In that year (1349), according to the account given a hundred and fifty years afterwards by the town’s people themselves in a petition to Henry VII., more than half the population, including many of its leading merchants fell victims to the disease.
“In the 31st (sic) year of the reign of King Edward the 3rd by a great visitation of Almighty God there was so great death of people within the same towne that there was buried in the parish church and church yard of the said towne in one year 7052 men, by reason whereof the most part of the dwelling places and the inhabitations of the said towne stode desolate, and fell into utter ruin and decay, which at this day are gardens and void grounds as evidently appeareth.” { 33}
Whatever may have been the exact population of Yarmouth at the time of this terrible visitation (it could not have been more than 10 or 12,000) it must have been a very different town after 1350 to what it was in the first half of the century, and although the merchants might retain their hold upon the herring trade, the loss of so large a part of the fishing population must have made them much more dependant upon their visitors for the supply of fish in the autumn season than before.
But the loss of fishermen was not the only affliction from which Yarmouth was to suffer. The continuance of her trade and even of her very existence was in peril from the blocking up of her harbour. During the whole period during which the town was itself growing, from the time of the Conquest to that of which we are now treating, the sandbank on which it was built was being gradually extended southwards, enclosing the river, and carrying its mouth further and further South, until at the beginning of the 14th century the mouth of the Yarmouth Harbour was opposite the Gunton Denes and within a mile of Lowestoft. In a few more years the mouth of the Yare would have been at Lowestoft, and Lowestoft would have occupied a more favourable position for the trade of the Yare than Yarmouth itself. Lowestoft had already taken advantage of the opportunities which the nearness of the Harbour mouth gave her of getting a share in the herring trade. The sea opposite her shore then called “Kirkley Road” offered the same resting place for wind-bound ships as it does now, and as the mouth of the Haven was always in the condition of being more or less blocked with sand, it only needed a little enterprise on the part of Lowestoft people to get fishing boats bound for Yarmouth to discharge their herrings on the Gunton denes, rather than incur the certain loss of time in waiting for the tide to carry them up to Yarmouth quay, and the danger of being wrecked at the harbour mouth.