NAA award for new Southtown Housing Development

This Orbit East Housing Development in Southtown Road, Great Yarmouth, was nominated for the Norfolk Association of Architects Awards by ISG  Jackson, building contractor.  The building incorporates sixteen flats and was completed in December 2010. It deservedly won a Highly Commended Award in the Residential, New Development Category.  It was constructed on the site of a fine building last used as a restaurant which was destroyed in a fire and demolished several years earlier.

The site is opposite St. Mary’s Church and there was a good view of the church before  new construction commenced.

St. Mary’s celebrated its 18oth anniversary in June this year.   The foundation stone was laid in September 1839 on land donated by Lord Anson and the building was completed by the following summer for a total cost of £3,000.   St. Mary’s is a distinctive church which sits nicely in its always beautifully maintained grounds.  The architect Joseph Scoles was a Southtown man who also designed St. Mary’s, the Roman Catholic Church on Regent Road and St. Spyridon’s, the Greek Orthodox Church on St. Peter’s Road. 

There was an earlier 13th century church dedicated to St. Mary in what was then Little Yarmouth in the County of Suffolk, now Southtown, but it fell into ruin after the parishes of Gorleston and Southtown were united 1511.  The building materials were used in the seventh attempt to create a haven entrance which began in 1560.  Stone from St. Mary’s and from the ruins of the Bachelor’s Aisle in the Parish Church was used to build breastworks to confine the channel.  This final harbour entrance which  has survived to this day was constructed under the supervision of a Dutchman, Joas Johnson.  (See Yarmouth is an Ancient Town by Michael Boon and Frank Meeres, revised 1973, ISBN 0-9541163-1-7  or A History of Great Yarmouth by Frank Meers, 2007, ISBN 978-1-86077-457-7, for more information on the building of the havens or about the early settlement of Little Yarmouth.)

It is a great pleasure and good for morale to see that considerable care was taken to build a handsome block of apartments at the top of Southtown Road.  The view through the gates of St. Mary’s Church shows attention to proportion and architectural detail that is much appreciated.