A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



:md the young birds appeared at first to be 

 healthy and strong ; but after a short time they 

 refused the artificial food supplied to them, 

 searched upon the grounds for their natural food, 

 and failing to find it pined and died. The great 

 drawback was the want of running streams and 

 the sandy and dry nature of the soil. Professor 

 Newton says that the experiment of turning out 

 grouse in Suffolk was tried by a Mr. Bliss at 

 least ten years before this at Brandon, but with 

 a like result. 



Greater success has attended the most recent 

 attempts to establish grouse on the heather of 

 Suffolk, and the birds now show every sign of 

 remaining where they are safe. About 1900 

 twenty brace of strong, healthy birds were turned 

 out, and each year they have nested and reared 

 broods ; the latter thrive best during a wet breed- 

 ing season. Drought is detrimental to the broods, 

 but water being supplied artificially to every por- 

 tion of the estate they suffer less from this cause 

 than might be expected. In the season of 

 1904-5 they showed material increase. A few 

 annually fall victims to the telegraph wires which 

 line the Thetford and Newmarket roads, and 

 these are generally young birds which can ill be 

 spared. Fresh blood is introduced each season 

 by placing eggs in the nests. 



Repeated experiments have been made at 

 Elveden and elsewhere in Suffolk to establish 

 blackgame, but hitherto none of them have met 

 with anything like success, although a tew birds 

 still remain in the neighbourhood of Thetford 

 and Lakenheath. 



Roedeer are found in the big woods of 

 Elveden. 



The late Mr. R. Fielding Harmer, writing on 

 1 March, 1890, in the appendix to Emerson's 

 Wild Life on a Tidal IVater, says : — 



After twenty-five years' interval — that is since 1863 

 — only an occasional straggler of the Pallas Sand 

 Grouse ' has been obtained in East Anglia until 

 1 June, 1888, when numbers made their appearance in 

 different parts of the two counties. On that date 20 

 were seen on the Denes not far from Breydon, flying 

 to the north, and afterwards seen ' settled ' on the 

 sandhills. None of these were obtained. Again on 

 3 June two more were seen on the North Denes 

 flving to the north and none of these were secured, 

 and on 12 June six were seen flying across Breydon. 

 Several specimens were shot hereabout and also in 

 other parts of Norfolk during this 'Tartar Invasion.' 



Soon after the Norman conquest many of the 

 manorial lords had grants of free-warren, that is, 

 the exclusive right of killing beasts and fowls ot 

 warren within certain limits. Some of the sandy 

 portions of East Anglia, particularly much of the 

 light land in south-west Norfolk and north-west 

 Suffolk, became particularlv noted for their 

 ' conies,' and a big district of west Norfolk was 

 popularly known as the 'rabbit and rye' country. 

 Black rabbits are mentioned in the Paston 



See also article on ' Birds,' V.C.H. Suffolk, i. 



Letters about 1490, and the Household Book of 

 Thomas Kytson of Hengrave contains the 

 following entry in October, I 573 : ' For baiting 

 my Mr his horse at Brandon, etc., For vj Black 

 Coney skins to fur my Mrs her night gown 

 iiijs, iiijd.' This indicates that even at that day 

 the fur had a decided market value. 



Sir Henry Spelman in 1627 mentions that the 

 'Champion (open country) abounded) with Corne, 

 sheepe, and conies.' The third Duke of Grafton 

 used to call the broad ditches with their honey- 

 combed banks 'Suffolk graves' ; and the fifth Earl 

 of Albemarle in Fifty Tears of My Life said : 

 ' The whole county is a mere rabbit warren, and 

 still goes by the name of the holey (holy) land.' 

 But even though rabbits were plentiful the 

 penalties for taking them from enclosed land 

 were extremely heavy.'-' Two cases prove the 

 severity with which the law with regard to 

 taking rabbits was administered. At a quarter 

 session held at Bury St. Edmunds in January, 

 1805, a man named G. Cross was convicted of 

 stealing a trap and two rabbits from Wangford 

 warren, and was sentenced to six months' soli- 

 tary confinement and hard labour, and to be 

 publicly whipped at Brandon. In I 8 13 Robert 

 Plum, aged twenty-two, and Rush Lingwood, 

 aged eighteen, were indicted at the Norfolk 

 assizes, held at Thetford, for entering the warren 

 of Thomas Robertson of Hockwold, farmer 

 and warrener, and taking one cony from a trap. 

 Plum was transported for seven years, and 

 Ringwood received two years' imprisonment. 



The appendix to Martin's History of Thetford 

 contains a most interesting lease of Santon 

 Manor from Thetford Abbey to William Top- 

 pyng of Kenninghall in 1535. The lease 

 included all the manor, 



together with the waren there, and the profits of the 

 conys of the same waren. If the said William let the 

 conies from the waren build earths beyond the high- 

 way between West Tofts and Wecting, by which 

 conies should tarry and multiply within Lynford 

 Warren, then it should be lawful for the prior and 

 convent and their successors to take as many conies as 

 they would beyond the said way. 



Toppyng was at the end of the lease to leave 

 the warren stocked with as many rabbits as he 

 found therein. The prior and his successors 



' An Act was passed in I 563 to prevent the taking 

 of ' conies ' from enclosed grounds. Proving of little 

 avail, it was strengthened in 1601 (3 Jas. I, cap. 13), 

 by ' Acte against unlawful hunting and stealing of 

 Deere and Conies.' This set forth that since the 

 statute of 1563 divers grounds had been enclosed and 

 kept for the preservation of deer and conies, and there 

 was no sufficient remedy against those who hunted 

 and killed them, it was therefore enacted that per- 

 sons breaking into parks, Sec, and taking deer or 

 conies should be punished by three months' imprison- 

 ment, pay treble damages, and find sureties for seven 

 years' good behaviour. A further enactment set forth 

 that commoners could not lawfully dig up cony 

 burrows in a common. 



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