Read Ebook: The History of Lynn Vol. 1 [of 2] by Richards William

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Site of Lynn--Account of its harbour, and that of Wisbeach--Ancient and present state of its rivers--Inland Navigation--Drainage--Projects of improvement--State of its shipping, commerce, and population, at different periods.

The Haven or Harbour is capacious, but the entrance to it is accounted somewhat difficult, and even dangerous, owing to the numerous sandbanks, and the frequent shiftings of the channel, occasioned by the loose and light nature of the sandy and silty soil at the bottom. On which account it is not deemed safe for ships to go in or out without pilots, who are, or ought always to be well acquainted with the variations and actual state of the channel. In the ages proceeding the 13th century this harbour, compared with its present width, is said to have been very narrow, being only a few perches over, though its depth of water was then, probably, no less, if not greater than it is at present.

As Lynn owes most of its consequence to this river, which forms its communication with the sea, and gives it so great an extent of inland navigation, and consequently such a vast commercial intercourse with the interior parts of the country, it will not be improper here to give some account of it, together with its principal branches, or those tributary streams which render it so considerable among the British navigable rivers.

This river "does not improve much," "as it traverses the plain counties of Bedford and Huntingdon, though it adds some consequence to their capitals, being there navigable; at St. Ives it sinks into those great marshes which abound on this part of the eastern coast, through Norfolk, Huntingdonshire, Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire and Lincolnshire.

"A dreary tract of Marsh accompanies these united rivers to Downham in Norfolk; nor does the country much improve afterwards, but the channel becomes very considerable, and the exit of these rivers is splendid, where the flourishing port and great trade of Lynn present a croud of vessels."

Dull and uninspiring, and in no sense classical ground, or a favourite haunt of the muses, as the banks of the Ouse have been generally, and perhaps justly considered, it must not be forgotten that they are become of late entitled to no small portion of celebrity, by the distinguished productions of the ingenious and excellent COWPER, one of the best, if not the very best of all our English poets of these latter days. He spent the greatest part of his time, and composed most of his works in the vicinity of this river. Henceforth it may therefore be deemed a classic stream: but it will be long, perhaps, before its banks shall have again the honour of numbering among their inhabitants a poet or a man of equal worth, genius, or renown.

What diverted this river from its ancient and original course is said to have been a great inland flood, which, meeting with obstruction, choked up the channel broke over the banks, and deluged the fens to a vast extent; from the effects of which they have never been fully recovered to this day.

This flood so deprived of a passage to the sea by the usual channel, and consequently overflowing the adjacent country to a great depth, became a most grievous and ruinous annoyance to the Fen people. At last, in order to remove so unbearable and terrible a nuisance, instead of taking common sense for their guide, and following nature, by opening the channel to the ancient outfall at Wisbeach, they determined, seemingly, to force nature, and set common-sense at defiance, by opening a passage for the inundating waters, and consequently for the future course of the great Ouse, the Cam, and the Larke into the narrow bed of the lesser Ouse, from Little-port Chair to Priests Houses, across that ridge, or higher ground, by which nature seemed to have forbidden the union of these rivers.

Things appear to have continued pretty much in this favourable state, till sometime after the erection of the Sluices at Denver; which by preventing the tides from going further up into the country, as before, proved very prejudicial to the harbour and Navigation of Lynn; and the effects are felt, it seems, and much complained of to this day. The free admission of the tides, and the natural course of the freshes are said to have kept other rivers open and navigable; and this appears to have been the case with the Ouse itself, while it possessed those advantages, or till the adventurers erected the said sluices across its channel, which are thought to have proved so very prejudicial, not only to the navigation of Lynn, Cambridge, &c. but even to the draining of the Fen districts and Marshland.

