A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



unknown) ; they lie two miles from the Orwell 

 Park decoy, and belong to Admiral Sir George 

 Broke Middleton, bart., of Broke Hall. The 

 larger covers 10 acres, and has six pipes. The 

 annual take does not average 750. Fritton decoy 

 is on the island formed by the River Waveney, 

 which has outlets to the sea at Great Yarmouth 

 and Lowestoft. Fritton Lake is over two miles 

 long, almost entirely surrounded by dense planta- 

 tions, and is the property of a number of owners, 

 most of whom at one time possessed and worked 

 several pipes. At present only three or four 

 pipes are in use ; these are situated at the east 

 end of the lake, and are owned by Sir Savile 

 Crossley, bart. Some good takes have been made 

 in Sir Savile Crossley's four pipes, viz. : 1864-5, 

 1,063; 1866-7, V3; 1868-9, 1,045; 

 1869-70, 1,463; 1874-5, 1,104; 1878-9, 

 1.533; 1879-80, 2,411; 1884-5, 2,084; 

 1885-6,953. Colonel Leathes of Herringflect 

 Hall had five pipes, which have been worked by 

 members of his family for 200 years ; he 

 recollects 600 ducks being taken on each of 

 several nights in succession in the Herringfleet 

 decoy alone, whilst takes equally heavy were 

 bein^made elsewhere upon the same lake. Duck 

 and mallard, wigeon, teal, pintails, shovellers, 

 with a few gadwall, pochards, and goosanders, 

 were the fowl taken. Colonel Leathes used to 

 clear 300 per annum from his decoy. The 

 veteran decoyman, John Fisk, died at Herring- 

 fleet. His best takes were made on still, moon- 

 light nights ; he took over 200 at a single drive, 

 and 600 birds in one night. 



Of the disused decoys in Suffolk perhaps 

 Lakenheath (near Mildenhall and Thetford) is 

 one of the most celebrated. An old gamekeeper 

 living in the parish in 1878 declared that he 

 once saw fully 3,000 fowl sitting outside the 

 decoy in the fen ; the decoy was so full there 

 appeared to be no room for another bird. The 

 record from Lakenheath is I 5,000 in one season. 

 The railway line from Brandon to Ely wrecked 

 its prosperity. Benacre decoy (near Wrentham 

 and Southwold) is peculiar, being built on the 

 open marsh with neither tree nor large bush any- 

 where to shelter it. At Iken, also elsewhere in 

 the fen lands of Suffolk, ' pochard ponds ' were 

 profitably worked. 1 On one or two occasions 

 within living memory the capture of pochards, 

 or dunbirds as they are locally called, has been 

 so great at one pull of the net that a wagon and 

 four horses were required to remove them. Five 

 or six hundred at one pull of the net was in the 

 early years of the nineteenth century considered 

 quite a moderate capture. The modus operandi 

 was to affix high nets to long poles which were 

 laid flat upon the ground near the edge of the 

 pond, and so arranged with balance weights that 

 on pulling a string they sprang upright. Several 



1 The best description of the working of a pochard 

 pond will be found in Folkard's Wtldfwiler. 



of these nets were set at various carefully selected 

 points, and a deep trench was dug at the foot of 

 each from which the birds were unable to escape. 

 The nets being ready, the birds were frightened 

 off the pond ; the moment they left the water the 

 nets were freed, and, springing up, intercepted 

 the heavily flying fowl before they were fairly 

 on the wing, throwing them into the trenches. 



Plover netting, also the snaring of snipe, ruffs 

 and reeves, were much in vogue before the days 

 of breech-loaders, but now the snipe springe is a 

 thing of the past ; ruffs and reeves seldom occur, 

 much more rarely do they remain to nest. The 

 lapwing from time immemorial has furnished 

 excellent sport. The large open ' brecks ' with 

 the heaths, warrens, and sheep walks in the 

 north-west of the county have always been its 

 favourite haunts. The number of eggs gathered 

 in the spring in times past seems incredible. An 

 expert at the egging business can walk direct to 

 each nest with the greatest certainty, though 

 some half-dozen pairs of old birds are on the 

 wing at one time; he can also tell in an instant by 

 the actions and flight of the birds not only the 

 males from the females, but also how many eggs 

 their nests contain, and whether they are freshly 

 laid or partly incubated ; and if the latter, for 

 about what period. In the Hockwold and Felt- 

 well fens and in the neighbourhood of Swaffham, 

 Castle Acre, Walton, West Acre, Harling, 

 Roudham, Thetford, Brandon, and Euston, these 

 birds still nest in thousands. During a frost or 

 first snowfall they visit the estuaries and ' meal ' 

 marshes on the coast, where they are killed in 

 great numbers, flight-time being most in favour 

 with the shoulder gunner. 



Perhaps the most celebrated snipe-shooting 

 grounds in Suffolk in days gone by were the 

 ' Whitecaste ' track, to the west of Oulton Broad, 

 near Lowestoft. About 1880 the writer often 

 saw 500 and 1,000 snipe on wing at one time, 

 and two guns might kill thirty couple in a day. 

 The marshes consist of some 40 acres, and 

 belong to the poor of the parish. It is said that 

 ' a bet of 5 was once made by a local habitat 

 that one could not dig up a square foot of soil 

 anywhere in the middle of these marshes with- 

 out sifting therefrom an ounce of shot.' The 

 excellence of the snipe grounds on the Benacre 

 estate has already been noted ; at this day five- 

 and-twenty couple is not an extraordinary bag. 

 Before the Wild Birds Protection Act of 1880 

 was passed, excellent sport was obtainable with 

 the redshanks from 4 to 14 July ; on the latter 

 date they leave for the coast. The mode of 

 shooting these was to watch the movements of 

 the older birds and so ascertain the most fre- 

 quented marshes ; on an appointed day the guns 

 were told off, some to walk up, others to take a 

 place in fixed stands to shoot the wilder birds. 

 These ' stands ' were reed hurdles, temporary 

 screens, a convenient bush, clump of reeds or 

 coarse litter, as might be most convenient. The 



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