Isaac Lord

The Isaac Lord merchant's house at 80 Fore Street in 1934; note that the timber-framed building is closely built on both sides at that time. The Lloyd's Bank building would occupy the space to the right, note the narrow junction with Salthouse Street beyond. Comparison photograph: the Isaac Lord merchant's house in 2015, by Tim Leggett. Ted King describes this row of buildings in detail in the oral history donated to this project:

"Next to that was a row of offices [Isaac Lord]. That was an old-fashioned building with timbers outside, overhanging upper floor, diamond windows. And in the middle of this office block - which would be, I should say, thirty feet long - that had a real, oak gatepost and a square lintel over the top, which was horizontal and not curved. That had two heavy oak doors with square-headed nails driven in; they were not ornaments, they held the door together. That double door was about ten or eleven foot high. That led into a courtyard. In the courtyard on the right was the entrance to an office. I don't know what was stored in there; I never went in that place. The other side of that office were three, if not four, cottages. They had no gardens, only a narrow strip of soil about two feet wide, where the occupants planted brightly coloured flowers and they had brightly coloured flowers climbing up the wall. This courtyard also was cobbled and at the bottom of it, I suppose it would be a mill, where they processed barley and malt and dried hops. Well, entering the gateway on the right was another door (which faced the opposite door). But that one - you went up two steps to it - and that was an office. It had a rough, wooden floor with a moth-eaten piece of carpet on it, it was a coloured thing. And it had a tall wooden desk; I would say it was about four-foot-six high. Two clerks sat there and they faced a diamond mullioned window onto Fore Street. They sat on high stools with backs on, something like Charles Dickens' day.

Well, that property was owned by a couple of elderly men - they were once young, 'cause they'd been there years: known as Mr Sizer and Mr Lord. I never did meet Mr Lord, but I met Mr Sizer many times. He was a tall man with a dark suit, tight pipe-leg trousers and he wore a long black coat with a waistcoat almost up to his adam's apple and he wore a deep, white, starched collar. That looked uncomfortable and most probably it was. He was a white-haired man with a white beard. He had an office somewhere which was through the other office. But he was Mr Sizer and also, come to mind, he had a coal-yard in the property at the back of the office. He supplied coal and, of course, he had stables. He supplied bushels of malt and pounds of hops and yeast that the country people used to come for - I've been there myself - to make their beer.

He also delivered coal. If I remember rightly, there were three men lived in those cottages: one was a man who looked after the malt and things like that and did the odd jobs and two men went out on the cart. They always went out loaded with coal; they used to pass the house where I lived - well, when I was not at school - every day of the week, including Saturdays."

Isaac Lord merchant house (an internal beam in this part has been dendro-dated 1478); the sign in the window reads: ‘Isaac Lord Coal & Corn Office'.

See also Fore Street maps showing Listed buildings and Public houses.