It seems allowed on all hands that Lynn Harbour has grown much worse in the memory of the present inhabitants, and that it is daily getting more and more so. To remedy this growing and alarming evil, as well as to promote and facilitate the inland navigation and drainage of the Fen Districts, a project was formed some few years ago to open a straight cut from Eabrink, about three miles above the town, into the upper part of the said harbour, with the view of scouring, deepening, and improving the same; and an Act of Parliament was obtained for that purpose. The work however, has been hitherto postponed: it being, it seems, found difficult to raise a fund adequate to the occasion. Vast benefits are said to be confidently expected by many from the execution of this project; while others appear much less sanguine in their expectations, and even consider it as in no small degree dubious and problematical.

Between Mr Kinderley and Mr Badeslade there seems to have existed a considerable difference of opinion on some points. The former ascribed the increasing foulness and decay of Lynn Harbour to the increasing width of the channel below, the loose and light nature of the sand there, subject to the powerful action of the tides, continually driving up those sands and lodging them in the harbour and river above: whereas the latter seems to ascribe it chiefly, if not solely to the Sluices, or the obstruction which they occasioned to the free influx and efflux of the waters. Each writer supports his own opinion with great confidence; but the question remains undecided. Both of them, perhaps, might be right in many or most of their ideas and reasonings.

Of Marshland and the adjoining parts, or Great Fen Country.--View of their situation and revolutions in remote ages, or Sketch of their ancient history.

The Romans, with all their faults, were certainly a wonderful people. Like all other invaders and conquerors they were in general very hard masters, and in some respects most vile oppressors and tyrants. In other respects, however, they may be said to have been eventually real benefactors to many, if not to most of the countries and nations which they subdued, as they were the means of greatly improving those countries, and of introducing among their inhabitants the rudiments of useful knowledge, habits of industry, and the laws of civilization.

After the country was reduced, and made a part or province of the empire, the Romans soon began to view it as a very important acquisition. Accordingly they set in good earnest about improving it; and there are still to be seen numerous proofs and monuments of their laborious, ingenious, and successful exertions. Among their important improvements here were included the draining of the Fens, and the embanking of the Marshes, to secure them against the violence and destructive inroads of the ocean. Marshland and the low lands of Lincolnshire, as was before observed, they found in the miserable condition of a salt marsh, occasionally and frequently overflowed by the tides. This country they secured by very strong and extensive embankments, which bear their name to this day.

The Fens must have been in a very dismal state before the arrival of the Romans; and their exertions, undoubtedly, wrought a mighty, and most happy change in the face of the country. Houses, villages, and towns would now appear in places that were before perfectly desolate and dreary. At this period we may venture to date the origin of Lynn; for it may be pretty safely concluded that it owes its rise to the schemes formed by the Romans for the recovery and improvement of these fens and marshes. It is also very probable, not only that it was the first town built in these parts, on that occasion, but also that it was built and inhabited by those foreign colonists above mentioned, and derived its name from them. This however is not the proper place for the further elucidation of this point: our present business being with the history of the Fens.

"In the Month of September 1796, I went to Sutton, on the coast of Lincolnshire, in the company of the right honourable the President of the Royal Society, in order to examine their nature and extent. The 19th of the month being the day after the equinoctial full moon, when the lowest ebbs were to be expected, we went in a boat, about half past twelve at noon, and soon set foot on one of the largest islands then appearing. Its exposed surface was about 30 yards long, and 25 wide when the tide was at the lowest. A great number of smaller islets were visible around us to the eastward and southward; and the fishermen whose authority in this point is very competent, say that similar moors are to be found along the whole coast from Skegness to Grimsby, particularly off Addlethorpe and Mablethorpe. The channels dividing the islets were, at the time we saw them, wide and of various depths; the islets themselves ranging generally from east to west in their largest dimensions.

"These islets, according to the most accurate information, extend at least twelve miles in length, and about a mile in breadth, opposite to Sutton shore. The water without them toward the sea, generally deepens suddenly, so as to form a steep bank. The channels between the several islets, when the islets are dry, in the lowest ebbs of the year, are from four to twelve feet deep: their bottoms are clay or sand, and their direction is generally from east to west.

