by Silverpen [Eliza Meteyard].
Originally published in Howitt's Journal (William & Mary Howitt) vol.2 #32 (07 Aug 1847).
Part the First.
The following sketch of one of my yearly excursions on some of the lonely waters of the great marshland of England will, perhaps, prove interesting to the readers of Howitt's Journal. It is a tract of country little visited and wholly unwritten of; though I yet hope the enthusiastic love of nature, and the admirable pen of my excellent friend William Howitt, may add desolate Croyland to his Landisfarn, and scenes from Saxon Anglia to his world-known Saxon Winchester.
The rivers of Norfolk that fall by one mouth into the German Ocean, if not so widely known as the larger navigable streams of England, are remarkable as flowing through valleys formed by a once extensive estuary; interesting from its historical relation to Roman and Scandinavian history. The aspect of Britain on its sea-coast must have greatly changed since the first occupation by the Romans; for Tacitus, speaking of the seas which surround these northern isles, says, "There is not in any other part of the world an expanse of waters that rages with such uncontrolled dominion; now receiving the discharge of various rivers, now driving their currents back to their sources. Nor is it on the sea-coast only that the flux and reflux of the tides are perceived; the swell of the sea forces its way into the recesses of the land, forming bays and islands in the heart of the country, and foaming amidst hills and valleys as in its natural channel." This gives us a picture on the shores of Roman England of the fiords of Norway. A considerable arm of the sea, forming one of these fjords or estuaries at that period flowed inland on the shores of Kent where are now cultivated fields; and this large estuary on the eastern coast not only admitted the Roman fleets from the south,—those hoards of Saxons who populated the country of the British Iceni, those desolating northern pirates or Danes who overthrew the infant shrines of Christianity,—but flowed up to Norwich by its largest branch in as late an age as the Conquest.
Geologists differ as to the drainage of this estuary. Some account for it by their theory, that the level of all oceans gradually sinks. But the effects of the tidal current of the German Ocean affords a simple explanation. This flows north-east to south-west; and has, through a series of ages, worn away these friable eastern shores, ingulfing forests, villages, and towns, yet depositing the debris of chalk and sand wherever an opening or an eddy offered. Thus the once rough ocean estuary has been changed into a series of verdant marshes of alluvial soil over marine deposit; beneath which lies a portion of the great chalk formation of Europe.
It is necessary for me to mention that this great estuary flowed inland by three mouths, forming along an extent of coast, thirty miles in length, a series of low islands. These waters then mingled into one body, which, again radiating into three branches, filled the wide connected valleys through which now flow, though in far narrower channels, the rivers of the Yare, the Waveney, and the Bure. The northernmost opening of this estuary was first blocked up by sand, the southern much more recently; and as early as the record of Domesday, the middle and widest channel became gradually filled by a reef of sand, which joined, in process of time, to the main land, left only a narrow opening, through which now flow the united waters of these rivers, and form the haven of Yarmouth. This extent of coast was known to the Romans by the title of the Saxon shore; and a strong body of legionaries was stationed at various places along its extent to guard it from the inroads of our northern ancestors. "The signs of Roman military occupation," says Mr. W.J. Robberds in his admirable work on the Eastern Valleys, "are every where found on the verge of the present marshes, in places where such works could only have been erected for the purpose of commanding the course of navigable waters, and protecting the weak points of an open and accessible coast."
These rivers are now deep, quiet streams, wonderfully rich with pastoral landscapes, worthy as well as suited to the pencil of a Hobbima. Their margent soil is little elevated from their level. Occasionally they widen into, or are connected with, lakes, that occupy the hollows of the marshland.
