Edward John Lupson

“ To lovers of peace and solitude, Yarmouth can hold forth an inviting hand, and point to its miles of Marine Drive and its level Beach, with its soft sands, rendered agreeably smooth and firm by the retreating tide and dried by the sun. ”

“ Real fun, that is thoroughly appreciated by all classes, is supplied when a sailing boat has to be drawn above high water mark upon the beach. Young and old of both sexes and all classes willingly lend a helping hand at the long rope, and merrily runs the boat, responsive to the united pull, to the destined place. Spooning couples are in profusion upon the sands. The vicinity of the Beach Concert-ring appears to be a favoured spot with them. Groups of pleasure seekers are reclining upon the clean, soft sand in all directions. Some of them, like children, finding amusement in trifling things. ”

“ Small cause for wonder is it that a veritable army of recreationists, at least a hundred thousand strong (including day-trippers) , should be attracted thither year by year, it would be surprising were they not to come. From the Rows to the Beach we go, with anticipations of pleasure of an altogether different description, and find amusement in watching for a time the varied ways in which the present detachment of the season’s welcomed battalions of visitors are disporting themselves. Let us see what delights on a favourable day in summer our splendid sands afford! ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 Happy Family is at hand to throw more entertainment into the morning’s programme, and to give a lesson in social and domestic felicity. Then the familiar face presents itself, of one who is on excellent terms with himself, and with all around. Our Beach friend, an illusionist, has just planted his little table upon the sands, placed his guinea pig upon it, and is gratified to see the circle of expectant admirers who immediately gather round. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Watching the return of the sailing boats and the landing of the passengers is found by many to be interesting, especially when the sea is inclined to take a mean advantage of those standing awaiting their turn p. 26to land, by unceremoniously bumping the boat, and causing the whole company simultaneously to lose their equilibrium and receive a shower of spray. Of course they laugh as well as their friends on shore, indeed, everybody regards it as great fun. Turning from the sea to the beach, we often find a small “dock,” caused by the incoming flood or left by the last tide upon the beach. ”

“ This central position of the beach being most frequented by visitors, it is also the chief resort, the happy hunting ground of the numerous class who have a keen eye to business. Nearly all of them are vendors of only one kind of article each, and this peculiarity tends to multiply their numbers, the variety of merchandise among the whole being considerable. There are so many—and some of them are strangers to Yarmouth—that, were they not civil, and usually take the first refusal, persistency with frequency would be an annoyance little short of a nuisance. ”

“ She thinks herself as good as other people. When anything happens she does not like, she will go down in the dumps, and be like a dying duck in a thunderstorm. She is not generous, and has not much confidence in herself. ”

“ As we perambulate our spacious and recently much-improved Promenade on the Marine Drive, we cannot fail to notice how great is the supply of vehicles provided for all classes; numerous well-appointed carriages meet our view; omnibuses, brakes, traps, bicycles, tricycles, goat chaises, perambulators, Bath chairs, and donkeys are in readiness for all who desire them. On the latter, venturesome visitors may feel perfectly safe. ”

“ While the young, the healthy and the boisterous may find the fullest opportunities for thorough enjoyment elsewhere; here the quiet, the weakly and the meditative may get away from the madding crowd and calmly indulge in reflection. Between this garden and the sea, an Esplanade of magnificent proportions has been made, and provided with sitting accommodation along the entire length, where Visitors may, free of charge, recline, facing the sea ”

“ Proceeding by a convenient wooden gangway laid upon the sand from the Marine Drive to high water mark, close to the Britannia Pier, we are at once in the midst of a lively spectacle, people of all ages and sizes are here, happy in the consciousness of being able to enjoy themselves in the way their fancy leads them. Pleasure is the prevailing object on which all minds are set. Many of the fair sex are quietly seated upon the accommodating sands, perusing their favourite books, papers, and p. ”

“ He does not confine his thoughts to every-day life. He has a love of home, and a fondness of seeing the world very broadly. He likes to know, and he will know; he will stir up the water till the mud rises but what he will know. He is a type of man who could command as a general in the Army. In mercantile life he would succeed in everything he undertakes. In politics he takes rather a broad range. He is not an eloquent exponent of his own thoughts. ”

“ Bare-legged children in goodly numbers are paddling about and with shovels and tiny buckets are busily engaged in digging small docks and trying to fill them with water, others are making sand pies or erecting buildings in original styles of architecture, and castles and towers not remarkable for stability. ”

“ Nursemaids in charge of juveniles are keeping guard over sundry cast-off shoes and stockings, whilst carefully watching the youngsters paddling joyously in the foaming surf. Paterfamilias, too, is in the surf, and provides a centre of attraction to a number of ladies whose interest, however, is not in him, but in the young olive branch—his very smallest—whose wriggling extremities he is endeavouring to bathe in the spreading waves. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 p. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Two young ladies have emerged from the bathing machines and are bravely swimming away, whilst the bathing of the other naiads consists in tightly holding the ropes attached to the machines, and giving a succession of hysterical jumps that display the intense ugliness of their dresses. ”

“ All we need remark is that each and all of these have special attractions that are sought out and enjoyed by multitudes of delighted Visitors.
The busy scene we have depicted, of life and animation, of good temper and well-earned enjoyment may be witnessed through the entire season in propitious weather. The whole assembled multitude may be divided into two classes, the pleasure seekers and those who minister to their gratifications. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We watch the filling and launching of one or two of the boats, and note the jaunty air and smiling faces of some adventurers as they go aboard, and have little doubt that some of their smiles will soon be exchanged for more reflective countenances. ”

“ At an Electric Battery an interested group are watching a sturdy individual, who declines to cry “peccavi” to the evident surprise of the electrician. The next who submits himself is soon satisfied with his pennyworth. The open door of the Camera Obscura invites those who prefer less excitable pleasures to enter within its calm and retired seclusion, and there see what is to be seen. ”

“ The main desire of the designer, surely, must have been to divert the unwelcome attentions of too obtrusive individuals of the opposite sex. In the distance are the gentlemen’s machines, and near them can be seen a number of heads dotting the restless waters. [25] For lovers of the sea seeking enjoyment upon, rather than immersion in it, the boatmen are on the qui vive. ”

“ He has a good memory, can tell a story he has heard, and add a little to it. Imaginativeness is well developed in his nature. He has the hand of one that is tolerably cool; were he a gentleman with nothing in his pocket, he would push on until he had made a fortune. ”

“ 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. ”

“ One thing is obvious: there is unmistakable evidence of enjoyment stamped upon them all.
By the Jetty are numerous Drags, awaiting the time to convey into the country their complements of passengers. Persons fond of variety are willing, for a short time, to leave the attractions of the Beach and Jetty in exchange for a pleasant drive. ”

“ She will be influenced more by love of approbation than by religious influence. She is inclined to be severe to people, and I would advise her to keep her monkey down, as when it is up it is a very warm monkey indeed. ”

“ 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. ”