In the year 1698, the Corn Cross, the Town chamber that is over it, and the adjoining chapel were built by subscription. They are situated about the middle of the town, on the west side of the High street, and formed originally a handsome building. This structure is entered by three large folding palisade doors or gates. In the upper part of it is a clock, and on the top of it a cupola, in which is a bell to summon the inhabitants to attend divine service at the chapel, and for other necessary purposes of the parish. {28} The chamber over the Cross is the place where the parish usually assemble to consult about town business; it is also fitted up as a schoolroom, and has been used for that purpose ever since the building was first erected, till within a few years past. In the year 1768 the north door of the Cross was closed up, and that part of the Cross was converted into a vestry for the chapel. In the year 1698, when this building was first erected, and the front part of it reserved for the purposes of a Market Cross, the market was removed from the place now called the Old Market, to that part of the High street contiguous to the building; but the spot being afterwards found an inconvenient situation for the market to be held in, it was resolved by the parish, in 1703, to take down an inn—called the White Horse—which stood on the ground where the market is now kept—the whole front was parallel with that of the adjoining houses—and re-build it, further backwards; which resolution being carried into execution, the market was removed from the Cross to the spot of ground where that inn formerly stood, and has continued there ever since. It is now the sign of the Queen’s Head, from Queen Anne, in whose reign it was re-built. How long the market and fairs have been held at Lowestoft will appear from the following account of the grant, taken from Bishop Tanner’s Collections, in the registry at Norwich, wherein it is said, that in the reign of King Henry IV. the king granted to William de la Pole, marquis and earl of Suffolk, one market and two fairs, below the village of Lowestoft—in the reign of Henry IV. the fairs and markets were held below the cliff—which is in the ancient demesne of the Crown of England; and also appoints him his steward, to hold his courts of market and fair; and ordains that no justice, viscount, escheator, inquisitor, bailiff, steward of hospital, or clerk of market, tax the said village in any manner. And that all people holding of, and residing in the said village, be free from all custom and toll of their goods and vendable wares throughout the whole kingdom. This last-mentioned privilege, how trifling soever it may appear now was deemed an important one at the time it was granted; and was so far accounted valuable in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, as to be renewed in the writ of exemption granted to the town by that princess.