"A well, dug at Sutton by Joshua Searby, shews that a moor of the same nature is found under ground in that part of the country, at the depth of sixteen feet, consequently very nearly on the same level with that which constitutes the islets. The disposition of the strata was found to be nearly as follows: clay sixteen feet; moor, similar to that of the islets, three or four ditto; soft moor, like the scourings of a ditch bottom, mixed with shells and silt, twenty feet; marly clay, one foot; chalky rock, from one to two feet; clay, thirty-one yards; gravel and water; the water has a chalybeate taste. In order to ascertain the course of this subterraneous stratum of decayed vegetables, Sir Joseph Banks directed a boring to be made in the fields belonging to the royal Society in the parish of Mablethorpe. Moor of a similar nature to that of Searby's well, and the islets, was found very nearly on the same level, about four feet thick, and under a soft clay.

"The whole appearance of the rotten vegetables we observed, perfectly resembles, according to the remark of Sir Joseph Banks, the moor which, in Blakeney Fen, and in other parts of the East Fen in Lincolnshire, is thrown up in the making of banks; barks like those of the birch-tree being there also abundantly found. The moor extends over all the Lincolnshire fens, and has been traced as far as Peterborough, more than sixty miles to the south of Sutton. On the north side, according to the fishermen, the moory islets extend as far as Grimsby, situated on the south side of the Humber: and it is a remarkable circumstance, that in the large tracts of low land which lie on the south banks of that river, a little above its mouth, there is a subterraneous stratum of decayed trees and shrubs, exactly like those we have observed at Sutton; particularly at Axolme isle, a tract of ten miles in length by five in breadth; and at Hatfield chace, which comprehends 180,000 acres. Dugdale had long ago made this observation in the first of these places; and Dela Prime in the second. The roots are there likewise standing in the places where they grew: the trunks lie prostrate. The woods are of the same species as at Sutton. Roots of aquatic plants and reeds are likewise mixed with them; and they are covered by a stratum of some yards of soil, the thickness of which, though not ascertained with exactness by the abovementioned observers, we may easily conceive to correspond with what covers the stratum of decayed wood at Sutton, by the circumstances of the roots being only visible when the water is low, where a channel was cut which has left them uncovered.

"Little doubt can be entertained of the moory islets of Sutton being a part of this extensive and subterraneous stratum, which, by some inroad of the sea, has there been stripped of its covering of soil. The identity of the levels; that of the species of trees; the roots of these affixed in both to the soil where they grew; and above all, the flattened shape of the trunks, branches, and roots, found in the islets are sufficient reasons for this opinion."

"In answer to these questions I will venture to submit the following reflections: The fossil remains of vegetables hitherto dug up in so many parts of the globe, are, on a close inspection, found to belong to two different states of our planet. The parts of vegetables and their impressions, found in mountains, of a colaceous and schistous, or even sometimes of a calcareous nature, are chiefly of plants now existing between the tropics, which would neither have grown in the latitudes in which they are dug up, nor have been carried and deposited there by any of the acting forces under the present constitution of nature. The formation indeed of the very mountains in which they are buried, and the nature and position of the materials which compose them, are such as we cannot account for by any actions and re-actions which in the actual state of things take place on the surface of the earth. We must necessarily recur to that period in the history of our planet, when the surface of the ocean was at least so much above its present level as to cover even the summits of those secondary mountains which contain the remains of tropical plants. The changes which these vegetables have suffered in their substance is almost total; they commonly retain only the external configuration of what they were. Such is the state in which they are found in England by Lhwyd; in France by Jussicu; and in the Netherlands by Burtin; not to mention instances in more distant countries. Some of the impressions or remains of plants found in soils of this nature which were, by the more ancient and enlightened oryctologists, supposed to belong to plants actually growing in temperate and cold climates, seem, on accurate investigation, to have been part of exotic vegetables. In fact, whether we suppose them to have grown near the spot where they are found, or to have been carried thither from different parts by the force of an impelling flood, it is equally difficult to conceive how organized beings, which, in order to live, require such a vast difference in temperature and seasons, could live on the same spot, or how their remains could be brought together in the place by one common dislocating cause. To this ancient order of fossil vegetables belong whatever retains a vegetable shape found in or near coalmines, and the greater part of the agatized woods. But from the species and state of the trees which are the subject of this memoir, and from the situation and nature of the soil in which they are found, it seems very clear that they do not belong to the primeval order of vegetable ruins.

