NORWICH IN ITS REGIONAL SETTING 19 
towns. Good crops of wheat, barley, sugar beet, roots, peas and beans 
are raised, dairy farming is specially noteworthy, sheep and cattle thrive, 
and poultry farming is in a flourishing condition. The heavier land in the 
south accounts for the much larger acreage of beans, while on the balance 
it would seem that the milk production of Mid-Norfolk is the greater. 
Taken as a whole Norfolk may be regarded as a fertile agricultural 
region where the climate with its light but adequate rainfall is eminently 
suitable for the growth of grass and grain. With the increase of produc- 
tion!” the need for markets arose and led to the establishment of market 
towns whose radius of influence increased more and more as the means 
of communication improved. 
NorwiIcuH. 
Norwich, by reason of its general position, has outstripped the other 
market towns and become the capital of the whole region. In its neigh- 
bourhood the rivers Wensum and Yare have carved out valleys through 
the soft materials of the glacial drift and the Crag; and to-day their flat 
flood plains are several feet below the surface level of the chalk. These 
rivers almost meet on the west side of Norwich, being less than three- 
quarters of a mile apart at a point 8 two and a half miles west-north-west of 
the Castle, where they are separated by a narrow strip of ground nearly 
a hundred feet above river level. From this point the Yare, on the south, 
takes a wide circular sweep southwards and then eastwards, eventually 
joining the Wensum at Trowse ; while, on the north, the Wensum flows 
eastwards for a mile and a half before it describes a graceful loop south- 
wards, reaching a point a quarter of amile north of the Castle. ‘Thence for 
600 yds. the course of the river is north-east before it twists abruptly 
first to the east and then to the south. The reach from Bishopsbridge 
to Foundry Bridge is almost due south and the course is nearly straight, 
with a flat flood plain on the right bank and a minor escarpment on the 
left. From Foundry Bridge the river curves slightly to the west where it 
is within 500 yds. of the Castle. Near this spot is the site of Conesford, 
“the King’s Ford,’ where the King’s men crossed the river on their way 
to the high ground on the east. From this spot the slow-moving waters 
flow southwards, but the low ground is now on the left bank, and a steep 
escarpment is on the right. Proceeding east the river leaves the high 
ground and is reinforced by the Yare at a point not many miles distant 
from the head of the old sea estuary. In addition to the river meanders, 
flat marshlands and minor escarpments mentioned above, there are a 
number of lesser topographical features traceable to the work done by 
old water courses, such as the cockeys shown in Hudson’s maps of 
Norwich.!® 
The origin of Norwich is lost in obscurity, and it is quite outside the 
scope of this article to discuss the possibility of any settlements being 
established here in Roman times. Hence any references relating to the 
earlier settlements and the expansion in Norman times mentioned below 
tu R. E. Dickinson, ‘ Town Plans of E. Anglia,’ Geography, March, 1934. 
18 Marked A on Map II, p. 20. 
19 W. Hudson, How the City of Norwich grew into shape (1896). 
