16 INTRODUCTION. 



the slight difference of level between Mendham and Lopham 

 Ford." * 



The late Mr. James Muskett, of Harleston, obtained from 

 the gravel at Wortwell, west of Homersfield Station, a tooth 

 of the mammoth (Elephas primiyenius), the horn-core of an 

 extinct ox (Bos prisons), beside bones of the elk and other 

 animals. Beds of apparently the same age occur at Homers- 

 field village (with animal remains), at Weybread Brickyard 

 and Needham Hill (once perhaps continuous), and at Hoxne. 

 As early as the year 1797, implements of chipped flints, evi- 

 dently worked by man, were discovered at Hoxne, lying in 

 undisturbed soil about ten feet below the surface, and under 

 the bones of the elephant and ox. This fact, with similar dis- 

 coveries in other parts of Europe, gives to this ancient gravel a 

 peculiar anthropological interest.! 



No. 1. Recent River Deposit. As such must be classed the 

 old gravels of Shotford Heath, Flixton, Bungay Common, 

 Earsham, Brockdish, Thorpe Abbots, and Billingford, with 

 isolated and later patches in the bed of the present valley, as 

 at Mendham Old Priory and Wortwell. These gravels are 

 of various ages, the highest levels as a rule being the oldest. 

 They are due to the existing water-shed, having been deposited 

 by river currents over the clays and sands of the Drift, now on 

 one side of the valley, now on the other rarely on both at 

 the same time in the form of indistinct terraces, as the river 

 eroded its floor and changed the character of the district from 

 that of a broad brackish estuary to the ordinary conditions of a 

 narrow fresh-water stream. 



It is well known that in historical times the Waveney was 

 navigable above Harleston for small vessels, though now this 

 is rendered possible only for barges by artificial means as far 

 as Bungay, seven miles below. Anchors and traces of navi- 

 gation have been found in the bed of the stream at Hoxne : 

 and in the reign of King Stephen, when St. Mary's Priory was 

 established at Mendham, the present site of the ruins in the 

 marshes was called by a distinct name, Hurst or Bruninghurst 

 probably from the coppice of alders which then stood on it 

 and is described in the founder's deed as an island ; } while, 

 according to Suckling, as late as the year 1549, during Kett's 

 rebellion, a small pinnace was prepared at Yarmouth to carry 

 twenty men up the river as far as Weybread. 



* Memoir of the Geological Survey of Harleston, p. 27. 



f Cf. Lyell, Antiquity of Man, p. 217 ; Lubbock, Prehistoric Times, p. 359. 



+ Dugdale, Monasticon, vol. v., p. 56. In the Gentleman's Magazine 

 (1808), p. 969, a plate shows the chapel and prior's lodge then standing, 

 though partially in ruins. 



Introduction to the History of Suffolk, p. 7. Suckling's authority is 

 Swinden's History of Great Yarmouth (1772), but I fear he has arrived at too 