Seven autumns ago, on a lovely morning just as the sun had risen, my boat was unmoored from the little marsh cove, shaded by an antique garden-wall and oak pollards, and floated into the broad lucent Yare. Though not yet five o'clock I had been an hour on board, and, with the help of my man and boy, had got every thing in order. The boat was a lateen rigged cutter, thirty feet in length, and of about ten tons burden. Under the deck, above which swept the two graceful sails, was the cabin, comfortable and roomy. Forward from it was a large bed berth, concealed from the eye by sliding panels, and a looking-glass. In the cabin at the foot of the mainmast was the fireplace; on the roof were swung fishing-rods and guns; beneath the broad cushioned seats were spread nets and lines; and in the closets by the door was stored some portion of our provender. Behind the mainmast was a long table with drawers, holding the wardrobe, and the crockery, glasses, knives and forks, nicely fitted into lined compartments; whilst on the shelf in the far end of the cabin was stored a few of my favourite books. The small cabin by the bows was, as usual, set apart to my man Jemmy and the boy, the spare sails and tackle.
To my left, as I steered, and the sails spread themselves gracefully to the wind, lay, on the river's edge, the low thatched church and rural village, the roadway dotted with fine old sweeping elms, and the gardens filled with autumn fruits and flowers. At the staiths were moored river craft, half laden, or waiting for their load of that rich shell marl so prized by Norfolk agriculturists, and which here is dug from the shelving uplands that once formed the shores of the estuary. The broad level floor of the marsh to my right was still covered by the haze of the morning. As the tide and wind were in favour, I proposed to run down to C— Hall to breakfast. The boat soon cleared the village reach, sweeping gracefully with her enormous mass of canvass round the headlands of the river, and dashing from her bows the eddying foam. The marsh to the right now widened, and the marl cliffs, clothed in the most verdant green, dipped to the northern bank. These uplands are rich in shell deposits. In the beds of sand above the chalk have been discovered fossil remains of the mastoden, and other extinct genera. In other parts, where the declivities have been worked by the spade, it is easy to trace the shells of river fish, first mingling with those of the sea, and finally occupying their place as the saline, the mixed, and the fresh water floods prevailed.
An old grey dismantled church, with the ivy clinging round its ruined tower, now looked picturesque in the ripening sun as it flooded across the uplands. A few craft, with their single large tanned sail, passed us, toiling their way against wind and tide, and only urged onward by the use of a forked pole, pushed obliquely by the wherrymen into the bed of the river. As I lay to, for a few minutes, to watch the flight of a bittern as it sailed slowly above the grey haze of the marsh, it was quite seven before the bows touched the staith of C— Hall; and here I found a few friends to welcome me.
The landlord of C— Hall, a small, round, active man, clad in drab, with a barred waistcoat, stood with my friends on the staith, He, in a few minutes, led the way into what had once been an ancient manor grange, placed with its green sward some few feet from the river's brink. A few ancient trees dotted a square lawn, round which, and the true country garden at one side of the house, a narrow runnel, fringed with sedges, ran dipping to the river. Through the door, fragrant with trelliced roses, trained the length of the house, from the rustic garden gate, we entered on one side into a parlour, with a bow pot of geraniums in the window. The breakfast table was already laid, and exquisitely, too. One of our friends had caught a dish of fine perch, which was soon cooked and placed before us, in addition to tea, coffee, cold fowl, corned beef, hot bread, and a great jug of cream, as yellow as the marsh buttercups outside, and inviting by its odour of the meadows and the morning air.
After breakfast, my friends persuaded me to stay for a few hours to watch the success of their bream fishing. Whilst, therefore, the landlord's two flat-bottomed boats were getting ready, I drew on my marsh boots to follow the bittern, whose gyrations I had watched in the grey haze of the morning. Norfolk affords to the student, remarks a very able local ornithologist, many advantages, from its varieties of soil and its geographical position. Yet, since the drainage of the marshland, which has converted almost inaccessible morasses into the finest grazing land in England, the rarer birds, particularly the tribe of waders, are almost become extinct, or, at least, have ceased to haunt tracts of land improved by man's cultivation. The long-legged plover, the solitary snipe, the purple heron, the little bittern, the little bustard, the western duck, the spoonbill, the night heron, and many others are almost extinct. The bittern, the ruff, and reeve are rarely seen; and the grey goose, once so numerous, has ceased to rear its young in the swamps and reed beds. What is curious, the male bustard will often lead a solitary life, driving from him both females and their young. But snipes are still common; and the period of their return in spring seems to be synchronous with the flowering of the viola odorata, and the expanding leaves of the pilewort.
