HUNDRED OF LACKFORD. The hundred of Lackford is divided by the Ouse from the county of Cambridge on the west; by the Little Ouse from Norfolk on the north; and is bounded on the east and south by the hundreds of Blackbourn, Thingo, and Risbridge. The western half of this district consists almost entirely of marsh and moor land, and the western of sand. The surface of the fens from one foot to six, is the common peat of bogs, with an under-stratum of white clay or marl. It is partly under water, though subject to a tax for the drainage, which has failed; but in Burnt Fen, the westernmost extremity of the county bordering on the Ouse, fourteen thousand acres have been completely drained, and brought into cultivation. Mr. Young observes, that there are few instances of such sudden improvement as have been made in this tract. Forty years ago five hundred acres were here let for one guinea a year; but in 1772, an act was obtained for a separate drainage, and one shilling and six-pence an acre levied for the expense of embankments, mills, and other requisites. In 1777, the bank broke, and most of the proprietors were ruined. In 1782, owing to the success of the machine denominated the bear, in cleansing the bottoms of rivers, and other circumstances, various persons began to purchase in this neglected district. The banks were better made, mills were erected, and the success was very great. Lots and estates were at this time sold for sums searcely exceeding their present annual rent, To these improvements paring and burning have very much contributed. MILDENHALL, is the principal town in this hundred. It is a large pleasant, well-built place, constitutes a half hundred of itself, and has a weekly market on Fridays, well supplied with fish, wild fowl, and all other provisions. Towards the fens, which extend eastward to Cambridgeshire, are several large streets, called by the inhabitants rows, as West-row, Beck-row, Holywell-row. which of themselves are as large as ordinary villages. The situation of Mildenhall upon the river Larke, which is navigable for barges, has considerably added to the trade and enlargement of the town. According to the enumeration of 1801, it contains 355 houses, and 2283 inhabitants. The church is a large handsome structure, with a rich roof of carved wood work. It consists of a spacious nave, two side ailes, a proportionate chancel, a neat gothic porch, and a tower 120 feet high. It contains many monuments for the family of the Norths. To the north of it stands the noble mansion of Sir Thomas Charles Bunbury, Bart. one of the representatives in this county in parliament. It was formerly the residence of his great uncle, Sir Thomas Hanmer, who was speaker of the house of commons in Queen Anne's reign, and died in 1746. Contiguous to his house he had a very fine bowling-green; and was one of the last gentlemen of any fashion in this county who amused themselves with that diversion. To the proprietor of this mansion belongs also one manor of this town, which was given by Edward the Confessor to the abbey of Bury, that the religious might eat wheaten instead of barley bread. After the dissolution, it was granted in the fourth and fifth of Philip and Mary, to Thomas Reeve and Christopher Ballet. The ancient mansion of the Norths is of the time of Elizabeth, or early in the reign of James I. It contains many numerous apartments, and a gallery the whole length of the front; but the rooms in general are of small dimensions. We are informed by Holinshed, that on the 17th of May, 1507, this town suffered severely from fire, which, in two hours, destroyed thirty-seven dwelling houses, besides barns, stables, and other appurtenances. Mildenhall has furnished London with two lord-mayors; Henry Barton, who held that honorable office in 1428; and William Gregory in 1451. It has a considerable yearly fair, which begins on the 29th of September, and lasts four days. BRANDON, BRANDON, a town which formerly had a weekly market, now discontinued, is agreeably situated on the Little Ouse, and contains 201 houses, and 1148 inhabitants. The river, which is navigable from Lynn to Thetford, has a bridge over it at this place; and a mile lower down a ferry for conveying goods to andfrom the isle of Ely. The town is well built; and its church is a good structure. In the neighbourhood are some extensive rabbitwarrens, which largely contribute to the supply of the London markets. One of these warrens alone is said to furnish forty thousand rabbits in a year. At this place is a manufactory of gun-flints, the refuse of which, thrown together at the end of the town, forms heaps of auch dimensions, that a stranger cannot forbear wondering whence they could have been collected. This town gave name to the illustrious family of the Brandons, dukes of Suffolk, and afterwards conferred the title of baron on Charles Gerard, who, for his zeal in the service of Charles I. was created by that monarch lord Gerard of Brandon; and advanced by his son Charles to the dignity of earl of Macclesfield. On the extinction of his family, Queen Anne, in 1711, created the duke of Hamilton a peer