"The second order of fossil vegetables comprehend those which are found in the strata of clay or sand; materials which are the result of slow depositions of the sea and of rivers, agents still at work under the present constitution of our planet. These vegetable remains are found in such flat countries as may be considered to be a new formation. The vegetable organization still subsists, at least in part; and their vegetable substance has suffered a change only in colour, smell, or consistence; alterations which are produced by the development of their oily and bitumenous parts, or by their natural progress towards rottenness. Such are the fossil vegetables found in Cornwall by Borlase; in Essex, by Derham; in Yorkshire by Dela Prime and Richardson; and in foreign countries by other naturalists. These vegetables are found at different depths; some of them much below the present level of the sea, but in clayey and sandy strata ; and have, no doubt, been carried from their original place and deposited there by the force of great rivers or currents, as it has been observed with respect to the Mississippi. In many instances, however, these trees and shrubs are found standing on their roots, and generally in low or marshy places above, or very little below the level of the sea.

"To this last description of fossil vegetables the decayed trees here described certainly belong. They have not been transported by currents or rivers; but though standing in their native soil, we cannot suppose the level in which they are found to be the same as that in which they grew. It would be impossible for any of these trees or shrubs to vegetate so near the sea, and below the common level of its water. The waves would cover such tracts of land, and hinder any vegetation. We cannot conceive that the surface of the ocean has ever been any lower than it is now; on the contrary we are led, by numberless phenomena to believe that the level of the water in our globe is now below what it was in former periods. We must therefore conclude, that the forest here described grew in a level high enough to permit its vegetation; and that the force which destroyed it, lowered the level of the ground where it stood.

"There is a force of subsidence which being a natural consequence of gravity, slowly, though imperceptibly operating, has its action sometimes quickened and rendered sudden by extraneous causes; for instance, by earthquakes. The slow effects of this force of subsidence have been accurately remarked in many places: examples also of its sudden action are recorded in almost every history of great earthquakes.--In England, Borlase has given in the Philosophical Transactions a curious observation of a subsidence of at least sixteen feet in the ground between Sampson and Trecaw islands in Scilly. The soft and low grounds between the towns of Thorne and Gowle in Yorkshire, a space of many miles, has so much subsided in latter times, that some old men of Thorne affirmed, "that whereas they could before see little of the Steeples they now see the church yard wall." The instances of similar subsidence which might be mentioned, are innumerable.

"The force of subsidence, suddenly acting by means of some earthquake, seems to me the most probable cause to which the usual submarine situation of the forest we are speaking of may be ascribed. It affords a simple easy explanation of the matter; its probability is supported by numberless instances of similar events; and it is not liable to the strong objections which exist against the hypothesis of the ultimate depression and elevation of the level of the ocean; an opinion which, to be credible, requires the support of a great number of proofs less equivocal than those which have hitherto been urged in its favour, even by the genius of Lavoisier.

"The stratum of soil, sixteen feet thick, placed above the decayed trees, seems to remove the epoch of their sinking and destruction far beyond the reach of any historical knowledge. In Caesar's time the level of the north sea appears to have been the same as in our days. He mentions the separation of the Wahal branch of the Rhine, and its junction with the Meuse; noticing the then existing distance from that junction to the sea, which agrees according to D'Anville's inquiries, with the actual distance. Some of the Roman roads, constructed according to the order of Augustus, under Agrippa's administration, leading to the maritime towns of Belgium, still exist, and reach the present shore. The description which Roman authors have given of the coast, ports, and mouths of rivers, on both sides of the North sea, agree in general with their present state; except in places ravaged by the inroads of this sea, more apt from its force to destroy the surrounding countries than to increase them.