As I made my way along the marsh to a distant bed of reeds, I had time to watch a wherry, that, coming with wind and tide, bore upon the little staith; her vast sheet of canvass was stretched out to its last reef; and she was so deeply laden, that the ripple of the tide washed over the gunwale. All on board were idle. A young woman, with an infant in her arms, sat guiding the helm; whilst the husband, a fine stalwart young fellow, stood smoking his pipe against the mast, and keeping a look-out a-head. The marshmen and wherrymen of Norfolk are a singularly handsome race of men, usually averaging above the common height, and strongly marked by the Saxon type, which, in this peculiar instance, has the height and bearing of the Norman race sufficiently to distinguish them from the wholly Saxon population of the eastern coast of England. An outdoor life cannot. wholly account for this superior physical conformation, which, through intermarriage, has had a visible effect upon the whole weaving population of Norwich. Many weavers throw up their loom work, and ply the wherries during the summer months. This may, in some degree, account for the superior physical condition of the hand-loom weavers of this district, as evidenced by Dr. Marshall before the House of Commons. With this exception, the population of these eastern counties is purely Saxon. The medium height, the fair hair, the weighty outline of forehead, the dialect partaking strongly of the Saxon narrowness of utterance, mark the physical influence of the old Angle race.
The two little fishing-boats were soon ready and moored beneath a clump of alders, some fifty yards below the staith. Before my return my companions had landed a fine bream of more than three pounds weight, in shape and colour very much like an antique pair of bellows. The sport was so successful that at noon a great heap of fish was thrown ashore upon the green, to divide amongst the wherrymen and loungers congregated in the little inn. We found dinner ready. It was worthy of the breakfast; consisting of fowls, tongue, ducks, peas, and currant tarts laden with cream. After it, the worthy host stepped forth before us to the little tent, with a large dish of pippins and two bottles of Scotch ale. We could not have had a pleasanter bower for the laggard stillness of the afternoon. We had sat some time, when I perceived at the foot of a pollard on the river's brink, through the jagged leaves of which the sun fell warmly, an old man sitting on the grass, whilst before him were spread the contents of a large knapsack. These consisted ofa most extraordinary assemblage of fragments of carved oak in foliage and grotesque imagery. Some were bright and highly polished; others were covered with mildew which he was trying to rub off with some rags produced from his hat. Over some of these fragments he lingered with singular enthusiasm; putting on his spectacles, every now and then, to judge them more narrowly in various shades and situations. I strolled towards him; he looked up; then without further curiosity he resumed his labours. But the moment I showed some interest in what lay around he became garrulous. "This," he said, "came from a remote church in the fens; that from a dilapidated house on the Humber; here was a fragment of groining from a chapel roof; there the crowning point of an abbot's chair." By and by he unlocked an oaken box and produced some rarer curiosities, as a reward, I suppose, for the interest I took. Amongst other things were two old Latin missals, an hour-glass set in ivory, pieces of filligree silver, quaint cups, and a porcelain tea-pot, and, what was still rarer, an inventory on parchment, quite as old as the reign of Henry the Seventh; but this, at last, was outmatched, when forth from the bottom of the box the old man brought up, and unfolded from a pocket-handkerchief, a copy of Caxton's Life of St. Wenefrid, which some woman in the fens had sold to him for a shilling!! "Do you collect these things for yourself?" I asked. "No; for a dealer in London, who keeps a curiosity shop, and has employed me thirty-five years." ‘ In that time you must have travelled far?' "Yes, over every county in the kingdom." "Do you find," I asked, "some counties richer than others in oak-carving?" "Yes; those round the Wash, there are more churches." I remained talking with him till the boat was ready, and he himself prepared for his onward solitary journey. Watching his drooping figure till it was lost amidst the trees, I then bade my friends good bye, and helped the boat on her way to an inland lake, leading from the main stream some few miles above. The sun was going down as I entered the deep waters of this nearly circular pool. The anchor was cast on shore in a little cove or bight, fenced from the land by overarching trees. Whilst Jemmy prepared the awning that by night shaded in the stern, I went on shore amidst the herds of Highland cattle, that sleekly grazed upon the rich herbage of the marsh. Whilst I stood watching