Page:The National Gazetteer - A Topographical Dictionary of the British Islands, Volume 3.djvu/78

NORFOLK. 66 NORFOLK. Mr. Coke, in the latter part of the last century, and the benefits of which become every year more manifest. The principles of the Norfolk agriculture, generally, consist in the improvement of the mechanical texture of the light soils by laying considerable portions of the marly clay, found a little below the surface, on the poorer soil which was at the surface ; the production, by rich manure, of a few inches of thoroughly good earth ; the application of an excellent system of tile-draining, where the sub-soil is impervious to water, and a careful garden cultivation, almost resembling that of Holland and Belgium ; but with this distinction, that special care is paid to the due rotation of crops. To provide sufficient manure for the corn crops, half the land is de- voted to raise food for cattle ; and various artificial manures are employed as the fish stickleback, ground bones, guano, rape dust, and phosphate of lime, procured from stones found in the crag, which is considered as good as bones for manure. Great care is also observed in the folding of the sheep, which are driven to the pastures and heaths in the day, and folded on the cultivated lands during the night, so as to add to their fertility ; and Mr. Coke's principle of carrying a large stock upon the farm has not been lost sight of. Thus has been developed that system which collects so many lean cattle from Galloway, Wales, and other parts of the kingdom, an- nually, in the eastern counties to be fattened and dis- posed of in the metropolitan markets between the months of January and June. The great grazing lands are chiefly in the S.W., on marshes of the Bedford Level. There are also a few dairy farms ; but nothing like so numerous as in former times. The best wooded parts of the county are in the N. and N.E., where also the choicest examples of cultivation are to be met with. Estates are of all sizes ; but farms in general large, and the farm buildings of a superior kind. The leases, since Mr. Coke's time, range from 7 to 21 years, thus allowing sufficient time for the tenant farmer to reap the advan- tage of his capital sunk in the improvement of the land, much of which, at the commencement of the present century, was scarcely worth 5s. per aero. To under- stand how much enterprise, skill, and capital must, at some time or other, have been expended in the improve- , ment of the soil, it is only requisite to compare such estates as still remain in their primitive wildness with the richly-cultivated lands adjoining. Open fields, divided by neatly-trimmed hedges, and tilled with garden-like precision and cleanliness, occasionally are seen, contrasting strikingly with the careless husbandry of a former age, when each year produced its crops of weeds, as well as corn. The produce of Norfolk consists of chalk, for building, lime, cement-stone, bricks, marl, dug from the valley of the Buro ; sand for glass-making, found between Snettisham and Castle Rising ; peat, dug from the fen districts of the W. ; coarse pottery, pipes, and all sorts of grain and agricultural produce, particu- larly barley, which is of excellent quality, and yields four quarters per acre ; wheat, oats, rye, beans, clover, and other grasses, besides carrots, potatoes, chicory, mustard, flax, saffron, hemp, and green crops ; but these last are generally consumed on the farm. Besides large quantities of "Cambridge butter," turkeys, geese, rab- bits, fowls, pheasants, and other game, are sent to the metropolitan markets. The buzzard, hooded-crow, and short-cared owl, are sometimes seen; and mackerel, herrings, cod, and other fish, are taken on the coast, affording occupation to many of the inhabitants who dwell in the villages scattered along the inhospitable eastern coast. The principal manufactures carried on are silk, bombazine, worsted, woollen fabrics, and cottons. The exports of most of these articles are very large, and are constantly augmenting. The population of the county in 1851 was 442,714, and in 1861, 434,798, showing a decrease in the decennial period of 7,916. The county returns 12 members to Parliament viz. two for the E. division, of which Norwich is the election town ; two members for the western