he happens to wander into them. At night the narrow gloomy jaws of the Yarmouth Rows must, to a cockney pilgrim of a lively imagination, look even more formidable; but in daylight, one glance down them suffices to show that they are widely different from anything that his experience had taught him to expect.

“Kitty Witches’ Row”—widest part looking east

“The model Row is respectability itself; its tiny toy pavement of brick or stone is easily kept clean, and shines like the deck of a man-of-war; the houses on each side, so far from betraying any signs of squalor or painful poverty, are, some of them, so nicely kept with rows of flower pots brightening the windows, and clustering creepers draping the naked wall, that one begins to wonder how people, who are in a position to consider the amenities, as well as the necessaries of life, consent to live in such close, crowded quarters, and is driven to conjure that they are a jolly neighbourly race, who like, out of pure good fellowship, to be always in talking and hand-shaking distance of each other.

“And this theory that the grotesque construction of the Yarmouth Rows is due not to strategic, but to social considerations, is supported by the fact, in the ‘good old times,’ each Row took its name, in friendly fashion, from the best-known or the principal person living in it. In these degenerate days of scientific classification, arithmetic has triumphed over flesh and blood, and each Row is known by its number, with the single exception, I believe, of ‘Kitty Witches’ Row’—once a pet preserve of the invaluable public servant, the witch-finder Hopkins, who could always count upon unearthing enough ugly women in Yarmouth, with the unmistakeable witch marks on their sea-tanned shrivelled old skins, to make a respectable official return, and satisfy Government that public money was not being wasted. The Rows are, I am told, chiefly the resort of the seafaring population, who constitute Yarmouth’s working class.”

A writer in Cassell’s Magazine says: “the Rows are not wooden arcades like those of Chester, but straight and extremely narrow alleys, running between the principal streets and the river, like the rungs of a ladder, to the number of 156. Now-a-days only the humbler class of people live there, but having penetrated into a good many of them, I am bound to say that in no instance have I seen the squalor and misery of a low neighbourhood in London. There are vice and poverty in Herring-haven, as elsewhere, but you see none of those sights which saddens the heart of the reflective Londoner. I think the filthy coal smoke has something to do with the degradation of our metropolitan poor. Country folks who come and settle in Babylon grow in time weary of contending with the blacks, and suffer their children to grow up grimy and ragged, while the children playing about the doors in the Rows are clean, healthy, decently dressed, and civil spoken. * * * Whitewash is laid liberally on every accessible place, the causeway is plentifully supplied with gutters made of semi-circular yellow tiles, and in no instance have I encountered those vile odours which offend you on the Continent. It would be false to say that I never smelt fish; there is a vast deal of shrimp boiling done in some of these Rows, but of those filthy stenches of which Coleridge numbered seventy-two in the city of Cologne, I detected not one.”

Harper’s Magazine of June, 1882, gave the following interesting description:—“At one time the inhabitants of this old borough took up to living on a plan almost entirely their own, and the Rows in which they built their houses remain to this day the most curious of all the features of the ancient town. The Rows are narrow streets leading to and from the quay,—not narrow in the ordinary sense, but narrower, perhaps, than any other streets in the world, their average width being six feet. They are not isolated infrequent lanes left between more commodious thoroughfares by the incomplete modifications of early plans, but they form a system and their aggregate length is about eight miles. Six feet is their average width, but some of them are scarcely more than three feet, and two persons cannot pass one another without contracting themselves and painfully sidling in the opposite directions. The pavement is of rough cobble-stones, with sometimes a strip of flags down the middle to ease the way of the pedestrian. The houses tower up with smooth perpendicular walls, like cliffs, on both sides, and shut out the light, the upper stories projecting in many cases beyond the lower, and forming an arch over the narrow passage below. Most of these houses are very old, and the material of which they are built is flint or stone, often white-washed, though occasionally left in its natural condition with open timbering in the fronts; in one or two the masonry is of the herring-bone pattern; but huddled up as they are, without regard to privacy or ventilation, staring into one another’s faces with undesirable intimacy, they are of a good class, and in good condition, and some of them have courtyards before them with nasturtiums and scarlet runners dragging a tender green web over their white walls. The narrowest of the Rows is only 2 feet 3 inches in width. There are in all 156 of them, each known by its number. The object of the frugal plan in which they originated is a mystery. One of the guesses at it is this:—‘The fishermen spread out their nets to dry very carefully, and leave on the four sides of each net a clear passage, four, five or six feet wide.’ It is suggested that the ground on which the Rows stand was once used for this purpose, and that the passages became so well defined from constant traffic that eventually they were perpetuated as streets. However this may be, it is certain that some of the houses in the Rows were among the first built in the town, and certain also that, leading from the main street, they give easy access to the Quay, whereon Yarmouth finds its chief interest. When the moon is full and throws black beams of shadows across these alleys, and opens seeming pitfalls in their rugged pavement, a stranger hesitates to enter them. At all times they seem properly to belong to conspirators, but they are quite safe and reputable. In olden times the Watchmen patrolled them, ‘crying the wind’ for sleepless merchants and anxious skippers; and the bellmen of the Church of St. Nicholas prayed in them for the souls of those who had bequeathed money for the purpose. [11] The wind holds pretty well to one quarter in Yarmouth, and it is said the watchmen seldom had occasion to vary their announcement: ‘East is the wind, east-north-east; past two and a cloudy morning.’