some swans with their cygnets of that year's hatch, a country-man brought me the bittern, which had been shot down. There was something inexpressibly touching in the sight of the poor drooping bird, whose lone life had not secured it against the hand of man. In the hazy light of morning it had piped its solitary cry; now in the golden light of evening here it lay dappled in its blood. By the time I returned to the cove, a wood-fire blazed beneath an old larch, and the kettle sang merrily. Tea was set, and the boy sent off to a farm on the uplands for cream. Jemmy poured out the tea, and brought it to me in the stern-sheets, and throwing back the awning, I looked out upon the lovely expanse of lake, which not a cloud shadowed, but reflected back in its glory the flooding light of the moon, as it shone upon the rippling waters. The silence was profound and touching: the Spirit of Thought seemed to shadow me, and fill the soul with an inexpressive reverential awe. When it was quite dark the lamp was lighted; and whilst I turned for the hundredth time to an old and very favourite volume of Cowley, Jemmy skinned the bittern. The evening was not a very long one, for we retired early to rest, and needed no sweeter lullaby than the ripple of the deep waters.
Jemmy was up, and the boat again in the river, before I awoke next morning. By seven we lay to, to prepare breakfast. Whilst it was getting ready, I took my gun and went on land for a snipe, plenty of which were skimming the marsh. I soon returned with a brace, and plying our stove with the sere drift wood that lay around, the snipes in half an hour were brown and well roasted. The wind had so veered round by the time we were again under-way, that we had to tack through many of the reaches. The river had now greatly widened, and the tide became strongly impregnated with sea-water. The marshes were now a broad expanse on either side; the solitary draining mills more frequent; the patches of high reeds of greater extent, and the whole flora of a more marine contexture.
The village of Reedham was now seen rising out from the surrounding marshes. Here the valleys of the Yare and Waveney meet; uniting at some little distance with that of the Bure; from thence expanding into a wide fenny tract reaching to the shores of the ocean. According to many English, and some Scandinavian authorities, this now inland village was the place where a tempest threw on shore the Danish prince Lothbroc, to avenge whose murder, the whole horde of Vikingr invaded these eastern shores as far north as Northumberland. The scenery is here of a tranquil and picturesque character. The draining mill with its cottage, its feathery trees, its lowing cattle, its group of rustic children, were fitted for the pen of Tennyson and the pencil of Ruysdael.
By noon the veering wind bore us into Braydon, or the broadwater, a low muddy lake of saline waters, through which the rivers flow to the haven of Yarmouth. The anchor was now thrown ashore beneath the walls of Burgh Castle, the Garianonum of Camden, though otherwise placed by Spelman. Whilst a leg of mutton and a bowl of potatoes were boiling in the cooking apparatus, I climbed up to the ruins of this marshland fortress. It stands upon the edge of the island of Lothingland, in Suffolk, which is still made insular by the surrounding rivers and ocean. This lofty structure, raised by the conquerors of the world, is partially entire in its western and southern walls. The interior, in which the camps of the legionaries were sheltered from the rough ocean winds, is now ploughed up, as is the adjacent fields. There are few remains of Roman buildings in Britain so considerable, or so well preserved; and the magnitude of this fortress must not only have required a vast body of troops to raise it, but is evidence that the legionaries were thickly planted on this exposed and far-famed Saxon shore. "This camp," says Ives in his Garianonum, "formed an irregular parallelogram. The principal wall to the east was fourteen feet high, two hundred and fourteen yards long, and nine feet broad. The northern and southern walls were just half the length; whilst on the west the waters of the estuary seem to have been its only boundary. Four massive round towers defended the eastern walls; the northern and southern sides had each one; all were evidently used for the purposes of watch and signal towers. The foundation on which the legionaries erected this fortress was a deep bed of chalk and lime, firmly compacted and strongly beaten down, the whole covered with a layer of earth and sand, to harden the mass and exclude the water. The foundation thus prepared was covered with oaken planks ten inches thick; some of which are perceptible to this day. To these succeeded a bed of coarse mortar, on which was irregularly spread the first stones of the fabric. The mortar built with at this station in particular was composed of lime and sand, unrefined by the sieve, and incorporated with common gravel and small pebbles."
