8. Buddesdale, or Botesdale, has a grammar free school, founded by Sir Nicholas Bacon, and established by Queen Elifabeth. The Mafter and Ufher are to be elected out of Bennet's college, Cambridge, where Sir Nicholas was educated. The Mafter has 20l. a year falary, befides the benefit of the school-houfe, which was lately in the gift of Edmund Britiffe, Efq. Sir Nicholas alfo bequeathed 201. a year to the faid college for fix scholars out of this fchool, which, it is faid, Dr. Tenison, Archbishop of Canterbury, augmented with 61. a year more. It is a long, mean-built, dirty town, with a poor market, though a thoroughfare from Bury St. Edmund's to Yarmouth.

9. Debenham, fo called from the river Deben, which runs by it; or Deepenham, as fome think, from the deepnefs of its roads; is a pretty clean, though mean-built town on a hill, and but little frequented, the roads to it being very dirty and heavy. The church is a good building, the market-place tolerable; and here is a charity founded by Sir Robert Hitcham, who by his will provided that fome of the poor fhould be employed at the work-house at Framlingham, and fome of the pooreft children fent thither to the free-fchool, to be fitted for an apprenticeship, and then to be put out with 10l. a-piece,

10. Framlingham is a large town, and of as much note as any in this county, especially as to the figure it makes in ancient history. It is hardly to be doubted but it was of British original, and conquered by the Romans when they defeated the British Amazon Boadicea. The caftle, which is a moft remarkable piece of antiquity, is fuppofed to have been built by fome of the firft Kings of the Eaft Angles. It was a large beautiful fabric, and very Atrong both by art and nature; the area, which is within the walls now ftanding, being above an acre and a rod of land, and the walls forty-four feet high, and eight thick, with thirteen towers, fourteen feet above them, two of which are watch-towers. The town, becoming afterwards subject to the Saxons, and then to the Danes, was confequently inhabited by a mixture of divers nations, and from thence had its name, which in the Saxon fignifies an habitation of ftrangers. This was the castle to which the Princess (foon after Queen Mary I.) retired, when the Lady Jane Gray was her competitor for the crown; and, after having been in divers families, the last of which were the Veres, Earls of Oxford, and the Howards, Dukes of Norfolk, it was fold, together with the lordship, to Sir Robert

Hitcham, Knight, who fettled them and other eftates for charitable uses.

The town ftands pleasantly, though but indifferently built, upon a clay hill, in a fruitful foil and healthy air, near the fource of the river Ore (by fome called Winchel) which runs through the town, and passes on to Orford, where it falls into the sea. It has a very fpacious market-place, which is a triangle almoft equilateral; but its greatest ornament is its church, a large ftately edifice, begun, as fuppofed, by the Mowbrays, Earls of Norfolk, of whofe family feveral lie interred in it, but perfected by Edward VI. It is built intirely of black flint, with a fteeple one hundred feet in height. There are two good alms-houses here, one founded by Sir Robert Hitcham, abovementioned, who lies interred in the church, and erected by his Trustees the Mafters and Fellows of Pembroke-hall, in Cambridge, anno 1654. The other was built about fifty years after by the Truftees of Mr. Thomas Mills, a Minister of the Baptist denomination, who endowed it for eight poor people, to be allowed 2 s. 6d. a week, an outward garment once a year, and 30s. a-piece for firing. The fame Sir Robert Hitcham founded a free school here, where forty poor boys are fitted for appren. ticeships, and then put out with 10l. apiece.

11. Stow-Market is a good large town, on the banks of the Orwel, in the center of the county, with a well-ftored market, feveral good inns, and a manufacture of tammies, and other Norwich ftuffs. It has a fpacious beautiful church, with a large fteeple and lofty pinnacle, hardly to be matched in this county.

12. Needham, on the fame river, is a thoroughfare from Ipfwich to Huntingtonshire, which had a good trade once, in blues and broad cloths for Ruffia and Turky, but has loft it many years; and though it has ftill feveral confiderable dealers, and one wide long street, tolerably well built, yet its poverty is paffed into a proverb, fo that, when a man takes a direct courfe to be poor, they fay, He is on the high road to Needham. Sir Jacob Garrard, Knight, formerly Sheriff of London, gave 10l. a year for ever for a lecture in its parish church.

13. Hemmingston, in that neighbourhood, though only a manor, deferves to be mentioned for the fake of the facetious tenure whereby it was formerly held, which, as droll as it is, the grave and delicate Mr. Camden related it purely to the his readers the plain jolly mirth of thofe times.

