Lowestoft, Suffolk Information: Maps & Numbers etc

 

Useful Contacts

Emergency Services

All emergencies: 999

Fire Service:
Suffolk Fire and Rescue Service Headquarters,
Colchester Road,
Ipswich,
IP4 4SS
Telephone: 01473 588888
Fax: 01473 588997
Email: enquiries@fire.suffolk.gov.uk

Suffolk Police:
Suffolk Police, Suffolk Constabulary Headquarters, Martlesham Heath, Ipswich,
IP5 3QS
Fax: 01473 613737

James Paget Healthcare NHS Trust: (nearest hospital)
Lowestoft Road,
Gorleston,
Norfolk,
NR31 6LA
Telephone: 01493 452452

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General Practices and Hospitals

James Paget Healthcare NHS Trust:
Lowestoft Road,
Gorleston,
Norfolk,
NR31 6LA
Telephone: 01493 452452

Lowestoft Hospital:
Tennyson Road, Lowestoft, Suffolk, NR32 1PT

GP Practices in Waveny PCT:
Dr Drane & partners
Drane, Sanger, Cockshott, Johnston & Coleman
Field Lane Surgery, Kessingland, Lowestoft, NR33 7QA

Dr A Bigg & Partners
Bigg, Anderson, Morrison, Moorthie & Chandra Chowdhary
82 Victoria Road, Oulton Broad, Lowestoft, NR33 9LU

Rosedale Surgery
Walker, Vallis, Quilliam, Vallis, Derks, Wattel, Barker & Olaleye
Ashburnham Way, Calton Colville, Lowestoft, NR33 8LG

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Dentists

A P Yaxley & DW Ferns:
51 Kirkley Cliff,
Lowestoft,
Suffolk,
NR33 0DF

The Avenue Dental Practice:
2 The Avenue,
Lowestoft,
Suffolk,
NR33 7LL

The High Street Dental Surgery:
175 High Street,
Lowestoft,
Suffolk,
NR32 1HU

Dr P R Williams & Associate:
7 Regent Road,
Lowestoft,
Suffolk,
NR32 1PA

Regent Road Orthodontic Practice:
6 Regent Road,
Lowestoft,
Suffolk,
NR32 1PA

Victoria Road Dental Practice:
112 Victoria Road,
Oulton Broad,
Lowestoft,
Suffolk,
NR33 9LU

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Opticians

A S Pennington Opticians:
129 Bevan Street East,
Lowestoft,
Suffolk,
NR32 2AQ

Boots Opticians Ltd:
46 London Road North,
Lowestoft,
Suffolk,
NR32 1EP

Martin J Rivett:
172 London Road South,
Lowestoft,
Suffolk,
NR33 0BB

Specsavers Opticians:
101 London Road North,
Lowestoft,
Suffolk,
NR32 1LX

Vision Express Ltd:
110 London Road North,
Lowestoft,
Suffolk,
NR32 1HA

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Pharmacies:
Day Lewis Ltd
216 London Road South,
Lowestoft,
Suffolk
NR33 0BB

Donald G Hayden (Chemists) Ltd
146 Bridge Road,
Oulton Broad,
Lowestoft,
Suffolk
NR33 9JT

E Moss Ltd
59 High Street,
Lowestoft,
Suffolk
NR32 1JA

Superdrug Stores PLC
Superdrug Pharmacy,
14 Britten Centre,
Lowestoft,
Suffolk
NR32 1LR

National Cooperative Chemists Ltd
Unit 5,
15 Ashburnham Way,
Carlton Colville,
Lowestoft,
Suffolk
NR33 9LJ

Howells & Knightly
Kessingland Pharmacy,
70 High Street,
Kessingland,
Lowestoft,
Suffolk
NR33 7QF

Lowestoft Geography

The town is divided in two by Lake Lothing, with the northern half being the commercial centre and the southern half being the holiday resort.

The town has two piers: to the south is the Claremont Pier and about one kilometre (0.6 miles) to the north of that is the South( sic) Pier (so called because it is placed on the south side of the harbour and river mouth). In the early part of the 20th century, the Claremont Pier had a T-shaped pier head and was used as an embarkation point for the passenger steamships that operated between London to the south and Great Yarmouth to the north.

The seaward boundary of the harbour is a strip of land known as the Old Extension, or the North Extension. Over the last couple of decades the Extension has been the site of activity supporting the North Sea oil and gas industry; particularly the construction of rigs. For many years before that, for example in the 1960s, the Extension was unused by any industry, being derelict but showing signs of an earlier period of industrial activity in its old railway tracks and buildings.

