So far as Domesday furnishes us with express authority, the population of the parish in Edward’s time consisted of 31 different families. But I think that there may have been a few others—poor freemen—not belonging to these estates, and not coming within the scope of the survey, who gained a living partly by assisting the tenants in their agricultural work, and partly as fishermen, having their boats on the shore or at Kirkley Haven, which was quite alive at this time. These men would be the earliest representatives of the free population of the parish which was destined in after times, when trade had sprung up, to form the main population of the town of Lowestoft.
The church is not mentioned, but, as there was a resident priest, there can be no reason to doubt that there was a parish church—probably a small wooden building on the site of the present church. Churches were more numerous in Suffolk and Norfolk in Saxon times than in any other part of England. Several churches are mentioned in other parishes near, apparently because they had some substantial amount of glebe land belonging to them.
We shall understand somewhat better the picture which Domesday gives us of Lowestoft if we take a glance at the accounts which it gives of some other parishes in the immediate neighbourhood.
The parishes in Lothingland, in which the greatest number of estates are returned are Somerleyton, Lound, and Belton. I believe that these parishes contain the best agricultural land in the district. The church in Somerleyton is mentioned as having 20 acres of glebe belonging to it, but the parish priest—or parson as he was afterwards called—appears to have possessed a small manor of 40 acres in addition.
Gunton is not mentioned in Domesday. Corton appears as containing an estate belonging to the Crown, of which no details are given, except that it was valued at 20s.
The lost Newton is mentioned as a small estate of 30 acres, owned by a freeman, and valued at 3s. Newton existed for several hundred years as a small hamlet to the north of Corton, but has been long since carried away by the sea, except parts of one or two fields still left on the top of the cliff.
In the Half-Hundred of Mutford, the parishes of Kessingland, Carlton, and Mutford, appear as containing large villages, and several estates which had passed from Saxon Thanes to Norman Barons.