Beatsters Building

Reasons for Designation

The Beatsters Building to the rear of No.50 Pier Plain, Gorleston-on-Sea is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Rarity. The building is rare surviving example of a once numerous building type, in which net mending and maintenance took place, an essential and long-established support activity for the traditional fishing industry of the Great Yarmouth area of which Gorleston-on-Sea is an integral part.

* Architecture. The Beatsters Building is an example of a type of industrial vernacular workshop with simple functional detailing and plan form characteristics, which, despite their modest appearance, were distinctive elements of urban and rural landscapes throughout England,

* Intactness. The building retains its original external form and detailing, and its locational relationship with the dwelling behind which it stands, a factor common to other types of domestic-scale workshops established within the curtilage of dwellings now recognised as significant elements of historic industrial communities in England.

Details

839-1/0/10034 PIER PLAIN 06-SEP-10 (via 50 Pier Plain), Gorleston-on-Sea (West,off) Beatsters Building

II Former net mending workshop, now store. c.1900, with later interior alterations and early C21 external repairs.

MATERIALS: Painted weatherboarding beneath a pantile roof covering.

PLAN: Simple linear plan, sited in the garden of and at right angles to, No. 50 Pier Plain, the dwelling with which it is associated. No.50 is not of special interest.

DESCRIPTION: The building is aligned east-west, and is of two storeys. There are two doorways, one to the east gable, the other towards the west end of the south side wall. Both doorways have simple timber pediments carried on plain brackets, and painted plank doors. The east gable has two light transomed casement windows with glazing bars on either side of the doorway, and similar windows without glazing bars above. The repaired west gable has two, two-light replacement transomed casement windows with glazing bars to the upper floor and two similarly detailed replacement two-light casements below. The south side elevation has two transomed casements to the upper floor, and three, two-light casements to the ground floor, the latter with glazing bars. The north side wall is blind, and is built upon an earlier flint boundary wall to a footpath which runs to the north of the building.

INTERIOR: The building has been sub-divided internally on both floors , with timber stud partition and vertical match boarding. The ground floor has exposed ceiling joists with cross bracing between. The upper floor ceilings are underboarded. The flint boundary walling supporting the north wall is visible below the staircase.

HISTORY: The Beatsters building is a an example of a building type which would have been found in many of the fishing communities of the East coast of England, where the mending of fishing nets would have been an essential maintenance operation, but one which required little more than shelter, space and light for the workers- in this instance women known as 'beatsters'. The building is thought to have been built c.1900 and remained in use until the 1930s, after which it was used as a storage building for artefacts related to the region's internationally significant fishing industry.

SOURCES: Brodie, A and Winter, G 'England's Seaside Resorts' (2007) Ferry, K `Powerhouses of Provincial Architecture 1837-1914', The Victorian Society, (2009) 45-58 Pearson, L `People's Palaces Britain's Seaside Pleasure Buildings' (1991) 53-65 Pevsner, N and Wilson, B 'The Buildings of England: Norfolk 1 Norwich and the North-East' (2nd Ed 1997) 488-529 www.pastscape.org.uk, accessed 21 August 2009 www.gorleston-history.org.uk, accessed 21 August 2009

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION The Beatsters building to the rear of No.50 Pier Plain, Gorleston-on-Sea is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * Rarity. The building is rare surviving example of a once numerous building type, in which net mending and maintenance took place, an essential and long-established support activity for the traditional fishing industry of the Great Yarmouth area of which Gorleston-on-Sea is an integral part. * Architecture. The Beatsters Building is an example of a type of industrial vernacular workshop with simple functional detailing and plan form characteristics, which, despite their modest appearance, were distinctive elements of urban and rural landscapes throughout England, * Intactness. The building retains its original external form and detailing, and its locational relationship with the dwelling behind which it stands, a factor common to other types of domestic-scale workshops established within the curtilage of dwellings now recognised as significant elements of historic industrial communities in England.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

508017

Legacy System:

LBS

End of official list entry

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