Safari - super slow after installation of MacOS High Sierra

Two days ago I installed the High Sierra update on my MacBook Pro (Retina, early 2015). Prior to this update Safari had worked well, since then each time I open a new page the whirling coloured wheel (of death) starts up and hangs around for between 4-6 seconds (I'm so lame I timed it), freezing the whole program and all tabs until it stops. I am running Safari version 11.1. I have loads (310+ GB ) storage available - so that's not it.

Does anyone have a work around?