The Fisher Fleet

The Fisher Fleet just after sunset with a bit of a tide to reflect the lights and ghostly almost invisible ducks quacking to themselves is an experience not to be missed. Sure it involves a wee bit of trespass on port authority land but no one will mind too much and even if  they do they can only politely advise you to leave.

Folk have been setting off from here to scour the Wash and North Sea for fish and such like for centuries, these days it's mainly shrimps that provide a living for dozens in King's Lynn.

The Fleet now lies strictly controlled with embankments between two docks and surrounded only by light industry. A painting from the 19th century shows a more rustic, even bucolic, place with folk having a nice family day out by the banks of the stream. I can't see that happening these days. I found a couple of other old paintings here.

Margot Juby took this

Just ignore this sign ...

MargotJuby  took this

And if you are a tad confused over the word fleet, here it means a creek not a collection of boats. In fact the Fisher Fleet is the mouth of the Gaywood river which flows with no great urgency for a few miles and empties into the Great Ouse here. So there you go, it's clear as mud ... There are other 'fleets' in and around Lynn, Millfleet and the Purfleet spring to mind.

The Devil's Hill

 Quosdam daemones quos dusios Galli Nuncipant

                                                                          St Austin

I've shown Pilot Street before, it runs alongside St Nicholas Chapel until it is abruptly terminated by some of that modern housing I mentioned the other day. Clearly it has been abridged at some point and the new John Kennedy Road cut through and taken it over  but it used to run as far as the junction with Loke Road. I found the following on a Facebook group showing almost the same view as above from I'm guessing late 1950s very early 1960s, all the right hand side buildings are gone as is the chapel on the left with the road sign. What now looks picturesque and tree filled was once very domestic and gritty. But we are not here to gawp at pretty things ...

 

The street is ancient, at least 14^th century possibly much, much older and back then had a different name, Dowshill Street. In those days the sea was practically knocking on Lynn's door and just to the north of the borough was a wild and "dreary, unfrequented spot", most likely there were sand dunes, the History of the Borough of  King's Lynn refers to "the sands of Lenn at Dusehill". The same source gives evidence of a belief in malicious spirits, that the region to the north of the borough was "the abode of hobgoblins, sprites, and other indescribable monsters" (quite possibly still is) and that even the Loke was named after the supreme evil one of the Norsemen, Loke or Loki. The name Dowshill, it is thereby claimed, comes from the ancient northern European word duus or dusiens  or  deuce or as we say these days, the Devil.

So what I can tell you about what is known of Dowshill and its street. Old maps and records show a bridge over a fleet at the north end (now called the Fisher Fleet but then known as Dowshill Fleet). It is thought that there was a saltern at this point, where brine was boiled to make salt, no doubt adding to its devilish aura. The Corporation built canals off the fleet so that ships could moor at merchants' houses. It became so popular that local ship owners complained they could not moor their own boats due to the presence of large foreign vessels in the creek. An ordinance was issued saying the creek was for local ships.

The bridge had a gate on it for defense and gate keepers were appointed every year. So, for example, we find in 1403 John Groute was appointed keeper of Douz Hill Yard.

By the mid 18th century, however, the fleet had fallen into disrepair and the Corporation was sued by a merchant named Turner for not cleansing the creek. The judge , one Lord Mansfield, using quite bizarre logic, affirmed that as the Corporation's charter did not include a prescription to carry out the cleansing no such duty existed (even though they had done so for centuries) and further that what had been used as a public right of way (the creek) was in fact private property (it was never stated who it belonged to). This, I'm told,  was a unique judgement in English Law, the absence of a claim it was public was enough to make it private ...

18^th and 19^th century engineering gradually eased the river bank westwards and marshes to the north were drained, the sea retreated a couple of miles to the north, the Enlightenment reached even wildest Norfolk and the Devil's Hill lost its fears, until in 1809, King's Lynn renamed a lot of streets and Dowshill Street became Pilot Street complete with a Pilot's House. 

St Nicholas' Chapel

There may be no Santa Claus (who can say?) but there is definitely a St Nick's with its impressive spire looming out of the evening gloom over the Fisher Fleet in King's Lynn.

Millfleet, King's Lynn

This completes the trio of fleets that run through and around the old town of King's Lynn, the Fisher Fleet, Purfleet and now this delightful burbling brook on what was then the southern edge of town, known as the Millfleet. It will come as no surprise to learn that it was used to drive a corn mill, though apparently the flow of water, being tidal, was, at times, so low it wasn't much use. In an early case of protectionist measures all the good folk of 15^th century Lynn had to have their corn milled at the town mill or they would "forfeit the grain or the flour produced outside town, which may be confiscated by the common sergeant or someone else and put to the use of the community. " The image of the jolly miller of old is, of course,  a myth. The mill seems not to have been a tremendous success and was cleared away to make room for London Road in the early 1800s.

This wild vegetation is hiding the site of long demolished grain silos and warehouses near to Devil's Alley.

And that I'm afraid is all there is to see of the once much longer Millfleet since Victorian noses and sensibilities had had enough of what, at low tide, was a stinking sewer and at a cost of £12,846 they covered it up in the 1890s to everyone's delight. It now runs under a road called Millfleet unsurprisingly.
This has been by necessity a briefest of brief passing glances at this site which has a history going back to Saxon times, at least, the stream then was known as Sewoldsfled. Boal Street, on the left of this picture was extremely important to the medieval port of Lynn. There's loads more; you could write books about it but that's not my job ... Here's a link to some more about Millfleet and its history.

Out to the Wash

Here we are again down the Fisher Fleet; this time with a bit of day light. If you carry on past the fishing boats you eventually fetch up at the river, the Great Ouse, which flows out into the Wash. The river no longer flows in its own free way but in a man made channel, dead straight. King's Lynn used to be much nearer the sea but land reclamation, drainage and such things means it's now a few miles inland.

The weekend in black and white is here.