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| 'A Good Time for All' (artist's impression, not actually Lowmouth). |
A failed attempt to drain the marshes in the 1690's by an Anglo-Flemish speculative corporation based in Bruge was ruinous, resulting in most of the shareholders being declared bankrupt. All that remains is a short section of the 'Maes Cut', a wide channel that once defined the boundary between townlands and marsh, and later widened to create access to the sea for shipping.
The town's heyday was as a Georgian era fishing-port, but this was brief as the main harbour silted up through lack of maintenance and Lowmouth was bypassed by the herring fleets.
It failed, unlike many neighbours, to capitalise on the Victorian boom in tourism, but experienced a brief revival in the 1930's with the construction of the Eastern Railway Hotel, now known as High Towers, despite its lack of towers. The hotel was stayed in for a long weekend by King Edward VIII and Wallace Simpson, though even this momentary notoriety was based on the fact that Lowmouth was obscure enough that the couple would be undisturbed, which they were.
The hotel was requisitioned for a brief time during the invasion scares of 1940, and some half-hearted defences were constructed in the town itself and in the surrounding marshes, but by 1941 the military 'occupation' was all but over - though parts of the marsh an extensive gravel spits to the south of the town remain in MOD hands as a testing station. The hotel was never returned fully to use and remains semi-boarded up to this day.
Modern Lowmouth is characterised by high levels of seasonal and temporary employment, long-term underinvestment, damp, but extraordinarily low levels of crime. It is easily avoided by the traveller, following the main coast road, the B35462 as it skirts the far side of the marshes well inland. In fact it takes a special effort to get there, an effort well rewarded if you are a student of forgotten places.
It failed, unlike many neighbours, to capitalise on the Victorian boom in tourism, but experienced a brief revival in the 1930's with the construction of the Eastern Railway Hotel, now known as High Towers, despite its lack of towers. The hotel was stayed in for a long weekend by King Edward VIII and Wallace Simpson, though even this momentary notoriety was based on the fact that Lowmouth was obscure enough that the couple would be undisturbed, which they were.
The hotel was requisitioned for a brief time during the invasion scares of 1940, and some half-hearted defences were constructed in the town itself and in the surrounding marshes, but by 1941 the military 'occupation' was all but over - though parts of the marsh an extensive gravel spits to the south of the town remain in MOD hands as a testing station. The hotel was never returned fully to use and remains semi-boarded up to this day.
Modern Lowmouth is characterised by high levels of seasonal and temporary employment, long-term underinvestment, damp, but extraordinarily low levels of crime. It is easily avoided by the traveller, following the main coast road, the B35462 as it skirts the far side of the marshes well inland. In fact it takes a special effort to get there, an effort well rewarded if you are a student of forgotten places.
The 'A to B book of the British Coast' (1971 edition)
'No Matches Found'
Results of a search in on the 'Air B'n'B' website, 2021
