Chapter XXIV: Section I

_Aspect of the country—its agriculture and rural economy—Wayland Wood—Memoir of Shuckforth—parish churches and other edifices_, _ancient and modern_.

After passing from Marshland to the eastern side of the Ouse, the country presently begins to exhibit a very different appearance. The surface now ceases to be flat and even as before, and the very soil appears considerably altered and diversified. A light sandy soil soon presents itself, and the land becomes higher and comparatively hilly, as well as in general much less fertile and productive than in Marshland. The style, or mode and process of agriculture also differs considerably, as do likewise even the very implements of husbandry. There are certainly some slovenly farmers on this eastern side, but there are many others who manage their farms in a manner greatly superior to what is generally done on the other side of the river. Indeed the comparative poorness of the soil here may operate in no small degree as a spur to superior exertion and improvement. Where the land is poor nature requires the greater attention and assistance; and without skilful, laborious, and expensive management the cultivator cannot expect to thrive. Those farmers who have distinguished themselves, by a close attention to the pursuit of wise projects of agricultural improvement, have found their account abundantly in so doing. They have generally attained to considerable opulence, so as to be able to exhibit the appearance of wealthy independent country gentleman, instead of a servile, cringing yeomanry or tenantry. Not a few of them are supposed to live as well as their landlords: but the conduct of some of them towards the _poor_ has been thought cruel and tyrannical.

Dairies are said to be here rather neglected, and the farmers’ attention chiefly directed to tillage and the growing of corn. The _cheese_ is for the most part very ordinary and poor, and the _butter_ not excellent.—No part of England exceeds Norfolk, or even equals it, in the culture of _turnips_, for which its loose, light, and sandy soil is thought to be very favourable. Much dependence is here placed on the turnip crop, for subsisting the sheep and cattle during the winter season; and if it fail, or is materially injured by early frosts, or other means, the complaints become loud, and the consequences often prove serious and distressing.

The turnip was only cultivated in gardens, as a culinary plant in this country till the reign of George I. when Lord Townshend, an ancestor of the present marquis, who had attended the king to Hanover, as secretary of state, observing the profit and utility of the field cultivation of turnips in that electorate, on his return brought with him the seed and recommended it to his tenants who occupied land of a similar quality to that of Hanover. The experiment succeeded adequate to expectation: the practice gradually spread over the county, and made its way into other parts of the kingdom. This important root, the great source of abundance to the county, has been gradually rising to its present state, for upwards of seventy years—A good acre of turnips in Norfolk will produce between thirty and forty cart-loads, as heavy as three horses can draw; and an acre will fat a Scotch bullock from forty to fifty stone, or eight sheep. But the advantage of this crop does not end here, for it generally leaves the land so clean and in such fine condition, that it almost insures a good crop of barley, and a kind plant of clover; and the clover is a most excellent preparative for wheat, so that in the subsequent advantages the value of the turnip can hardly be estimated. It has however been observed, that the cultivation of this root has reached its acme; and that at present, from some latent causes, it is on the decline: for recently more seed is become necessary, and the crop is said to be more precarious. Some have attributed it to the want of deeper ploughing, and instances have been adduced of the extraordinary depth to which turnips, and even _wheat_ will radicate. This however has been thought insufficient to affix the cause of failure to shallow ploughing. {137}

Among our enlightened agriculturists the first place in generally allotted to those of Norfolk; and it has been observed, that the first thing that attracts the eye of a stranger here, is the fine _tilth_ of the soil, and the _succession_ of crops. The mode of cultivating the arable lands is worthy, no doubt, of imitation, wherever it can be adopted. The plough, which is of an admirable construction, is drawn by two horses harnessed abreast, which with a pair of reins are guided by the person who holds the plough. Instead of working the animals seven or eight hours without drawing bit, as is the custom in some counties, they are here worked eight hours in winter, and ten in Summer, by two journeys, as they are termed, which enables them to do considerably more than they would by one journey. The ploughings are repeated till the land is high in tilth, when it is completely pulverized with _wheeled_ drags and harrows, which are violently drawn by the horses being kept upon a _trotting_ pace. Owing to this rapid movement, the clods are very effectually broken, and the land well prepared to receive the seed. After this is sown or planted, the utmost attention is paid to keep the land free from weeds. The ridiculous custom of letting the land lie _idle_ one year in every three, for the advantage of what is termed _fallowing_, is here properly exploded. The necessity of it has been superceded, and the reasons of it done away, by a judicious course of _cropping_; so that one crop may fertilise as the other exhausts; and in this manner are the lands cultivated like gardens, yielding various crops in perpetual succession, to the mutual benefit of the landlord and tenant; and of general utility to the public.

