SAXMUNDHAM, a small market-town, seated on a hill near a rivulet that runs into the Alde, contains 103 houses, and 855 inhabitants. Its market is on Thursday; and it has two fairs, on Holy Thursday, and the 23d of September. The streets are narrow and unpaved: the houses in general well built: but the town has no particular manufacture.

At the southern extremity of the town is Hurts Hall, the mansion of Charles Long, Esq. The house has within these few years been partly rebuilt and considerably enlarged by the present proprietor. The front consists of three semicircular projections; the hall is adorned with a handsome geometrical staircase: and the whole interior of the mansion is fitted up with taste and elegance. The surrounding grounds have been judiciously laid out and planted by Mr. Long, and they are embellished with a fine piece of water, which flows through them, and the extremities of which are, through skilful management, concealed by wood.

Near this mansion stands the church, a tolerably spacious building, the advowson of which belongs to the manor. The interior is neatly fitted up, and contains monuments to the memory of the late proprietor, and of his brother, Beeston Long, Esq. Here is also a handsome mural tablet, embellished with naval trophies, and surmounted by the family arms, to the memory of George, son of the last-mentioned gentleman, a lieutenant in his majesty's navy, who gloriously fell in the very moment of victory, at the storming of Trincomale, in the East-Indies.

In August, 1766, the House of Industry at Saxmundhain was destroyed by a riotous assemblage of people, under pretence of releasing the poor to harvest-work, but in reality to defeat an act of parliament that had just passed respecting them. It was found necessary to summon the assistance of the military; and several lives were lost before the disturbance was quelled.

The other places in this hundred worthy of notice are :

BENHALL, formerly the lordship and estate of the Uffords, and de la Poles, Earls of Suffolk. In the reign of Elizabeth it belonged to the Glenham family, by which it was sold to that of

Duke. Benhall Lodge was built im 1638, by Sir Edward Duke, who, in 1661, was created a baronet. His grandson dying without issue, the estate devolved to his sister's son, Edmund Tyr- · rell, Esq. of Gipping, and passed through various hands till it became the property and residence of the late Admiral Sir Hyde Parker.

BRUISYARD is worthy of mention only for a collegiate chantry of a warden and four secular priests, founded by Maud de Lancaster, countess of Ulster, at that time a nun at Campsey, from which place it was translated hither in 1354. About eleven years afterwards it was changed into a nunnery of the order of St. Clare, and was valued at the Dissolution at 561. 2s. Id. It was granted, in the 30th Henry VIII. to Nicholas Hare; and has been for some time in the family of Lord Rous, the present proprietor.

At BUTLEY, about four miles west from the sea, and three from Orford, was a priory of Black Canons of St. Augustine, founded in 1171, by Ranulph de Glanville, a famous lawyer, afterwards usticiary of England, who dedicated it to the Blessed Virgin, and endowed it with many churches and lands. Being removed from his office, he, in a fit of discontent, took on him the cross, and resolved to visit the Holy Land. Accordingly he accompanied King Richard I. thither, and was present at the siege of Acre. Before he set out on this expedition, he divided his estate among his three daughters. To Maud, the eldest, who married William de Auberville, he gave the entire manor of Benhall, and the patronage of the monastery at Butley; and to his other daughters the remainder of his estates.

King Henry VII. in the 24th year of his reign, granted the priory and convent of Butley, the priory of the Virgin Mary at Snape in this county, with all the lands and tenements then belonging to it, or which Thomas Neyland, late prior of Snape, enjoyed in right of the same; to hold in pure and perpetual alms, without account of any rents, and to be annexed to the said priory of Butley. The priory of Snape, situated about five miles north of Butley, was originally a cell to the abbey of St. John at Col

chester,

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chester, by the appointment of William Martel, the founder; bat that house was deprived of it by the bull of Pope Boniface IX. under the pretence that it did not maintain there a sufficient number of religious according to the will of the founder; it was therefore made conventual, and absolved from its subjection to Colchester. This bull, however, seems to have had but little effect; for it appears from the register of the bishopric of Norwich, that the abbot and convent of Colchester presented the priors down to 1491; and probably the canons of Butley found that this cell brought them more trouble than profit, for in 1509 they quitted all claim and title to it.

The endowment of this priory was very ample. At the Dissolution the annual income was estimated at 3181. 17s. 2d.: its site was granted, 32 Henry VIII, to Thomas, Duke of Norfolk,; and 36 of the same king to William Forth, in whose family it long continued. In 1737, George Wright, Esq. whose property it then was, fitted upt the gate-house, and converted it into a handsome mansion, which has since been inhabited as a shooting seat by various persons of distinction. Mr. Wright, at his death, left it to his widow, from whom it descended to John Clyatt, a watchman in London, as heir-at-law; and was by him sold to Mr. Strahan, printer to his majesty. It was afterwards the property of Lord Archibald Hamilton, by whom it was sold, with the Rendlesham estate, to the father of the present noble possessor.

In the church of this priory was interred the body of Michael de la Pole, third Lord Wingfield, and Earl of Suffolk, who fell at the battle of Agincourt, with Edward Plantagenet, Duke of York.

The priory was both large and magnificent; its walls and ruins. occupy near twelve acres of ground. The gate-house was an elegant structure. Its whole front is embellished with coats of arms finely cut in stone: and between the interstices of the freestone are placed square black flints, which, by the contrast of their colour, give it a beautiful and rich appearance. South of the gate-way are the remains of several buildings, particularly of

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