A Brief History of Yarmouth

The history of Yarmouth goes back a long way. The first record of a settlement here was in King Ethelred the Unready's record of the Danegeld tax of 991 AD. Two Saxons named Aluric and Wislac were show as living in Ermud, the Saxon name for 'muddy estuary'. Their names are mentioned again in the Doomsday book of 1085 AD. These were, perhaps, the sons or even the grandsons of the original pair who would hve been very old men by then! At that time the village of Thorley was the original haven for ships but as The Haven gradually silted up a landing place nearer the sea had to be found. This was the start of Yarmouth.

 

Yarmouth became a recognised town in about 1135 AD when its first Charter (of seven) was granted by Baldwin de Redver, Lord of the Island at that time. By the 13th Century the name had evolved through several variations to Yaremuthe. The town became a borough in 1440 as a result of its fourth Charter granted by Henry IV. It lost this status in 1890 having been declared a 'Rotten Borough' by the Municipal Corporations Commission in 1880 and became only a Parish. The Parish Council became the Town Council with a Mayor in 1974. Yarmouth had its own Member of Parliament from 1295, increased to two in 1584, but this privilege was withdrawn under the Reform Act in 1832.

 

The principal building in the town is the Castle, built in the two year period 1545-1547 AD by King Henry VIII as part of the Island's defences against the French. They had attacked the town and destroyed it in 1377 and 1544. During the Civil War the Island was strongly Royalist so during the subsequent Commonwealth period (1649-1660) Cromwell kept a large garrison here. However, the Castle never experienced a shot fired in anger and by 1670 AD it had become the residence of the Governor of the Island, Sir Robert Holmes. He filled in the moat and built himself a house, now the George Hotel, on its southern edge. The garrison was eventually withdrawn in 1875.

 

In 1200 Yarmouth had two churches - St John the Baptist at the eastern end of the town by the graveyard and the original church (possibly dedicated to St James and probably on the site of the present Castle). Both were badly damaged in a raid by the French and Spanish in 1377 and were reputed to have been destroyed again by the French in their raid on the Island in 1544. St John's was eventually demolished in 1635 as it was unsafe. The present church of St James was built in 1614-36.