Lowestoft railway station, which serves the town gives regular connections to Norwich and Ipswich. There are also a few services direct to London Liverpool Street. All services are operated by 'One' Railway. There was also a direct link to Great Yarmouth's Southtown station, until it was closed in 1970 as a result of the Beeching Axe. That link included Lowestoft North station, the site of which is now occupied by Beeching Drive, located just to the east of the A12 opposite the Denes High School. Some of the original route to the west of the A12 has now been made into a non vehicular public right-of-way, after having been left unused and overgrown for many years.

Lowestoft Wind turbine

A large wind turbine, built in December 2004, is located by the sea on the edge of town.

The construction of the wind turbine began on Tuesday 7 December2004 with a 108 m high crane lifting the 71 tonne Tower Lower Section. The 65 tonne Tower Middle Section, 46 tonne Tower Top Section, 83 tonne nacelle and 54 tonne, 92 m diameter Rotor Blade Assembly were erected on Friday 10 December2004. The new turbine began generating electricity in January 2005 and has a generating capacity of up to 2.75 MW, although the original proposal was for an even bigger 3.2 MW turbine.

The hub height is 80 m (262 ft). The blade tip height is 126 m (413 ft). The nacelle assembly weighs 83 tonnes and is 11.2 m (37 ft) long, 3.3 m (11 ft) wide, 3.8 m (12.5 ft) high, making it the biggest wind turbine on mainland UKas of April 2005.

Each of the 3 blades weighs 10 tonnes and is 44.8 m (147 ft) long. The overall diameter of the rotor assembly is 92 m (301 ft). The blade tips slice through the air at about 150 miles per hour. The turbulence this generates accounts for the pulsating "whooshing" noise audible when you stand underneath. This sound, combined with the height, weight and dimensions, prompted the owners to conduct tests for "subsonic" sounds and vibrations after there was several people complaining of feeling "nauseous" and suffering from "Ground level vertigo" when standing nearby.

Lowestoft literary and artistic connections

Lowestoft has a number of literary and artistic connections. The composer Benjamin Britten was born in Lowestoft in 1913.

In the 1840s, Charles Dickens came to stay with Sir Samuel Morton Peto. Lowestoft's Beach Village became, along with Blundeston village, the inspiration for David Copperfield.

Joseph Conrad came to live in Lowestoft in 1878 from his native Poland. Edward Fitzgerald, the translator of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam, lived in Lowestoft. W.G. Sebald, who taught at the University of East Anglia and was tragically killed in 2001, wrote about Lowestoft in The Rings of Saturn.

Glam rock band, The Darkness was formed in Lowestoft but spent their formative years in London. Three of the four founder members were raised in Lowestoft. Justin Hawkins, Dan Hawkins and Ed Graham all attended Kirkley High School. Several of their songs are either about or make reference to the town: Black Shuck is a retelling of the famous local legend of the same name; Stuck In A Rut tells of the band's desire to 'escape' from the town, making reference to 'the Barnby Bends' and 'the Acle Straight', popular nicknames for local roads; and Hazel Eyes starts with the lyrics "I hail from the flatlands of East Anglia/In a town that once could boast prosperity."

Also, scenes from Coronation Street were filmed at a local hotel.

In 2006, Lowestoft's Kirkley High School was subjected to the Gene Simmons experience when the Kiss bassist brought Rock School to the town. There are some disgruntled residents of the town, however, who feel that the Channel 4 program didn't represent their town fairly - Kirkley is an economically deprived area of the larger Lowestoft conurbation - the program refused to show the far more developed Northern end of the town, which in no way resembles "God's Waiting room". Also, several (un-proven) accusations, (supposedly formed on first hand experience from pupils attending Kirkley High School) suggest that students were in some cases paid sums of money to "misbehave" on camera, and were "bribed", so to speak, to smoke cigarettes, curse and litter in front of camera. The school itself (as well as the town in which it was filmed) was thoroughly misrepresented, showing only the oldest or less well maintained parts of the building, as well as focusing on the bad aspects of the school and virtually none of the positive parts. A clear sign of this misrepresentation is that despite the fact that the programme was based entirely around Rock music, little or no mention at all was made of "The Darkness" whom primarily (3 of the 4 founding members) attended Kirkley High School. Despite this obvious misrepresentation of Lowestoft and Kirkley High School, the Channel 4 program was a relative success.

Lowestoft porcelain

During the second half of the 18th century, a factory in Crown Street produced soft-paste porcelain ware. Items still exist, and there are collections at the museum in Nicholas Everett Park, Oulton Broad, and at the Castle Museum, Norwich.

Historic Lowestoft Floods

Lowestoft has been subject to periodic flooding, the most memorable was in January 1953 when a North Sea swell driven by low pressure and a high tide swept away many of the older sea defences and deluged most of the southern town.

Source taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lowestoft