It was a manor held by Baldwin le Pet

teur

teur (obferve the name, fays Camden) by ferjeantry (as expreffed in an ancient book) for which he was obliged every Christmasday to perform, before our Lord the King of England, one Saltus, one Sufflatus, and one Bombulus; or, as it is elsewhere read, a Saltus, a Sufflus, and Pettus; that is, (fays Camden, if I apprehend it aright) he was to dance, make a noise with his cheeks, and to let a fart in the presence of the King.

14. Woodbridge, on the river Deben, being navigable by fhips of confiderable burden to the town; its inhabitants drive a pretty good trade to London, Newcastle, and Holland, with butter, cheefe, falt, plank, and feveral other forts of merchandise, in their pinks and hoys, which go to and from London every week. It had formerly a monaftery, and traded in fackcloth, and now in refining falt. It has a fine church and fteeple, a handsome fhire-hall in the middle of the market place, where the quarter-feffions are held for the liberty of St. Ethelred and Audry, and under it is the corn crofs. The market is well furnished with most neceffaries, especially hemp and cordage. The chief ftreets, particularly that called Stoneftreet, are well built and paved; the market-place and thoroughfare are also well enough built, but the reft dirty, and the old houfes low. It has four or five docks for building fhips, with commodious keys and warehouses; and here is a good grammar-school, an alms-houfe erected in 1587, by Thomas Seckford, Mafter of the Requests, for thirteen men and three women, and well endowed; and, in 1667, Mrs. Dorothy Seckford, widow, of Seck ordhall in this county, augmented the living here, which is but a bare curacy, very confiderably. The manor is faid to be in the family of the Lord Willoughby of Eresby.

15. Lavenham, or Lanham, is a pleafant and pretty large town, on a branch of the river Bret or Breton, from whence it has a gradual rife on a gravelly foil to the top of a hill, where are its church, and a spacious market-place, encompaffed with nine streets or divifions, in a very healthy air. It was formerly very famous and much enriched by a staple trade in blue cloths, and was divided into three guilds or companies, which have each their hall. It has ftill a confiderable manufacture of serges, fhalloons, fays, ftuffs, and fpinning fine yarn for London; which has flourished the more by fetting up a wooll hall, of which many hundred loads are fent hence in a year. The town is governed by fix capital Burgees or Headboroughs, who chufe inferior

Officers, and are fuch for life. Its fair is in great repute, especially for good butter and cheese. The church being decayed in the reign of Henry VI, Mr. Thomas Spring, commonly called the rich clothier (who, if not born, got his eftate here, and from whom the Springs of this county are defcended) gave 200l. towards the repairs, and, by the help of his posterity and the Earls of Oxford, the fame were completed. The church and steeple, 137 feet high, are generally reckoned the finest in the county. The roof is well carved, and the two pews, belonging to the families of the Earls of Oxford and the Springs, are hardly to be equalled by any in King Henry's chapel at Weftminster, though fomewhat defaced in the time of the civil war. The windows are numerous, and fome of them painted with the Oxford arms, which, together with thofe of the Spring's family, are engraven in many places on the arches that fupport the fabric; and in the church is Mr. Spring's ftatue in brafs. In the tower are fix large tuneable bells, of which the tenor has fuch an admirable note, that few if any in England can compare with it; for, tho it is not much more than a ton, it founds like a bell of twice that weight. Here is a free-school endowed with 301. a year for the Master, besides the dwelling and schoolhoufe, and a large bridewell and house of correction, part of which is made a workhoufe to employ poor children, and others of this parish, in fpinning hemp, flax, or yarn; and the town enjoys other confiderable charities for the maintenance of its poor, and for binding their children apprentices.

Both the town and manor were the ancient inheritance of the Veres, Earls of Oxford. The tenants of the manor, and the other inhabitants of the town, were always exempted from ferving at any court held for the hundred of Baher, in which it ftands. The inhabitants have that tenure of land here which is called Borough Eng lish.

16. Bildefton, or Bilfton, is noted for the woollen manufacture, and has a good church, but is a dirty place, and the buildings are mean.

17. Clare, on the river Stour, has the honour of giving the titles of Viscount, Earl, and Marquis, to his Grace the Duke of Newcastle, fo created, when he was only Lord Pelham, by his late Majefty King George I, in the first year of his reign. It has a large and beautiful church, faid to have been erected by an Abbot of St. Edmund's- bury, and fhews the ruins of a strong castle and an old monaftery. It is a little Y 2

poor

poor dirty town, the streets being unpaved; yet it has a manufacture of fays, and the civil and fpiritual Courts are held at it.