This mortar was applied in two different ways: cold in the manner now in use; the other rendered fluid by fire, and used boiling hot. At the end of each day's work this fluid mortar was poured upon the stones, the interstices of which it filled up, and proved a most extraordinary adhesive. The outsides of the walls were then faced with bricks, evidently baked in the sun. Vast quantities of coins, and cinerary urns, have been found around the station; the latter of too common a native earth to be of much value; it is only amongst the ruins of their cities that any valuable fragment of Roman art is ever found.
Jemmy carved, and brought my dinner on to the green slope beneath the walls; so that I had for my table a fragment of masonry as imperishable as granite, and over which grew a variety of luxuriant lichens. At my feet lay the wide expanse of lake, its muddy shores filled by the tide, that now washed the green marsh banks; whilst towards the south the gliding craft, as they came with the breeze along the snaky Waveney, seemed to steal by magic from amidst the feathery green of the trees, backed by the purple heaths of Lothingland.
I had left behind, some few miles, the canal which unites the Yare and the Waveney at a nearer point, and has facilitated the navigation between Norwich and Lowestoft, since the opening, in about 1828, of this southern branch of the Gariensis, by cutting through the sand bar that divided Lake Lothing from the sea.
The evening was pretty far advanced, or rather hastened by the gathering scud from the south-west, before we reached St. Olave's bridge, some miles up the Waveney. Whilst the mast was taking down to make the passage of the bridge, I strolled in the waning light towards the ruins of a priory, built hereabouts in the reign of Henry the Third; but I found few remaining fragments, except a low arched vault or crypt, the rest having been pulled down to erect buildings or mend roads. The church here has a remarkable altar window; and in the manor-house is a fine collection of cabinet pictures of Herman Vander Myn, a Dutch master, who, in some respects, rivalled Gerard Dow. In this collection, too, is the celebrated beggar boys of Murillo, and a sea calm of Vandervelde. As I passed a cottage, on my return, I was surprised by the merry sound of a fiddle; and, stopping at the open door, a sight was before me that would have suited Wilkie. It was that of a wedding party just sitting down to supper at a prodigious long oaken table, upon which steamed a great dish of white dumplings served in gravy, a huge plum-pudding, a bowl of custard decked with bay leaves, flanked by a marshland goose; whilst the fiddler, elevated upon a chair placed on a little round table at one side of a polished clock, scraped away "Drops of Brandy" with a nervous arm, though it was evident his twinkling eye was rather with the brown steaming breast of the goose than with the quivering strings. Though pretty intent upon the great white dumplings, all were noisy and talkative, with the exception of the one who seemed to be the bride. She only raised her eyes when the fiddler stopped his tune, and pouring out a cup of ale, brought it to him. As soon as she saw me she bent down her pretty little round face, and coyly tripping across the sanded floor, stooped on the old white hearth-stone, as if to move aside the pot of fennel in the empty grate.
