Not that it would be otherwise than entertaining, for the Lords of Freston had each added something to the style of his predecessor, and there was as great a variety of the Gothic from the year 1111 down to 1485, as could be found in any house in the eastern counties of the kingdom. It vied with the ancient castle of Caister in its castellated front and lofty turrets, its old Norman windows, loop-holes, and bastions, and, standing as it did upon one of the most picturesque spots throughout East Anglia, it commanded, in that day, general admiration. It was one of those castles which were exempt from the fines to Peter's Priory, on account of the Lord De Freston having granted a hide of land on the opposite shore to the then learned priors of Alneshborne; and hence it was considered extra parochial, and the church and chapel of De Freston as belonging to the immediate jurisdiction of John De Freston, who appointed his own ecclesiastic from among the preachers or prebends of Wykes Ufford, and, after that, from Gypesswich (Ipswich). It is 'but justice to the memory of the De Frestons to say they were good Catholics, not good for their gifts of foolish and vain things, but for their benevolent offerings for the poor. Their splendid old hall, gracing the banks of the Orwell, for several centuries was remarkable for the liberality displayed within it, not only to the inhabitants of Freston, Arwarton, Holbrook, Wolverstone, Chelmondiston, Harkstead, Tattingstone, and Bentley, on the western side of the river, in which parishes the Lords of De Freston held estates, but in all parts of Suffolk, Norfolk, and Gloucestershire, where their property was situated, they had their benevolent houses, in which the dole of charity was meted out to the surrounding poor. Their great residences were at Freston and Malvern; for, connected with the Latimers, they held much sway on the borders of the Malvern Hills. Their head-quarters were at Freston Hall, a fortified mansion, exhibiting traces of decay in some parts of the then elaborate workmanship of the fourteenth century. A most noble park lay around the castle, extending along the beautiful banks of the river, including many a grand chasse, where deer and game of all descriptions might be found. Part of the great tenure by which this property was held free from the interference of the religious houses in Ipswich, as well as temporal authorities of the borough, whose power then extended to the waste marshes upon the borders of the park, was the furnishing of three fat bucks for the 8th of September, to the borough, on the day of the election of bailiffs; and, on St. Peter's day, two bucks to the Abbots of Bury, two to the Prior of St. Peter's, and one to the Black Canons of Dodness; from all other charges whatsoever the Barony of De Freston was exempt.