18. Hadley, or Headlega, as the Saxons call it, was a town corporate, governed by a Mayor, Aldermen, and Council; but, a quo warranto being brought against its charter in the reign of King James II, it has not fince been renewed. It is a pretty large populous town, and tolerably well built; but, being in a bottom, is generally dirty. It deals much in corn, and its markets are well stored with provisions. It is of fome note ftill, though of much greater formerly, for a manufacture of woollen cloth. Its chief ornament is the church, which stands near the middle of the town, and is a fumptuous handfome edifice, graced with a fpire, and is a peculiar of Canterbury.

19. Neyland has a handfome bridge over the Stour, which, by reafon of its low fituation, often overflows it, but makes it amends by bringing it plenty of coal, which muft otherwise be tranfported at a great distance. It is a large town; has a manufacture of bays and fays, which was former ly much greater then now, as Mr. Weaver rationally conjectures from the many marbies in the church, richly inlaid with brafs, to the memory of clothiers here in the foregoing ages. Here is a charity-fchool for forty boys, thirty out of Neyland, and ten from Stoke, and another for twenty girls, both maintained by fubfcription.

20. Long-Melford stands near the Stour, as it runs from Clare to Sudbury. It is one of the best and biggest villages in England, and has divers good inns, and many handfome houfes. The Lady Rivers, the widow and fecond wife of John, the first Earl of Rivers, had a house here which was the firft fcene of plunder in the civil war between King Charles I. and the Parliament; and Floy'd fays, that fhe loft to the value of 20,000l. A later writer fays, that what the loft here, and at her other feat at St. Ofyth in Effex, was not lefs than 100,000l. Here is a handiome church, with a fumptuous tomb for Sir William Cordall, Speaker of the House of Commons, a Member of the Privy council to Queen Mary I, Mafter of the Rolls, and the founder of a hofpital here for the poor. Melford-hall came afterwards to be the fear of his defcendants, to whom it was first mortgaged, and then fold. In 1739, Mr. Charles Drew was executed here for the barbarous murder of his father.

21. Wickham, on the river Deben, tho' only a village, is as big as many mar

ket-towns; and in it the fpiritual Courts are held for the archdeaconry of Suffolk. Its church, though but twenty-three yards high, being built on a hill, gives a profpect in a clear day of near fifty parish churches.

22. Cavendish, or Candish, on the river Stour, between Long-Melford and Clare, is the place that gives name to one of the moft ancient and illuftrious families in Bri. tain, namely, that of the noble Duke of Devonshire.

23. Stratford, which has a bridge on the Stour, in the hundred of Samford, is a thoroughfare ftage from Ipfwich to London, of great traffic, and employed in the woollen manufactures. It is faid that three hundred droves of turkeys have paffed in one feafon over its bridge towards London, computed at five hundred in a drove one with another. And, confidering the much greater numbers which are drove by Newmarket heath, and the open country, and the foreft, and alfo thofe by Sudbury and Clare, it may well be imagined, that more turkeys are bred in this county, and in that part of Norfolk, which joins it, for sale, than in all the rest of England; this county being particularly famous for furnishing the city of London, and all the counties round, with that commodity.

24. Eafterbergholt is another large handfome village employed in the fame manufacture, but not so much as formerly. It has a good church, but the fteeple is in ruins, and the bells are rung by hand in a sort of cage erected in the church-yard.

25. Snape, in the hundred of Plumefgate, had once a famous monastery, of which a few remains are ftill to be seen. It has a confiderable fair for horfes, which holds four days, and is much frequented by the London jockeys.

26. Redgrave, in the hundred of Hartefmere, and in the road from that called High Suffolk to Norfolk, was for many years the feat of the defcendants of Sir Nicholas Bacon, the firft Baronet of England. Its church has a fine marble monument, facred to the memory of Lord Chief Juftice Holt, reprefenting his pourtraiture at full length, fitting in a judicial posture, adorned with curious hieroglyphics, and a Latin infcription by Dr. Halley, denoting the high offices he bore, and the excellent virtues by which he acquired and maintained them. It was erected by Rowland Holt, Efq; his only brother and heir.

The chief antiquities and other remarkable things in Suffolk are as follow;

1. At Great Welretham, not many years ago, abundance of potsherds and platters of Roman earth were found, fome of which had