A Yarmouth cart

“Having invented the narrowest streets in the world, the inhabitants had to devise an original vehicle for their locomotion, as no ordinary carts could enter them, and this necessity was relieved by the ‘trolly,’ a peculiar cart about 12 feet long, with two wheels revolving on a box axle, placed underneath the sledge, the extreme width of the vehicle being about 3 feet 6 inches.“Even in the dead of night the Rows are not quite still. All of them lead toward the river, and some of them reveal the black lines of clustered masts and rigging. Many of the houses are occupied by fishermen, who are astir at all hours. The shrimpers go out to meet the tide at eleven or twelve o’clock, and though the river has some traffic with distant ports, the most frequent vessels on it are the ‘dandy-rigged’ boats and the rakish cutters which belong to the great industry of the town.”

Were we to omit the characteristic description given in Household Words, Vol. VII., p. 163, that is very generally ascribed to the pen of the late Charles Dickens, our list of noteworthy quotations would be rightly deemed by many readers to be very incomplete. We gladly insert the following from that excellent magazine, heading the extract with some lines from a rhyming description of Yarmouth, written by Mr. H. J. Betts:—

“And the Rows! them long bars of the gridiron,
That Dickens hev wrote on—so quare;
Them ere Rows are a great institution,
In the town at the mouth of the Yare.”

“Great Yarmouth is one vast gridiron, of which the bars are represented by ‘Rows,’ to the number of one hundred and fifty-six. Repel the recollection of a Chester-row, a Paradise-row, or a Rotten-row. A Row is a long, narrow lane or alley, quite straight, or as nearly as may be, with houses on each side, both of which you can sometimes touch at once with the finger tips of each hand, by stretching out your arms to their full extent. Now and then the houses overhang, and even join above your head, converting the Row, so far, into a sort of tunnel or tubular passage. Many and many picturesque old bit of domestic architecture is to be hunted up among the Rows. In some Rows there is little more than a blank wall for the double boundary. In others, the houses retreat into tiny square courts, where washing and clear starching are done, and wonderful nasturtiums and scarlet runners are reared from green boxes, filled with that scarce commodity, vegetable mould. Most of the Rows are paved with pebbles from the Beach, and, strange to say, these narrow gangways are traversed by horses and carts which are built for this special service, and which have been the cause of serious misunderstanding among antiquaries, as to whether they were or were not modelled after the chariots of Roman invaders. Of course, if two carts were to meet in the middle of a Row, one of the two must either go back to the end again, or pass over the other one, like goats upon a single file ledge of a precipice. The straightness of the passage usually obviates this alternative. A few Rows are well paved throughout with flagstones. A Yarmouth Row, with horse and cart Carts are not allowed to enter these, and foot passengers prefer them to the pebbly pathways. Hence they are the chosen locality of numerous little shopkeepers. If you want a stout pair of hob-nail shoes, or a scientifically oiled dreadnought, or a dozen of bloaters, or a quadrant or a compass, or a bunch of turnips, the best in the world, or a woollen comforter and night-cop for one end of your person, and worsted overall stockings for the other, or a plate of cold boiled leg of pork stuffed with parsley, or a ready-made waistcoat, with blazing pattern and bright glass buttons—with any of these you can soon be accommodated in one or other of the Paved Rows. Here you have a board announcing the luxurious interval, during which hot joints are offered to the satisfaction of salt water appetite; from twelve to two no one need suffer hunger. Elsewhere is the notice over the door, that within are ‘LIVE AND BOILED SHRIMPS SOLD BY THE CATCHER.’ Shrimps, unadulterated, boiled and sold by the very catcher himself,—the original article, and no mistake! From time immemorial, there has been a Market Row, in which two people can walk arm-in-arm, as they stare at the elite of Yarmouth shop windows, and there is a Broad Row, across which, if an Adelphi harlequin could not skip from first floor to first floor, he would get from the manager very significant hints about his abilities.”

