p 
462 
Each settlement led to the clearance of so much forest, or wild 
laud, and the terminology of the names of places generally indicates 
either the settlement or home, the enclosure, or forest-clearing.'^ { 
Although the practice of well-sinking is of great antiquity, such i 
settlements Avere originally made on spots Avhere a good supply of 
Avater Avas to he readily obtained, by spring, brook, or river. The 
more important toAvns are, of course, situated along the river 
valleys; a fact instanced by a Carmelite Friar “as a striking 
proof of the superintendence and goodness of Providence, that it 
almost invariably made a river run completely through the middle 
of every large city.”t 
The clayey tracts, as a rule, are less thickly populated than the 
lighter lands, Avhere springs might be expected, as may be observed 
if Ave look at a geological map of the neighbourhood of Tunstead 
on the north, and of Hardwick on the south of ISTorwich, — districts 
Avhose sub-soil is chiefly boulder clay or brickearth. 
The old halls, as at Barsham, Eainham, Baconsthorpe, and 
Ilautbois, and the monastic establishments, as at Walsingham, 
Castle Acre, and Creake, Avere mostly situated on low ground 
near a stream ; Avhile churches were more usually erected on higher 
ground, — gentle slopes or eminences, seldom, as at Burgh-next- 
Aylsham, on the alluvial ground. 
Soils, dependent as they are on the sub-soil, more or less 
directly affect the present aspect of the land in the vegetation 
they support ; the clays and loams, and mixed soils, being 
mostly under cultivation, yielding their crops of corn, roots, 
and grasses ; while the very light sandy and gravelly tracts 
are often left to the more picturesque cultivation of Nature ; — 
hence the Corse and Heath, the Broom and Fir, and other shrubs 
and trees thrive in Avild luxuriance. Some of these heathy tracts 
remain as commons for the people ; and the Avise customs of our 
forefathers have left also, here and there on the clayey tracts, open 
spaces, also called commons, by some “ Avaste land,” Avhich furnish 
feeding grounds for the flocks and herds of the poorer classes. 
Such commons are to be met Avith at Hempton, INIulbarton, 
Buckenham, and Wacton. May they remain so ! although Bacon, 
# I. Tajlor, ‘ Words and Places ; ’ Munford, ‘ Local Names in Norfolk.’ 
t Article “Non Seqidtur'' in the ‘Tin Trumpet,’ by Horace Smith. 
