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Blue Plaque on Hewett’s Score
On a wet and windy morning on 9th May 2023, a small group of GoSH members braved the elements to watch local historian and GoSH member Peter Allard unveil a GoSH blue plaque on the wall of the entrance to a narrow footpath with steps leading downward, known locally as Hewett’s Score. The score leads from the eastern side of Gorleston High Street down to the riverside and was used from 1862 until 1903 by the crews of fishing vessels belonging to the Short Blue Fleet owned by the Hewett family. The Hewetts were deep sea fishermen (cod, haddock, plaice etc) and were originally based at Barking near London. Barking was one of the largest fishing ports in England during the nineteenth century. But with the arrival of the railway at Great Yarmouth in the mid-1800s, Samuel Hewett saw the opportunity to land fish at Yarmouth and the possibility of quickly transporting the catches to Billingsgate fish market in London by train. The name of the Barking Smack public house on Marine Parade, Great Yarmouth serves as a reminder of the days when the men of Barking were landing fish on Yarmouth beach in the 1840s. It is believed that the Short Blue Fleet at its height, owned the largest fleet in the world, with 220 vessels.
Ice Houses, a dry dock and a wharf were constructed on the Gorleston side of the River Yare, many families left Barking and moved to Gorleston permanently. The Short Blue Fleet employed nearly two thousand people at sea and on the shore at Gorleston in the mid 1890s but by 1903 the business had closed. Fortunately, the herring fishing industry was just beginning to expand and most of the buildings found new uses and many of the workforce managed to find employment.
There are still reminders of the Short Blue Fleet around Gorleston with the Short Blue public house in the High Street only a few doors away from Hewett’s Score. The Dock Tavern in Dock Tavern Lane that was built near Hewett’s Dock. The Barking Fishery, a former public house in High Road. Blackwall Reach, a narrow road running parallel to the High Street. Also, in the High Street near the junction of Trafalgar Road East is The Tower, the former home of Mr Harvey-George, the manager of the Short Blue Fleet. Harvey Harvey-George lived there from 1890 until 1898 when he retired due to ill health. Also in the High Street, on the western side, is the Jubilee Cottage Hospital, the first hospital in Gorleston, that was officially opened by Mr Harvey-George in 1888. Look out for the GoSH blue plaque over the front door. The Cottage Hospital plaque was the first to be mounted on a Gorleston building by GoSH. That was in 2015 and since that time a further eleven have been placed on various Gorleston properties.
The Gorleston-on-Sea Heritage Group is grateful to Peter Allard for sharing his research with them.