As I crossed the marsh to the other side of the bridge, where the boat now lay, I disturbed a male bustard in quest of its food of worms. It rose heavily, piping its singular cry, resembling a hoarse kind of whistle, three or four times repeated. A winding reedy creek brought us to another of those inland broads, fringed with woods, and of considerable depth, when all at once the sky was overspread with clouds of inky blackness. The wind had for some time wholly died away. Before Jemmy could cast anchor we were out in the broad, and a streak of vivid lightning lit up the waters, followed by a sudden rushing noise like the roar of a thousand brazen wheeled chariots. "In with the mainsail," I cried; but before the sweeping mass of canvass could be lowered, or the boom hauled clear, a flash struck the boat, lighting up valley and upland with ghastly distinctness, only instantly again to. veil all around in more pitchy darkness. Whilst we were yet blinded by the excessive glare, the wind burst upon us right aft as though a ton of lead had been launched into the foresail. The boat trembled from stem to stern; then obeying the enormous impetus so suddenly given, buried her bows in the water, which now burst over cabin top, fore peak, and stern. The helm was used in vain, there seemed no power to save, unless the mast went. As she gathered way, however, the buoyancy of the bow gradually brought her to an even keel; she burst through the white foam, and made the shelter of the bridge and lock, that here part the inner from the outer lake. The rain now poured down in one continuous stream, and I was so drenched, that I was rejoiced to land, and to find in the inn parlour a blazing fire ordered for me by a friend, who had seen the gathering storm, and watched with some anxiety our slow progress down the Waveney. We spent a delightful evening together, for my friend was now on his way to Cowes, from a yacht voyage to the shores of Holland, and as far north as Copenhagen. He gave me some curious information respecting Dutch art, and its connexion with the prosperity of the trading towns of the Baltic. Burgomasters and merchants patronized their native school of painting, and were enthusiastic and wealthy enough to give high prices for its pictures. It seems to be that wherever commerce flourishes there art takes root and thrives: it was so with the schools of Italy and Holland, and it will be so with new schools and new masters when commerce shall be fully unrestricted, and governments convinced that to put a bond upon the intercourse of nations, not only crushes the higher civilising power of progressive art, but, what is more vital still, destroys it in its intimate connexion with progressive manufactures. Holland and this particular eastern shore were, through the middle ages, almost as one. From this great trading connexion, Norfolk and Lincolnshire derived that rich store of brasses, and ecclesiastical decorations, which long before the days of Vandyke or Rembrandt made many a rude village church a source of envy to a less fortunate, though perhaps more wealthy, abbey or minster. Dutch fairs were held upon these shores as late as the end of the last century; and Dutch linen fabrics, and porcelain, yet grace many an ancient chest, and polished beaufet. From this same trading source was derived the great colony of Flemings, and their great staple of woollen manufactures; and Yarmouth is perhaps in a great measure indebted to wealthy Dutch settlers for those matchless, if small, collections of art from various schools, scattered through its town, and belonging to private individuals.
I was on board and through the lock by five next morning. Though the tide was low, leaving dry shoals of mussels clumped together like pieces of rock, we made, as the wind was fair, a tolerable quick way to the haven. ... This lake is of sea-water, being only divided from the ocean by the haven lock formed in 1827, after the act of parliament was passed for restoring Norwich to its ancient privilege of a port. For about a century a bar of sand or low shore had wholly closed up this southern entrance of the ancient estuary, leaving the only connexion between these rivers and the sea to be made further south at Yarmouth. No profitable results from this undertaking have yet arisen; it is evidently a war between art and nature, for the tidal influence that amasses a reef of sand is not balanced by the supposed scouring power of inner waters, when allowed to sweep out at a certain level. My boat lay to amidst a crowd of north-coast fishing smacks and Humber keels; and whilst we had an early breakfast of shrimps and coffee, I consented to send the cutter round to the Bure, and accompany my friend out of harbour. Whilst his yacht was preparing we strolled to the haven, along a roadway of shingle and sand, held together by notches of brent grass. Vast piles, in some cases iron shod, in others charred, to prevent the rotting effects of the sea water, support either bank of the cut. About midway two vast locks keep the inner tide to a certain level, whilst, outward to the ocean, granite masonry and piling form a sort of jetty on each bank, between which the waves of the north sea flow in with the force of a tide against a breakwater. By noon we had cleared the lock, and, with a pilot on board, stood out from shore.