A HISTORY OF NORFOLK 



from twenty to two hundred and fifty feet, their composition is clay, sand, 

 and chalk boulders, and their extent some twenty miles.* Near the 

 extreme north-west corner of the county the chalk crops out, forming a 

 bold range of cliffs of no great extent facing the west, and once the 

 breeding-place of the peregrine falcon, but at present only the resort of 

 numberless swifts, sand martins and sparrows ; these, and the smaller 

 passerine birds, nesting in the rough herbage and gorse bushes which 

 maintain a hold wherever possible in the clay cliffs, are the only present 

 inhabitants. 



3rd. The ' Meal ' district (from the Anglo-Saxon meel ; Ice- 

 landic mot) is a wild tract of sandy hillocks with miles of 

 salt-marshes, intersected by tidal creeks and rivers, lying between the 

 shore and the cultivated lands. These hills of blown sand, held to- 

 gether by the ' marram ' grass, extend all along the coast from Wey- 

 bourne to Old Hunstanton with very little intermission ; thence the 

 marshes, but in a more advanced stage of reclamation, extend nearly to 

 the town of Lynn, with occasional shingle beaches and extensive tidal 

 sands. The ' Meals ' abound with rabbits, and offer great attraction to 

 the larger raptorial migrants ; they form nesting-places for the stock- 

 dove, wheatear, and many other birds, and in places are visited in sum- 

 mer by colonies of terns, ring-dotterels, redshanks, and a few oyster- 

 catchers and sheld-ducks. I mentioned earlier two localities which 

 were worthy of special description owing to the interest attaching 

 to them, arising from the number of rare migrants which have been 

 there obtained. The first of these was Breydon, already disposed of; 

 the second is Blakeney Point, which forms a part of the section now 

 under consideration. 



On the north coast, about midway between Weybourne and Wells, 

 the little river Glaven approaches its outlet into the sea ; just before 

 reaching the town of Cley it is closed by a sluice and from that point is 

 tidal, forming the harbour of the ancient and once important port of 

 Cley-next-the-Sea. Thence the channel of the Glaven runs across the 

 salt-marshes in a northerly direction to within about five hundred feet of 

 the sea, when it is stopped by a huge raised bank of shingle, and its 

 course is deflected sharp to the west with a slight trend inland ; nearly 

 two miles from this point it is joined by the channel which runs up to 

 the town of Blakeney, and then the united waters, after flowing some- 

 thing more than another mile, finally sweep round to the north again and 

 enter the sea. The trend of the coast is in a north-westerly direction, 

 the tract therefore lying between the river Glaven and the sea forms 

 almost an island, its only connection with the mainland being the narrow 

 shingle bank at the eastern extremity already mentioned. This isolated 

 portion of the coast extends, from east to west, about three and a half 

 miles, and its greatest width is nearly one mile, its form being something 

 like that of a ' Prince Rupert's Drop,' the pointed end towards the east. 

 The sea boundary for the greater part of its length is a huge raised bank of 



* The coast-line of Norfolk extends to about 1 00 miles. 

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