INTRODUCTION. Ixvii 



the landscape ; wliilsfc clustering around the many 

 farmsteads, we find in abundance all those species 

 which affect more particularly the habitations of man 

 and are dependant to a great extent on his labours for 

 support. 



It is not, however, merely of late years that this por- 

 tion of the county has acquired its distinctive features. 

 On this point Mr. C S. Read"^ informs us that, "its 

 naturally fertile soils have been productive for centuries," 

 and at a very early period, the great oak woods, of 

 which so few traces remain to us, clothed a landscape, 

 in which arable landf already struggled for mastery, 

 against sandy-heaths and warrens on the one hand, and 

 marshy grounds and bogs on the other. As far back as 

 1549, during the short reign of King Edward YI., we 

 find the attempts made to enclose certain commons and 

 waste lands about Attleborough, Wymondliam, and 

 Hethersett, resulting in the great rebellion under 

 Kett|, when, not content with throwing down the 

 more recent enclosures, the rebels demolished hedges 

 and ditches, and laid waste parks and other private 



* See an " Essay on the Agriculture of Norfolk," in White's 

 Gazetteer (3rd ed.), by C. S. Read, M.P. 



t In the Hamlets of Lakenham and Eaton, by " a survey made 

 in the beginning of Edward I., the jurors valued each acre of land 

 at 15d. a year, and that then there were 150 acres arable in 

 demean, 44 acres of meadow, &c." * * * "In 1379, their 

 water-mill was re-built, and the Sheeps-walk, wood, and warren 

 are mentioned." [See Blomefield, folio ed., vol. ii., p. 857.] 



J " The occasion of this rebellion (writes Blomefield) was because 

 divers lords and gentlemen, who were possessed of Abbey lands 

 and other large commons and waste grounds, had caused many of 

 those commons and wastes to be enclosed, whereby the poor and 

 indigent people were much offended, being thereby abridged of the 

 liberty that they formerly had to common cattle, &c., on the said 

 grounds to their own advantage." [Hist, of Norwich, vol. i., p. 222.] 