"An exact resemblance exists between maritime Flanders and the opposite coast of England, both in point of elevation above the sea, and of the internal structure and arrangement of the soils. On both sides strata of clay, silt, and sand, are found near the surface; and in both, these superior materials cover a very deep stratum of blueish or dark coloured clay, unmixed with extraneous bodies. On both sides they are the lowermost part of the soil, existing between two ridges of high lands, on their respective sides of the same narrow sea. These two countries are certainly coeval; and whatever proves that maritime Flanders has been for many ages out of the sea, must, in my opinion, prove also that the forest we are speaking of was long before that time destroyed and buried under a stratum of soil. Now it seems proved from historical records, carefully collected by several learned members of the Brussels Academy, that no material change has happened in the lowermost part of maritime Flanders during the period of the last two thousand years.

"I am therefore inclined to suppose the original catastrophe which buried this forest to be of very ancient date; but I suspect the inroad of the sea which uncovered the decayed trees of the islands of Sutton, to be comparatively recent. The state of the leaves and of the timber, and also the tradition of the neighbouring people concur to strengthen this suspicion."

The reader, it is hoped, will excuse, and even approve the length of this curious extract, as it seems so well calculated to account for and elucidate divers striking phenomena in the natural history of the Fens.

Here it may not be improper further to observe, that the forest above described seems to have extended from the coast of Lincolnshire a considerable way along the Norfolk coast; as there is on the shore, near Thornham in that county, at low water, the appearance of a large forest having been, at some period, interred and swallowed up by the waves. Stools of numerous large timber trees, and many trunks, are to be seen, but so rotten, that they may be penetrated by a spade. These lie in a black mass of vegetable fibres, consisting of decayed branches, leaves, rushes, flags, &c. The extent of this once sylvan tract must have been great, from what is discoverable; and at high water, now covered by the tides, is in one spot from five to six-hundred acres. No hint of the manner, or the time, in which this submersion happened, can be traced. Nothing like a bog is near, and the whole beach besides is composed of a fine ooze, or marine clay.

The fullest and most circumstantial account we have of these Fens is contained in Sir William Dugdale's History of Embanking, the substance of which will be found in the following pages. He has also treated upon the same subject in his correspondence with his friend Sir Thomas Browne, published in the posthumous works of the latter; some extracts from which, being much to the purpose, shall be here submitted to the reader's perusal.

Among the modern authors who have treated of these Fens, no one, perhaps, ranks higher than Pennant. Of this singular tract of country he gives the following account.

"The great Level, which comprehends Holland in this county, with part of Northamptonshire, Huntingdonshire, Cambridgeshire, Suffolk and Norfolk, a tract of sixty computed miles in length, and forty in breadth, had been originally a wooded country. Whole forests of firs and oaks have been found in digging, far beneath the moor on the solid ground; oaks fifteen feet in girth, and ten yards long, mostly burnt at the bottoms, the ancient method of falling them: multitudes of others entirely rooted up, as appears, by the force of the sea bursting in and overwhelming this whole tract, and covering it with silt, or mud which it carried with it from time to time.

In the 20th. of Elizabeth, the state of the country was taken into consideration: no great matters were done till the time of Francis, and William his son, earls of Bedford, who attempted this Herculean work, and reclaimed this vast tract of more than 300,000 acres; and the last received, under the sanction of Parliament, the just reward of 90,000 acres. I speak not of the reliques of ancient banks, which I have seen in Holland in Lincolnshire, now remote from the sea, nor yet the Roman timuli, the coins and other evidences of the residence of that nation in these parts: it is to be hoped that will be undertaken by the pen of some native, who will perform it from actual survey.