The reader cannot fail to have observed the numerical diversity in the above quotations, as to the total number of the Rows. The discrepancy probably arose through a compositor, when engaged upon a Yarmouth publication, transposing two of the numerals, thus turning the number 145 to 154, and the error passing unobserved remained uncorrected; and succeeding writers, instead of drawing inspiration from the fountain-head—the Rows themselves, have complacently copied, and so perpetuated the blunder. This, however, does not explain the number given as 156.

Considerable allowances must be made for many of the statements given by the various writers, in consideration of the length of time that has since elapsed. The onward march of improvement has become so general, it has penetrated even into the recesses of these old-world thoroughfares. Although they remain, as in all probability they will continue to be, the picturesque, tumble-down Rows of Yarmouth, a “Paradise for painters,” as Punch described them, still the signs of the times are now apparent within their precincts. Pedestrians are no longer compelled to tread gingerly upon uncrushed “petrified kidneys,” when threading their way through them, but may proceed satisfactorily and pleasantly along a pathway of concrete or flagstone, and if disposed to enter them at night, he will discover that nearly all are now illuminated by gas. When preparation was being made for these improvements in the year 1884, an official measurement of eighty-one of the Rows was taken, and the total length of them was ascertained to be 8,372 yards, or rather more than 4¾ miles. The entire length of the 145 Rows exceeds seven miles. Within the eighty-one Rows which were measured, the number of the dwelling-houses was found to be 1,811.

The names of some of the Rows were sufficiently remarkable to justify Dickens in amusingly referring to them as “Jumber’s Row,” and “Mopus’s Row.” Known as the Rows were to succeeding generations all down the ages, by name only, it was no easy matter to wean the Yarmouthians from the method so familiar to them and their forefathers, of recognising each Row by its name. The change from name to number was adopted by the Corporation in the year 1804, and although a century of years have since nearly run their course, many of the old inhabitants still recognise a Row by name, in preference to its number. The writer has found it a common occurrence for persons, after long residence in Rows, to be utterly unable to state their numbers. A woman when asked the number of the Row she lived in, said, “57, but I don’t know whether it is the same number at both ends.” Quite recently, “Row 161” was given to the writer as a place of residence of an individual. A woman born in Row 21, in 1869, wrote in 1893, “I was born in Row 100, where some houses were pulled down for Sir E. Lacon’s Brewery.” An illustration of a similar character may be given from one of the Register Books at the Parish Church. In 1840, at their marriage, a couple were asked their place of residence, and it was given as “Row 171,” and they evidently stood uncorrected, as “Row 171” was recorded. Still further proofs may be culled from these Registers, showing the tenacity with which the old names were cherished. Most of the following designations have been obtained from entries which were made within the first four years of Her present Majesty’s reign:—

