Tour through the Eastern Counties of England, 1722

painted calicoes was grown to such a height in England, as was seen

about two or three years ago; but an Act of Parliament having been

obtained, though not without great struggle, in the years 1720 and

1721, for prohibiting the use and wearing of calicoes, the stuff

trade revived incredibly; and as I passed this part of the country

in the year 1723, the manufacturers assured me that there was not,

in all the eastern and middle part of Norfolk, any hand unemployed,

if they would work; and that the very children, after four or five

years of age, could every one earn their own bread. But I return

to speak of the villages and towns in the rest of the county; I

shall come to the city of Norwich by itself.

This throng of villages continues through all the east part of the

country, which is of the greatest extent, and where the manufacture

is chiefly carried on. If any part of it be waste and thin of

inhabitants, it is the west part, drawing a line from about Brand,

or Brandon, south, to Walsinghan, north. This part of the country

indeed is full of open plains, and somewhat sandy and barren, and

feeds great flocks of good sheep; but put it all together, the

county of Norfolk has the most people in the least tract of land of

any county in England, except about London, and Exon, and the West

Riding of Yorkshire, as above.

Add to this, that there is no single county in England, except as

above, that can boast of three towns so populous, so rich, and so

famous for trade and navigation, as in this county. By these three

towns, I mean the city of Norwich, the towns of Yarmouth and Lynn.

Besides that, it has several other seaports of very good trade, as

Wisbech, Wells, Burnham, Clye, etc.

Norwich is the capital of all the county, and the centre of all the

trade and manufactures which I have just mentioned; an ancient,

large, rich, and populous city. If a stranger was only to ride

through or view the city of Norwich for a day, he would have much

more reason to think there was a town without inhabitants, than

there is really to say so of Ipswich; but on the contrary if he was

to view the city, either on a Sabbath-day, or on any public

occasion, he would wonder where all the people could dwell, the

multitude is so great. But the case is this: the inhabitants being

all busy at their manufactures, dwell in their garrets at their

looms, and in their combing shops (so they call them), twisting-

mills, and other work-houses, almost all the works they are

employed in being done within doors. There are in this city

thirty-two parishes besides the cathedral, and a great many

meeting-houses of Dissenters of all denominations. The public

edifices are chiefly the castle, ancient and decayed, and now for

many years past made use of for a gaol. The Duke of Norfolk’s

house was formerly kept well, and the gardens preserved for the

pleasure and diversion of the citizens, but since feeling too

sensibly the sinking circumstances of that once glorious family,

who were the first peers and hereditary earl-marshals of England.

The walls of this city are reckoned three miles in circumference,

taking in more ground than the City of London, but much of that

ground lying open in pasture-fields and gardens; nor does it seem

to be, like some ancient places, a decayed, declining town, and

that the walls mark out its ancient dimensions; for we do not see

room to suppose that it was ever larger or more populous than it is

now. But the walls seem to be placed as if they expected that the

city would in time increase sufficiently to fill them up with

buildings.

The cathedral of this city is a fine fabric, and the spire steeple

very high and beautiful. It is not ancient, the bishop’s see

having been first at Thetford, from whence it was not translated

hither till the twelfth century. Yet the church has so many

antiquities in it, that our late great scholar and physician, Sir

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