of England, by the title of baron Dutton, and duke of Brandon, which is still enjoyed by his descendants. Simon Eyre, who was lord-mayor of London in 1445, was a native of Brandon. At his own expense he erected Leadenhall for a granary for the metropolis, with a handsome chapel on the east side of the square, over the porch of which he placed this inscription: Dextra Domini exaltavit me---" The right hand of the Lord hath exalted me." He left moreover 5000 marks, a very large sum in those days, for charitable purposes; and dying in 1459, was interred in the church of St. Mary Woolnoth, Lombard-street. Brandon has three annual fairs, on 14th of February, 11th of June, and 11th of November. DOWNHAM, also called Sandy Downham, a village seated on the the Little Ouse, is remarkable for an inundation of sand, which, in 1668, threatened to overwhelm the whole place. The circumstances of this phænomenon, unparalleled perhaps in England, are detailed in a letter written by Thomas Wright, Esq. who was resident upon the spot, and a considerable sufferer by the effects of this extraordinary visitation. He states, that he found some difficulty in tracing those wonderful sands to their origin, but at last discovered it to be at Lakenheath, about five miles to the south-west of Downham, where some large sand-hills, having their surface broken by a tempestuous south-west wind, were blown upon some neighboring ground, which being of the same nature, and having upon it only a thin coat of grass, which was soon rotted by the other sand that lay over it, joined the Lakenheath sand, increased its mass, and accompanied it in its strange progress. At its first eruption, the sand is supposed to have covered not more than eight or ten acres: but before it had proceeded four miles, it had increased to such a degree, as to cover above a thousand. All the opposition that it experienced between Lakenheath and Downham, was from one farm-house, which the owner endeavored to secure by building bulwarks against it; but perceiving that this would not answer his purpose, he changed his plan, and instead of attempting to prevent its advance, he allowed it a free passage, and thus got rid of it in the space of four or five years, When this sand-flood reached Downham, it continued ten or twelve years in the skirts of the village, without doing any consi derable damage, owing, as Mr. Wright imagines, to the circumstance of its current being then down hill, and therefore sheltered from those winds which gave it motion. Having once passed the valley, it went above a mile up hill in two months; and in the same year overran more than two hundred acres of very good cornland. On entering the body of the village, it buried and destroyed several houses, and the inhabitants of the others preserved them at a greater expense than they were worth. With great exertions Mr. Wright gave some check to the progress of the flood, though for four or five years his success was doubtful. It had gained possession possession of all the avenues, so that there was no other access to his house but over two walls eight or nine feet in height; and a small grove in front of it was encompassed, and almost buried in sand: nay, at one time it had filled his yard, and was blown up almost to the eaves of his out-houses. At the other end it had broken down his garden-wall, and obstructed all passage that way. For four or five years Mr. Wright stopped it as well as he could with furze-hedges set upon one another, as fast as they were levelled by the sand. By this experiment he raised banks near twenty yards high, and brought the sand into the compass of eight or ten acres; then by laying upon it some hundred loads of earth and dung in one year, he reduced it again to firm land: on which he cleared all his walls; and with the assistance of his neighbors carting away fifteen hundred loads in one month, he cut a passage to his house through the main body of the sand. The Little Ouse, on which Downham is seated, was for the space of three miles so choaked, that a vessel with two loads weight, found as much difficulty to pass as it had done before with ten; and had not this river interposed and checked the progress of the inundation into Norfolk, great part of that county had probably been ruined. According to the proportion of the increase of the sand in the five miles over which it travelled, which was from ten acres to 1500 or 2000, it would have been swelled to a quantity truly prodigious, in a progress over ten miles more of the like soil. The cause of this flood Mr. Wright ascribed to the violence of the south-west wind passing over the level of the fens without any check, and to the sandiness of the soil; the levity of which, as he believed, gave occasion to the story of actions formerly brought in Norfolk, for ground blown out of the possession of the owners: but he observes, that in this respect the county of Suffolk was more friendly, as he had possessed a great quantity of this wandering land without interruption.* Phil. Trans. No. XVII. ELVEDON, The authors of Magna Britannia, (Vol. V. p. 219) and of several subse quent |