"In the latitude of Boston, or about latitude 53, the following remark may be made on the vegetable creation: a line may be drawn to the opposite part of the kingdom, which will comprehend the greatest part of Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, the moorlands of Staffordshire, all Cheshire, Flintshire, Denbighshire, Caernarvonshire, and Anglesey. Beyond this line, nature hath allotted to the northern parts of these kingdoms certain plants which are rarely or never found to transgress that line to the south."--In another place he says,

"The opposite shore is that of Lincolnshire. Its great commercial town Boston stands on the Witham, a few miles from the head of the bay. Spring tides rise at the Key fourteen-feet, and convey there vessels of above a hundred tons; but greater ships lie at the scap, the opening of the Estuary.--The sluggish rivers of these tame tracts want force to form a depth of Water.

"That this vast level was at first a firm dry land, and not annoyed with any extraordinary inundation by the sea, or stagnation of fresh waters, is evident from the quantity of trees that have been found buried in different parts of the fens, and also from a variety of other circumstances.

"He also relates that in driving the piles for securing the foundation of the great sluice at the mouth of the new cut, a little above Boston, in 1764, roots of trees were found at the depth of eighteen feet below the pasturage surface, standing as the trees had grown. Some of them were obliged to be chopt through to make a passage for the piles. In some other parts of the trench dug for laying the same foundations, small shells were discovered, disposed in the same manner as they are often found at the bottom and sides of the marsh creeks.

"The preceding instances are sufficient proofs, that the surface of this level was anciently much lower than it is at present; and also that it must have remained dry for a vast number of years, otherwise the trees would never have attained to the magnitude which they appear to have done by the above statements. In what age, or from what causes the waters overspread the country, and converted this extensive district into fens, is uncertain; yet there are reasons to believe, that the great level would have remained in a flourishing state till the present time, if the operations of nature had not been interrupted by the works of art.

Before the commencement of the work, thirteen gentlemen, of high rank and respectability offered to become joint adventurers with the earl, and their proposals being accepted, the undertaking commenced. In the year 1634, the king granted the adventurers a charter of incorporation; and three years and a half from that period, the Commissioners adjudged the Level drained, and, accompanied by his Majesty's surveyor, attended to set out the earl's allotment.

The Act obtained at this period, settled the boundaries of the Level, and gave fresh vigour to the undertaking. The works which had fallen to decay, were repaired, and new channels made, with so much propriety in the opinion of the Commissioners, that on the 25th. of March, 1653, the Level was adjudged to be fully drained, and the 95,000 acres awarded to the Earl and his participants; the latter of whom were nearly ruined by the expence of draining, which amounted to upwards of ?400,000.

In the 15th. of Charles II, the former act was confirmed in its most essential clauses; and a corporation, consisting of a governor, six bailiffs, and twelve conservators and commonality, was established, under the title of "Conservators of the Great Level of the Fens," for its better government. These commissioners were empowered to levy taxes on the 95,000 acres, to defray whatever expences might arise in their preservation; but only 83,000 acres were vested in the corporation, in trust for the Earl of Bedford and his associates. The remaining 12,000 having been allotted to Charles I, in pursuance of the agreement made by the persons who met at Huntingdon, were now assigned to the king, with the exception of 2000 acres, which had been granted to the Earl of Portland.

In the year 1697 the Bedford Level was divided into three districts, North, Middle, and South; having one surveyor for each of the former, and two for the latter. This distribution, which had been made for its better government, was the source of considerable divisions. A misconceived distinction of interest arose between the different proprietors; and their dissatisfaction being increased during a long minority in the Bedford family, to whom, as proprietor of the North Level, the others were greatly indebted. Application was made to the Legislature in 1753, and an act obtained to settle the account of the corporation, and separate the North Level from the rest, except in those instances wherein their alliance was necessary for the service of the country. On this occasion the Duke of Bedford remitted the sum due to him from the South and Middle Levels; and the Earl of Lincoln, to whom they were also indebted, concurred in the generous example.

