A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



situated the church and churchyard of Burgh, placed astride the centre of 

 the south-west side of the inclosure. The north-east angle of the entrench- 

 ment can still be made out, and perhaps that of the north-west also. The 

 line of fosse and bank of the south-east end is fairly visible, and crowns the 

 slope of the valley down which runs Drabs Lane. All the ploughed land 

 within the vague lines of this inclosure shows fragments of Roman brick and 

 roof tiles, and in the field in which stands the church red-tile tesserae have 

 been picked up, a sure sign of the former existence of Roman buildings. 

 Excavations were made in November 1900 by Mr. Walter Brooke and 

 Mr. E. St. F. Moore. The objects found are now in the Ipswich Museum. 



Here again we may perhaps see something similar to the two moated 

 inclosures previously mentioned. It may be conjectured that some exten- 

 sive homestead was hastily fortified against the too probable attacks of the 

 Teutonic sea-rovers from the neighbouring ocean, or it may not be impossible 

 that a small congregation of houses within the inclosing banks may have 

 formed the much-disputed site of Combretonium. 



Burgh Castle. — We emerge into clear daylight when the next two 

 stations and the last to be noted are reached, viz. those of Burgh Castle near 

 Yarmouth and Walton near Felixstowe, of which the latter is now submerged 

 beneath the waters of the North Sea. But before describing these stations 

 something must be said as to the causes of their origin. 



By the last quarter of the 3rd century the Romano-British fleet, on 

 which no doubt dependence had been placed for the protection of the east 

 and south coasts from raids by plundering bands of rovers from over the seas, 

 had evidently failed to afford that protection. Whether it was that the fleet 

 was not numerous enough or for whatever reason, the Roman government 

 determined to supplement its first line of defence by a second, and this was 

 achieved by the erection of forts capable of holding from 500 to 1,000 men 

 each, on points of the coast-line extending from the mouth of the Wash to 

 Pevensey on the coast of Sussex. The coast-line indicated received the name 

 of Litus Saxonicum, and the nine fortresses which guarded it are called ' the 

 forts of the Saxon Shore.' 



The repeated attacks on the east coast by the Danes and Northmen at 

 a time later than the Roman period show with sufficient clearness the plan 

 adopted by them in their raids, and from it we may easily deduce that their 

 predecessors the Angles and Saxons were their masters in the art of invasion. 

 Their endeavour was to enter the rivers and by so doing to rerxh an inner 

 and more populous region to plunder rather than to ravage the coast. The 

 way to check the carrying out of this plan was to place a sufficient guard 

 over the mouths of such rivers as might appear to offer too easy an access to 

 the better inhabited districts, and there is strong presumption that this was 

 what was attempted by placing these Roman forts in the positions they 

 occupied. In nearly every instance, but in none so plainly as at Burgh 

 Castle, are they placed on or near the mouths of important rivers. We shall 

 see how the two forts in question will fall in with the view put forward. A 

 consultation of the map (plan I) will show that at the extreme north-east 

 corner of the county lies a sheet of water called Breydon Water, which forms 

 at this point the limit of the county. Into the western end of Breydon flow 

 two rivers, the Waveney and the Yare ; another, the Bure, a Norfolk river, 



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