Lorina Bulwer, by Dolly Sen

Dolly Sen's polemical exploration of madness, material, and the life of Lorina Bulwer - a needleworker incarcerated in the "Female Lunatic Ward" of Great Yarmouth Workhouse for over 20 years, from 1893 to 1912, who made thunderous embroideries that scorn and rage and gossip about life in the town and workhouse.

This pamphlet marks the first of the kitwijk series, focusing on overlooked and wilfully ignored histories in Great Yarmouth, edited and published by red herring press.

One of the narrowest rows partially remaining in Great Yarmouth—once just 27 inches wide in parts—is Kitty Witches Row, which runs from Middlegate to King Street. Kitty Witches is rumoured to be a derivation of kitwijk, from old Dutch, meaning a house of ill repute - most likely named by Dutch visitors to Yarmouth’s annual herring fair. It’s said this is because the row was occupied by groups of unruly women, the wives of fishermen away at sea: “hideous beldams of the lowest order,” who roamed from house to house, wearing men’s clothes, their faces smeared with blood, to levy money for their antics.

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£3.50 | plus £1.50 shipping to UK | £3.50 to Europe | £5.50 to rest of world | or collect from 169 King Street in Great Yarmouth.

Postage can be combined for multiple pamphlets.

Designed, edited, typeset by red herring press in Great Yarmouth | March 2022.
60 pages, A6 | Second printing (edition of 300).

Free to those who can't afford it. Get in touch: [email protected]

All money goes to printing costs for future red herring press publications.