The mode of cropping in general practice is what is termed a _sixcourse shift_—the first year wheat; second, barley, with or without clover; third, turnips; fourth, barley or oates, with or without clover; fifth, clover mown for hay; sixth, grazed and ploughed up for wheat again. Some vary this mode by a five or a four course shift. Wheat is a general crop over the whole county, but thrives best on the stiff loamy lands. The lighter soils are favourable to barley, vast quantities of which are raised, malted, and in that state sent out of the county. Both wheat and barley are principally either drilled, for which several kinds of ingeniously-contrived _barrow-drills_ are used, or else planted with the hand by women and children, called _dibbling_. The latter is among the agricultural improvements that have originated in this county: it is very generally practised, and its superiority, in several respects, or circumstances, over the other methods has been generally admitted. The quantities produced, according to the seed sown, are very unequal in different parts of the county. Lands, in the hundred of Flegg and Marshland, usually bear six quarters of wheat per acre, and ten of oats; but in the very light soils, the farmer is glad to obtain two quarters of oats, and three of barley. The average crops of the whole county may be stated at three quarters of wheat, and four of barley, and other articles in proportion, per-acre. {139} Oats are mostly sown only as a shifting crop, and seldom more is raised than what are consumed within the county. Other crops are rye, buck wheat, peas, beans, vetches or tares, coleseed, clovers, rye and other artificial grasses; burnet; cocksfoot, chickary, cabbages, mangel wurzel, luzerne, carrots, and potatoes. The latter, though so valuable a root, and in other parts used as a preparatory crop for wheat, has not lately been adopted as a field course in Norfolk. {140a} _Flax_ and _hemp_, and even _mustard_ and _saffron_ are grown in some parts about Marshland and the Fens.—Improved implements and machines, to facilitate the operations of husbandry, are here in the greatest variety and perfection. _Threshing machines_ are become general throughout the county, as are also _drills_ of all kinds; but a _drill-roller_ has been supposed to be peculiar to Norfolk. It is a large cast-iron cylinder, with projecting rings round it, at about ten inches distance from each other. This being drawn over the ploughed land makes indentations, and the seed sown _broad-cast_ chiefly falls into the drills, and is thus regularly and better deposited than in the common mode of sowing.—Among _wheel-carriages_ the non descript one called a _wizzard_, or _hermaphrodite_, is curious and remarkable; it is the common cart, to which in harvest, or in pressing circumstances, a couple of temporary forewheels are placed under the shafts, and two oblique ladders to the frame, by which it is made to answer the purpose of a waggon: in little farms, it is an object of no small utility, and in large ones a great help in a busy season. {140b}

The fat cattle of these parts, except those sold at home to the butchers, are commonly sent up to London, and sold in Smithfield Market, by the authorized and sworn salesmen of that place, who regularly remit the money afterwards to the respective owners, to their entire satisfaction; for no murmurs against these salesmen, or reflections unfavourable to their integrity are ever heard. One man, commonly called _a drover_, generally takes charge of the disposable cattle of a whole district, and among them sometimes very fierce beasts, that would prove unmanageable to most other people, but which he contrives to drive along with tolerable ease, assisted only by a trusty and well-trained _dog_, his sagacious and constant companion.

The country eastward of Lynn, towards Westacre and Swaffham, soon becomes more and more elevated and hilly: the soil also, in many places, is of a very inferior sort—and so light, loose, and sandy, as to be easily, in its ploughed state, drifted by the wind; for which the _marl_, that abounds about those parts, is the very best manure, and almost the only effectual remedy; and it is generally nigh at hand; often but a few feet beneath the surface, and under the very soil that wants it. It is usually laid on very thick, and seldom disappoints the farmer’s wish or expectation, unless the soil be so incurably sterile as not to admit the marl’s incorporating with it. Wonderful effects have often been produced by this marling, upon lands that many would have deemed of invincible sterility.

Not far from the last mentioned town of Swaffham, between Watton and Merton, is a place called _Wayland Wood_, which gives name to the Hundred in which it lies. It is commonly called _Wailing Wood_, and tradition has marked it out as the scene of the pitiable, miserable, and horrid catastrophe recorded and commemorated in the old and well-known ballad of “The Children in the Wood; or the Norfolk Gentleman’s last will and testament.” The origin of the tradition, or the time when that shocking event happened, cannot now, it seems, be ascertained. Even Blomefield, with all his antiquarian sagacity, and extensive means of information, was not able to find it out. It was probably the occurrence of a very distant period: but that it really did happen, the ballad and the tradition may be considered as very sufficient proofs; and the latter renders it very probable, or rather more than probable, that Wayland, or Wailing Wood was the very theatre of its perpetration. Of the untimely and tragical ends of helpless and friendless orphans, by the procurement of unprincipled, unfeeling, and cruel relations, who were heirs to their possessions, the history of rude and barbarous ages furnish but too many and very shocking examples; and it is devoutly to be wished that nothing of the kind, or nothing equally inhuman and shocking, could be said of the history of what are usually called civilized and enlightened times.

