Lorina Bulwer | by Dolly Sen

Lorina Bulwer is 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 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 red herring press’ kitwijk series, focusing on overlooked and wilfully ignored histories in Great Yarmouth.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.

60 pages, A6 | Designed, edited & typeset by red herring press in Great Yarmouth. First printing March 2022 | Fourth printing January 2024.

£5 including UK shipping. | £10 including shipping to rest of world. | £3.50 to Great Yarmouth residents: collect from red herring press, 135 King Street, Great Yarmouth (or get in touch).

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