Beatsters Building

Former net mending workshop, now store, located in the garden of and at right angles to No. 50 Pier Plain, Gorleston-on-Sea. Built c.1900, with later interior alterations and early 21st century external repairs.

The building is constructed of painted weatherboarding beneath a pantile roof. It is aligned east-west and comprises two storeys.

The building has two doorways: one to the east gable, the other towards the west end of the south side wall. Both doorways have simple timber pediments carried on plain brackets, and painted plank doors.

The east gable contains two light transomed casement windows with glazing bars on either side of the doorway, and similar windows without glazing bars above. The repaired west gable has two two-light replacement transomed casement windows with glazing bars to the upper floor and two similarly detailed replacement two-light casements below. The south side elevation has two transomed casements to the upper floor, and three two-light casements to the ground floor, the latter with glazing bars. The north side wall is blind and is built upon an earlier flint boundary wall to a footpath which runs to the north of the building.

Internally, the building has been sub-divided on both floors with timber stud partitions and vertical match boarding. The ground floor has exposed ceiling joists with cross bracing between them. The upper floor ceilings are underboarded. The flint boundary walling supporting the north wall is visible below the staircase.

The Beatsters building exemplifies a building type once found in many fishing communities on the East coast of England, where the mending of fishing nets would have been an essential maintenance operation requiring only shelter, space and light for the workers—women known as 'beatsters'. The building is thought to have been built c.1900 and remained in use until the 1930s, after which it was used as a storage building for artefacts related to the region's fishing industry.