division, of which Swaffham is the election town ; and two members each for the city of Norwich and the boroughs of Lynn, Thetford, and Yar- mouth. Besides Norwich, which is the comity town and scat of a diocese, there are 22 market towns, Attle- borough, Aylsham, Buckenham, Cley, Diss, Downham, East Dereham, Fakenham, Foulsham, Harleston, Har- ling East, Holt, Loddon, Lynn, North Walsham, Reep- ham, Stoke -Ferry, Swaffham, Thetford, Watton, Wymondham, or Wyndham, and Yarmouth ; besides about 800 villages and hamlets. The county is in the Norfolk circuit, assizes and quarter sessions being held at Norwich, where is also the county gaol and lunatic asylum, and is within the home military district. It is governed by a lord-lieutenant and vice-admiral, and about 112 deputy-lieutenants, assisted by 400 magis- trates. The office of Vice- Admiral of Norfolk, which in the Roman times was exercised by a " Comes littoris Saxonici," is now generally held by the lord-lieutenant of the county, under a commission from the Lords of the Admiralty, by which he is invested with a power to hold a special court of admirals, with judges, marshals, and other officers, an appeal lying to the High Court of Admiralty. For political purposes Norfolk is divided into 33 hundreds in two divisions, comprising 743 parishes, of which Norwich numbers 39, besides parts of three other parishes, and 7 extra parochial liberties. It is also divided into 14 new county-court districts, 21 poor-law unions, and 20 superintendent registry districts. For ecclesiastical purposes it constitutes the two arch- deaconries of Norwich and Norfolk in the diocese of Norwich and province of Canterbury. It is traversed both laterally and longitudinally by the Eastern Union, East Anglian and Norfolk sections of the Great Eastern Railway : the main line from London passing through Colchester, in Essex, to Ipswich, whence it proceeds by Stowmarket and Diss to Norwich, throwing off short branch lines westward to Hadleigh and to Bury St. Ed- mund's ; from Norwich it forks to the E. and V., the former, following the valley of the Yare, runs to Great Yarmouth, with a short branch to Lowestoft, in Suffolk ; while the western section, passing through Wymond- ham and Attlcborough, communicates with Ely, Cam- bridge, and Huntingdon, thus connecting Norfolk with Birmingham and the midland districts; while a third section runs northward from Wymondham to East Dere- ham, where it again forks one branch, going north through Fakenham to Wells ; and the other N .E., through Swaffham to Lynn Regis, and so to Wisbeach and Downham Market. The surface being level, this county is well supplied with roads, including two main lines from London, which in the days of stage coaches were the highways between Norwich and the metropolis : the one, passing through Ipswich, enters the county at Scole-on-the-Waveney ; and the other through Ware, at Thetford-on-the-Little-Ouse, converging just before their entry into Norwich on the S.W. suburb of the city. One road to Yarmouth from London branches off from the Norwich and Ipswich road at Scole, and follows the valley of the Waveney ; but the main coach road from London to Yarmouth does not enter the county until it reaches Yarmouth, where it crosses the estuary of the Yare from the Suffolk side. The other principal roads diverging from Norwich are, to the E., through Acle to Caistor and Yarmouth,: to the N.E., through Stratton to North Walsham; to trie N., through Aylsham to Cromer ; to the N.W., through Fakenham to Wells ; or through East Dereham and Swaffham to Downham and Lynn Regis ; to the S.W., through New Buckenham to Diss ; and to the S.E , through Bungay to Ilalcsworth, Saxmundham, and Aldborough. The county is adorned by numerous seats of the nobility and gentry, and gives title of premier duke, and earl, to the Howard family, hereditary earls marshal of England, who had anciently their seat at Norwich, and still hold large possessions here. Other seats are Sandringham Hall, recently pur- chased by the Prince of Wales ; Houghton Park, of the Marquis of Cholmondeley ; Raynham Hall, of the Mar- quis Townshcnd ; Quiddcnham Hall, of the Earl of Albemarle ; Holkham Hall, of the Earl of Leicester; Woltorton Hall, of the Earl of Orford ; Blickling Park, of the Marquis of Lothian ; Costessey Hall, of Lord