Great Yarmouth's attempted control of Lowestoft and its trade came to an end only during the second half of the seventeenth century, when its legally backed dominance was ended and the Suffolk town placed beyond its jurisdiction. For 300 years the head-port viewed its upstart rival as ‘a town of great smuggling’ – not in the popular, clichéd sense of casks of spirits, packs of tobacco and bales of silk being brought ashore at night (an eighteenth-century image), but simply in reference to the evasion of customs duties payable on a wide range of commodities being imported and exported, at all times of day and night and at any time of year. This chapter is intended to give the reader some idea of the problems faced by Great Yarmouth in its attempts not only to maintain its legally granted authority but to collect customs duties owing to the Crown (a major source of revenue) and to maintain some degree of order and legality within its area of head-port jurisdiction. For Lowestoft's part, the material presented will serve to show its growing commercial activity, its bending of the rules as far as it was able (or dared) to, and its place (as a coastal community) in the trade and politics of the nation.

The town's development as a maritime community is attested by the number of references to be found in public records of the fourteenth and fifteenth century, and Map 7 gives some idea of why so much activity took place close by. A safe anchorage for vessels was available between the outlying sandbanks and the shoreline in times of bad weather, as long as the channels between could be safely negotiated (particularly The Stamford/Stanford and the St Nicholas Gat). If not, then the banks could easily be the means of causing craft to founder, especially in north-easterly gales, with loss of life and property. In calmer conditions, though, Kirkley Roads – later to become known as Lowestoft North Roads and South Roads – provided a haven for shipping either locally bound or in transit for other destinations, both in England and on the continent.