Great Yarmouth, first of all, GREAT YARMOUTH is a seaside resort, its promenade a parade of amusement arcades along with rainy-day attractions, deserted in winter, heaving in summer. But it is also a port with a long history and also, despite extensive wartime bomb damage, it retains a number of sights worthy of a visit.
Yarmouth was a major trading port by the fourteenth century, its economy underpinned by its control of the waterways leading inland to Norwich. It also benefited from fishing, especially in the nineteenth century when there was a magnificent boom at the herring industry. The fishing finally fizzled out in the 1960s, but the timely discovery of gas as well as oil deposits off the Norfolk coast helped mitigate the results and have since made the town a major base for the offshore gas industry, second only to Aberdeen for North Sea oil.
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