Angel Row

Almshouse Row

Adam the Barber’s Row

Buck Row

Barnaby Baker’s Row

Boulter’s Row

Brown, Grocer’s Row

Bennet, Cooper’s Row

Blue Anchor Row

Broad Row

Black Swan Row

Baptist Meeting Row

Black Horse Row

Blower’s, Cabinet-maker’s Row

Budd, Sail-maker’s Row

Blue Bell Row

Bessey’s Half Row

Bank Paved Row

Bell and Crown Row

Child, Blacksmith’s Row

Castle Row

Chapel Row

Chapel Paved Row

Conge Row

Cart and Horse Row

Custom House Row

Crown and Anchor Row

Crown and Heart Row

Dove Row

Doctor Smith’s Row

Doughty’s Row

Dog and Duck Row

Dover Court Row

Dr. Bayly’s Row

Doctor Ferrier’s Row

Dene Side Austin Row

Duncan’s Head Row

Esquire Palmer’s Row

Esquire Steward’s Row

Excise Office Row

Elephant and Castle Row

Earl St. Vincent’s Row

Fighting Cock Row

Foundry Row

Fulcher’s Row

Ferry Boat Row

Fourteen Stars Row

Frere’s Row

Gun Row

Gallon Can Row

Globe Row

George and Dragon Row

Garwood, Painter’s Row

Garden Row

Glass House Row

Golden Lion Row

Humber Keel Row

Horn Row

Horse and Cart Row

Half Moon Row

Huke, Carpenter’s Row

Jail Row

Kitty Witches’ Row

King’s Head Row

Law’s Baker’s Row

Lamb, Butcher’s Row

Lawyer Cory’s Row

Lacon’s Garden Row

Lion and Lamb Row

Mr. Paget’s Row

Mr. Blake’s Row

Mr. Butcher’s Row

Mr. Cobb’s Row

Mr. Skill’s Row

Mr. Woolverton’s Row

Mr. Yett’s Row

Meeting House Row

Mariner’s Compass Row

Market Row

Money Office Row

Morley Grocer’s Row

Miller, Basket Maker’s Row

Mews Half Row

Martin, Shoemaker’s Row

Nine Parish Row

New White Lion Row

Newcastle Tavern Row

Nichols, Shoemaker’s Row

Naunton, Baker’s Row

North Pot-in-hand Row

Old Fountain Row

Old Meeting Row

Old Post Office Row

Old Prison Row

Oakes, Grocer’s Row

Old White Lion Row

Page, Pipe-maker’s Row

Paternoster Row

Plummer, Schoolmaster’s Row

Pike, Sailmaker’s Row

Present, Butcher’s Row

Pot-in-hand Row

Post Office Half Row

Priory Row

Queen’s Head Row

Quay Angel Row

Quay Austin Row

Quay Mill Row

Quaker’s Meeting-House Row

Rampart Row

Rose and Crown Row

Rivett, Baker’s Row

St. John’s Head Row

South Walking Row

Saving’s Bank Row

Steward, Chemist’s Row

Say’s Corner Row

South Say’s Corner Row

Star and Garter Row

Spotted Cow Row

Stamp Office Row

Split Gutter Row

Snatchbody Row

South Garden Row

Sewell’s Row

Ship Tavern Row

Star Tavern Row

Synagogue Row

St. George’s Tavern Row

St. George’s Row east

St. George’s Row west

St. Peter’s Row east

St. Peter’s Row west

Sons of Commerce Row

Taylor, and Fulcher’s Row

Turnpike Row

Took, Baker’s Row

Two-Neck Swan Row

Three Herrings Row

Thornton, Grocer’s Row

Utting’s Row

Unitarian Chapel Row

White Lion Row

Wheatsheaf Row

Well Row

White Horse Row

Wheel of Fortune Row

White Swan Row

Wrestler’s Row

Yett’s Foundry Row

In some instances two names were given to the same Row.

Rampart Row no longer exists. The cottages have been removed and the old rampart wall exposed to view; the space thus gained has been converted into a carriage way, and the thoroughfare named Rampart Road.

It has been asked, why are these thoroughfares called Rows? In Palmer’s Notes on Manship, p. 271, we find the following reply:—“‘Row’ is supposed to be derived from rhodio, to walk; or from the Saxon rowa (a rank); or, which is more probable in the sense in which it is used in Yarmouth, from the French rue, a street, or lane.”