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

ELVEDON, a small village, was formerly of some note, for the session of certain justices of the peace, who, when the king's commissioners appointed to apprehend, try and punish the riotous inhabitants of Bury in 1327, for the outrages committed by them against the abbot and convent of that town, only indicted them for a trespass, boldly proceeded against them as felons, on which they were brought to trial, and nineteen suffered death.

Elvedon gave the title of viscount to admiral Keppel. To the right of the village is Elvedon-Hall, the seat of the earl of Albemarle, whose attention to laudable and useful pursuits entitles him to not less respect than his rank. This nobleman has here taken into his own hands a farm of 4000 acres ; " he promises," as Mr. Young observes," to be a very active and experimental faimer: and will, by improving and planting, change the face of the desert which surrounds him." He has introduced the system of drill-husbandry on a large scale upon his farm, consisting chiefly of a blowing sand: and by a trial of a flock of 900 Norfolk sheep, against the same number of South Downs, has established the decided superiority of the latter.

The manor of ERESWELL was held of the king in capite, as of his honor of Boulogne, by Ralph of Roucestre, and his descendants; and in the first of Edward II. by Robert de Tudenham, and Eve his wife. Besides the parochial church, there was at the north end of the parish a chapel dedicated to St. Lawrence; and in one of these was a chauntry of the yearly value of 91. 4s. 6d.

EXNING, or IXNING, is a village about a mile from Newmarket, in the centre of a small portion of Suffolk, joined only by the high road to the rest of the county, and otherwise surrounded by Cambridgeshire, to which, in the reign of Edward I. it gave the

name

quent works, erroneously assert, on the authority of Holinshed, that in October 1568, twenty-seven fishes of prodigious size, the smallest measuring twenty feet in length, were taken near the bridge of this village. The Downham spoken of by Holinshed, is Downham-market, eleven miles from Lynn, in Norfolk.

name of a half hundred. Kirby, in his Suffolk Traveller, says, that this place, with Newmarket, is reckoned in the hundred of Stow ;* but the general method which makes this detached district part of the hundred of Lackford is here adopted.

This village is pleasantly situated in a small vale, with a rivulet running through the midst of it, and well shaded with fine poplars, producing an agreeable contrast to the monotony of the surrounding country, which in general presents one uniform, naked plain. The church is a good and spacious building, with a lofty square tower, which commands a very extensive prospect, and is seen at a great distance. In the chancel, very near the communion table, is a square altar tomb close to the wall. It is of a coarse sort of grey marble, and was formerly adorned with brasses, which have been torn away. Neither tradition nor any memorial has preserved the name of the person for whom it was erected. In the window over the altar remain a few panes of painted plass; some of them with mutilated figures. One of these without head, has a golden wand, which probably formed part of a crosier. A large quadrangular brick mansion here, was formerly the seat of the Shepherds, who possessed a good estate in this county, but was sold by the late lady Irwin, the heiress of that family. One side of the town of Newmarket is situated in the parish of Exning, as is also part of the heath so celebrated in the annals of racing.

Exning was formerly of greater note than it is at present. It was the birth-place of Etheldred, daughter of king Anna, whom the pope canonized for a virgin, though she was married to two husbands. Here also Ralph Waher, earl of the East-Angles, planned his conspiracy against William the Conqueror, with Roger de Britolio, earl of Hereford, Waltheof, earl of Northumberland, and some other persons of high rank. Their design to kill William, or to drive him out of the realm, was, however, soon quashed, partly by the desertion of earl Waltheof, and some of the chief confederates, and partly by the vigilance of the king's friends,

the

Suffolk Traveller, second Edit. p. 187.

the Bishops of Worcester and Bayeux. Ralph, finding his situa tion hopeless, fled first into France, and then to Denmark, leaving his possessions, and those of his adherents, to the mercy of their adversaries.

ICKLINGHAM, four miles eastward of Mildenhall, on the north of the Lark, has two parishes, and two parish churches, St. James and All Saints. In the latter, within the rails of the communion table and about the chancel, is a considerable quantity of Roman bricks, or tiles, which were some time since ploughed up in a neighboring field, and placed here for their preservation. They are of different shapes, slightly traced with the figures of animals, flowers, human faces, &c.; some few of them are vitrified. This place is supposed by some to have been the ancient Roman station, Combretonium, or, according to Horsley, Comboritum Here, at any rate, says the author of a Tour through England, ascribed to the pen of Samuel Richardson, are vestiges of a settlement, which seems to have extended half a mile in length, at a small distance from the river. On the west side of the ruins is a square encampment, which appears to have contained about twenty-five acres, and is now called Kentfield, said to be a corruption of Campfield. The vallum is visible all round it, except where the moorish ground has brought it to decay. Coins and fibulæ have been found here, especially in a ploughed field half a mile north-west of the town, and also in the moors, when dug for the purpose of being fenced and drained. Many years since an ancient leaden cistern, containg sixteen gallons, and ornamented as with hoops, was likewise discovered by a ploughman, who struck his share against the edge of it. Westward of the camp, upon Warren-hill, are three large barrows, each encompassed by a ditch.

One of these parishes gave birth to John Michell, lord-mayor of London, 3d Henry VI.

NEWMARKET, the most considerable part of which is situat

ed in Suffolk, has already been described in treating of Cambridgeshire, to which the reader is here referred.*

THETFORD, is in a similar predicament with the preceding place. The whole, or at least by far the greater part of this once celebrated town, seems to have been originally on the Suffolk side of the Little Ouse, where in the reign of Edward III. were situated thirteen out of the twenty parishes which it then comprehended. There is still one parish, St. Mary's, with about thirty houses in Suffolk, but in regard to ecclesiastical matters, under the jurisdiction of the archdeacon of Norwich.+

HUNDRED OF THINGO.

This district is bounded on the east by the Hundred of Thedwestry; on the south by Baberg and Risbridge; on the west by Risbridge and Lackford; and on the north by Lackford and Blackbourn.

In this hundred is situated the metropolis of the western division of the county,

BURY ST. EDMUND'S.

This town stands on the west side of the river Bourne, or Lark. It has a charmingly enclosed country on the south and south-west, and on the north and north-west champaign fields extending into Norfolk; while on the east the country is partly open and partly enclosed. Bury is so pleasantly situated, commands such extensive views, and the air is so salubrious, that it has been denominated the Montpellier of England. The want

See Beauties, Vol. II. p. 139.

+ For a description of Thetford, see Beauties, Vol. XI. Norfolk, p. 241

~250.

of