Early Town Planning in Great Yarmouth

Once the town walls had been constructed, these huge masses of stone dictated the layout that the ancient planners could adhere to, as nobody wanted to build outside them. The style adopted by the planners was to build the houses in parallel lines so that more could be accommodated. The houses were so close together that in one row (being only 27 inches wide), one could shake the hand of the neighbour opposite whilst leaning out of the window.

These rows were built so that the pavements ran East to West, and as the street layout followed the natural fall of the land, the sewerage and rain dispersed quickly. It also ensured that there was always a flow of strong air blowing through the streets which helped clean out the stale air and smoke.

Great Yarmouth in 1751

At one time there were 145 of these rows each named after some notable person living in or after some peculiar character that it possessed, however, in 1804 in the interests of efficiency every row received a number, after several rows had had more than one name.

The rows were much too narrow for normal vehicular traffic and in consequence a special cart, known as a “troll” was constructed to carry herring and other merchandise from one end of the town to the other. These trolls, which were quite common as far back as the reign of Henry VIII, were about 12 feet long and just over 3 feet wide. They had a very short, low back axle with wheels running under the body of the carriage. They were extremely easy to load and when not in use could be tipped on end with the shafts in the air and then occupied very little space. In the eighteenth century it became quite fashionable for visitors to have rides on the troll carts, and for anyone visiting Great Yarmouth it was not considered a visit unless you had had a ride on one of these contraptions.

Unfortunately many of the rows were destroyed during the Second World War, and others have been pulled down to make way for new developments.