BEDINGHAM, DITCHING HAM &> THE FARMS 5 



roads follow precisely the same winds and turns, taking the course 

 dictated to them in the beginning by the occurrence of boggy land 

 or the presence of groves of ancient oaks. The land is more generally 

 enclosed, and the trees upon it would seem to have moved them- 

 selves into unfamiliar places — these would be the principal dif- 

 ferences in his eyes. But when it came to the question of soil, 

 probably he could tell us the nature of almost every acre. Yonder 

 it would never do to plough after wet lest it should ' kill ' the land. 

 That piece is ' scaldy ' because the gravel comes near to the top 

 earth, and corn would not 'cast ' on it in a dry season. And so forth. 

 Doubtless his information would be correct to the letter, except 

 where some swamps are concerned, for in this part of Norfolk 

 they have all been drained. Things move slowly in our temperate 

 clime, and more than a thousand years are needful to alter even 

 the character of the soil of a field — or so I believe. 



Well, Hagan the Thane has gone to his rest in the churchyard 

 yonder, whither since his day, although the population of the hamlet 

 is small, he must have been followed by over six thousand of the 

 inhabitants of Bedingham. They are all forgotten, every man of 

 them, but the names of the more recent generations are recorded 

 in registers which few ever open, though about these I shall have 

 a word or two to say. Yet some of them were people of impor- 

 tance in their day. For instance, there were the de Gournays in the 

 time of Henry II. Nicholas de Stutvile, who married Gunnora, 

 an heiress of the de Gournays, lost his lands in Bedingham for 

 rebellion against King John. The wrath of that monarch was not 

 very long-lived, however, for in 1206 he restored to Nicholas the 

 son that which he had taken from Nicholas the father. Then there 

 were Bigods and de Udedales, and Gostlings and Sheltons, one 

 of whom, by the way, in the time of Henry VIII. conveyed an 

 estate here to Thomas Hauchet, of Upp Hall, Braughing, Herts, 

 now the property of the writer's friend, Mr. Charles Longman, the 

 publisher of this book. The Stanhow family were here also for 

 some two hundred and fifty years. Then came the Stones, one of 

 whom married Catherine, the heiress of the Stanhows, who dwelt 



