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Note: THE ROWS IN GREAT YARMOUTH
Until the 2nd World War most Great Yarmouth residents lived in houses in the narrow passages known as The Rows that ran East to West between the river and the sea. The few main streets ran North/South
The Rows were a distinctive town layout system, perhaps unique to Great Yarmouth. They appear to go back to the 11th century.
The Rows were originally identified by names such as after a resident or business and in 1804 they were numbered when there were 145. Row 11 ran from St. Andrew’s Church to George Street and was originally called North Garden Row.
The Rows were extremely narrow, mostly too narrow for a normal horse and cart to pass down. The solution to this was the 'Trollcart', which was specially constructed to be narrow enough to pass through most of the rows. Most Rows were paved with beach pebbles, which made them hard to walk on. A few were paved with flagstones and carts were banned from these to make them safer for pedestrians. Some had overhanging buildings and were therefore tunnel-like.
Moves to clear the worst of the Rows began in 1936, but little progress had been made by the outbreak of war in 1939. In the end it was German bombing raids, notably in 1941, which did much of the work, destroying or damaging beyond repair large areas of the old town. In the 1950s local planners continued and most of the remaining buildings were cleared to make way for new housing and shopping developments.
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