june,2025
Event Details
Friday 6th June 2025, 11 – 4: £50 George Carter and Caroline Knight have arranged a visit to Great Yarmouth, a town which was hugely prosperous in the 18thC and has
Event Details
Friday 6th June 2025, 11 – 4: £50
George Carter and Caroline Knight have arranged a visit to Great Yarmouth, a town which was hugely prosperous in the 18thC and has many Georgian listed buildings. Most of these are within the well-preserved medieval walls and are therefore concentrated in a fairly small area. The day is to be based at St George’s church (1714) now a community theatre, where there will be an introductory talk by former mayor Barry Coleman, followed by a talk about the work of the Great Yarmouth Preservation Trust by Darren Barker, who runs it. We will walk round King Street and South Quay to see the grand merchant’s houses. The main streets are linked by narrow lanes, ‘The Rows’ with very small houses where the workers lived. We will have lunch at the theatre in its modern café, designed by Hopkins Architects as part of the restoration scheme of the church. We will also visit the Royal Naval Hospital (1809) converted by Kit Martin in 1996 into terrace housing and apartments, and the Britannia Monument (1817) by William Wilkins, which has been recently restored. This was built to commemorate Admiral Horatio Nelson, its inscription records ‘This great man Norfolk boasts her own.’ The attractive Fishermen’s Almshouses (1702) built to house ‘decayed fishermen’ is still occupied as almshouses and will also be seen.
Many of Yarmouth’s listed buildings are at risk but a small group of dedicated, mainly local conservationists are developing restoration strategies and finding new uses for problematic buildings, and in the process training local young people in the specialist conservation building skills that are needed.
The event is for members only. Please read our terms and conditions before booking.
Time
(Friday) 11:00 am - 4:00 pm