At Saham Tony, not far from Watton and Wayland Wood, lived in the last century a remarkable person of the name of _Shuckforth_. He was a gentleman of good property, and resided there on his own estate. On some occasion, unknown to the present writer, he retired from the world many years before he died, and gave himself up to reading and meditation, and to the practice of piety and charity. His religion appeared to be of that cast that is usually and assumingly denominated orthodox and evangelical, with no slight tincture of credulity, superstition, and fanaticism. These, however, as his life was otherwise so inoffensive and fruitful of good works, lost in him a great part of their deformity. His oddities and eccentricities induced many of his neighbours, of the higher orders, to impute to him a strong twist of insanity; while a great part of their own conduct would have gone, perhaps, quite as far in supporting a similar imputation against themselves. A course of life so singular, unfashionable, and unadmired, as that which he chose and pursued, might excite in many no small degree of surprize and disgust, but it ought not to be taken as a proof of mental derangement. It was probably the result of the sober exercise of his private judgement, and of a full conviction that there was no other course in which he could so well serve God and his fellow creatures, or promote his own present and future happiness. He was seldom seen for many of his latter years, except by a few domestics, one of whom was a constant attendant, and employed to read to him, after his own eyesight had failed. He is also supposed to have been the chief agent to distribute his charities, in the mean time, among the neighbouring poor and indigent. Close to his house he had a lime-kiln erected, from an idea that the smell, or effluvia of burning lime conduced to health and longevity. Thus he passed his time, in innocent and useful retirement, during a great part of a very long life. May his opulent survivors imitate his benevolence and charitable actions, whatever they may think of his peculiarities. He died in 1781, in his 91st. year, and was buried in one of his own fields, in a spot which he had fixed upon, and enclosed for that purpose, near twenty years before; and where he had erected a tomb, or a kind of mausoleum, with a long inscription on each of its four sides, or on four different stones. The inscriptions, as to the style and substance of them, have no great merit. They possess no elegance; and may be very truly said to be far more fanciful than judicious. But of the writer’s good intention, no doubt ought to be entertained. As he had in his lifetime distinguished himself by numerous acts of benevolence, so at his death; and by his will, he left divers charitable donations to the poor of Saham and the neighbouring parishes. Thus did he, in life and in death, remember the poor, and maintain the character of the poor man’s friend. The blessing of the poor, and of those who were ready to perish he doubtless obtained, and even the blessing and approbation of Him who is the common parent, benefactor, and righteous judge of the rich as well as the poor, the creator, sustainer, and ruler of the universe.

The parish churches on this side the Ouse, for the most part, make but a mean appearance, compared with those of Marshland and Holland. Here are, however, and always have been other edifices greatly superior to anything of the kind found in those districts: that is, the sumptuous mansions and palaces, for which this county has been long remarkable, and not inferior, perhaps, to any part of the kingdom. Of these, the most distinguished, in former times, were, _Rising Castle_, once a royal palace, and the residence, for many years, of queen _Isabel_, the relict of Edward II; _Gaywode Castle_, the principal mansion, for some ages, of the bishops of Norwich, and one of the best houses, in the meantime, if not the very best, in the whole county; _Middleton Castle_, the seat of Lord Scales; _Wormegay Castle_, the seat of lord Bardolf; _Castleacre_, the seat of Earl Warren; and _Hunstanton Hall_, the seat of the Lestranges.

Among the modern mansions, or palaces, in these parts, the most distinguished is that of Lord Cholmondeley, at _Houghton_, built by the famous Sir Robert Walpole; that of Thomas William Coke Esq. at _Holkham_; and that of Lord Townshend, at _Rainham_. Besides these, there are many others worthy of notice; such as that of Mr. Henley, at _Sandringham_; that of Mr. Styleman, at _Snettisham_; that of Mr. Rolfe, at _Hitcham_; that of Mr. Coldham, at _Anmer_; that of Sir Martin Browne Folkes, at _Hillington_; that of Mr. Hamond, at _Westacre_; that of Mr. Fountaine, at _Narford_; that of Mr. Tyssen, at _Narborough_; that of Sir Richard Bedingfield, at _Oxborough_; that of Mr. Pratt, at _Ruston_; that of Mr. Hare, at _Stowe_; that of Mr. Bell, at _Wallington_; and that of Mr. Plestow, at _Watlington_; to which several others might be added; but most, if not all of them, are of inferior consideration.