Of late years a measure has been frequently agitated, and in 1795 passed into a law, for improving the outfall of the river Ouse, and amending the drainage of the south and middle Levels, by making a Cut across the marshes from Eaubrink to Lynn. Great advantages are expected to be derived from this new channel, and the commissioners appointed by the Act are now employed in levying taxes to enable them to proceed with the work; but it is not yet begun.

Among the great variety of expedients employed to drain the marshes, where the regular and common means have failed, is the erection of windmills, or rather engines worked by the wind, which, from their number and situation in some parts of the fens, present a very singular and rather queer and grotesque appearance. These raise the water to a sufficient height to admit of its being conveyed into receptacles enough elevated to carry it into its proper channel.

A great many thousand acres, within the extent of this low country, are still in the condition of waste unimproved fen, the average value of which is said to be little more than four shillings an acre. One writer states that upwards of 150,000 acres are in that condition in Cambridgeshire alone, which, however, has been thought by others somewhat inaccurate, and beyond the truth. Be that as it may, the quantity of such lands in the fens is certainly very great, and must sufficiently demonstrate that the immense labour bestowed, in draining the Level, has not been attended with the salutary effects which the promoters of the various plans too fondly imagined and promised; and it may still be questioned whether the remedies proposed, and partially executed, are adequate to effect the intended purpose.

The elevated spots on which the towns and villages are built in many parts of the fens, appear like islands rising in the midst of low and level marshes; and the churches being generally erected on the highest parts, may be distinguished at the distance of several miles. The cottages in many places are nothing more than mud-walls, covered with thatch or reed. The application of the land is various. The crops of oats are particularly exuberant, the produce being frequently from forty-five to sixty bushels an acre; great quantities of wheat and coleseed are also grown, and generally with a proportional increase. Many thousand acres are also appropriated to pasture.

In the neighbourhood of Elm, Upwell, Outwell, &c. considerable quantities of hemp and flax are grown; but the culture of these articles, as a preparation for wheat, does not receive that attention which their importance demands. Some very fine butter is made in the dairy farms in this district; and the vicinity of Cottenham is famous for a peculiar kind of new cheese of a singularly delicious flavour; which is partly ascribed to the mode observed in the management of the dairies, and partly to the nature of the herbage on the commons. Many parts are remarkably favourable for the growth of corn; but the situation of some of them renders them so extremely liable to be overflowed, that their luxuriant produce is too frequently destroyed by the floods. It is generally said, however, that if the occupiers have one good year in every two or three, they will make a very tolerable shift to live. The sheep in some parts are said to be very subject to the rot, which has been attributed to the neglected state of the fens in those places, occasioning the ground to produce rank and unwholesome herbage.

The grounds are perhaps no where richer or more fertile, in any part of this low country, than about Wisbeach and Long Sutton. The pastures there are exceedingly fine and luxuriant. The crops of corn also are in general abundant, but much more subject to blights than in the hilly parts, and the grain is said to be lighter; and much inferior in quality to that of the high country.

Towards March and Chatteris, the land, though apparently very good, is said to be apt to produce such an increasing quantity of thick moss, as renders it in a few years unfit for pasturage; to remedy which, the farmer has the surface pared off and burnt, preparatory to its being ploughed up; by which means the moss is effectually destroyed, and a good manure provided for the ensuing crops, which are for the most part very plentiful. After a while it is again converted into grass land, and so continued till the moss gathers and appears as before, when the former process is again resorted to, as the only remedy.

One very great inconvenience, which the inhabitants of this low country labour under, is the want of good water, especially in dry summers, owing to the scarcity of springs. Rain-water is the only water they can have for domestic uses, almost throughout the year: to preserve which they have troughs and spouts constructed and fixed under the eves of the houses, by which it is conveyed into cisterns and reservoirs for the use of their families. Even such populous towns as Boston and Wisbeach have no better means of supplying themselves with good water; which in most parts of Britain would be deemed an intolerable grievance. To Lynn, however, the above case does not apply. The country on its eastern side abounds with good springs, from which the town is plentifully supplied with excellent water, as not to be exceeded in that respect, perhaps, by any place in the kingdom.

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