The Cambridge, Ely, and King's Lynn Road: The Great Fenland HighwayHarper, Charles G. (Charles George)
History
The Cambridge, Ely, and King's Lynn Road: The Great Fenland Highway
Harper, Charles G. (Charles George)
England -- Description and travel; Fens, The (England) -- Description and travel
Lynn in those early years of innovation still retained many of its
old-world ways. It was a sleepy time, as Mr. Thew, who has written
his reminiscences of it, testifies. For police the town possessed one
old watchman, who bore the old East Anglian name of Blanchflower, and
patrolled the streets "with one arm and a lantern." The posting of
letters was then a serious business, calling for much patience, for
you did not in those days drop them into a letter-box, but handed them
through a window at which you knocked. When the clerk in charge, one
John Cooper, had satisfied his official dignity and kept you waiting
long enough, he was graciously pleased to open the window and receive
the letters. The successor to this upholder of official traditions, was
one Charles Rix, addicted to declaiming Shakespeare from his window.
[Illustration: THE CUSTOM-HOUSE, LYNN.]
The postmaster of Lynn at this easy-going time was Mr. Robinson Cruso,
who also filled the miscellaneous occupations of auctioneer and estate
agent, and wine and spirit merchant, and was a member of the Town
Council. He was a descendant of an old Lynn family, many of whose
representatives lie in the church of St. Nicholas. This Cruso (they
spelled their name without the "e") was an upholsterer, and born ten
years after Defoe's famous book was published; hence the "Robinson."
There are still a number of the name in Norfolk and Suffolk.
XLVIII
WE must now make an end. Of Lynn's long municipal history, of the
treasures stored in its ancient Guildhall, of King John's disastrous
journey from the town across the Wash; of many another stirring scene
or historic pile this is not the place to speak. The Story of the Road
is told, and, that being done, the task is completed; but it is not
without regret that a place like Lynn, so rich in picturesque incident,
is thus left. Many a narrow, cobbled lane, lined with quaint houses,
calls aloud to be sketched; there, too, are the ancient Red Mount
Chapel, in the lovely park-like "walks" that extend into the very heart
of the town, and the ancient Greyfriars Tower to be noted; but Lynn
has been, and will be again, the subject of a book entirely devoted to
itself.
One pilgrimage, however, must be made ere these pages close: to
Islington, four miles away on the Wisbeach road, for it is to that
secluded place the sweet old ballad of the "Bailiff's Daughter of
Islington" refers, and not to the better known "merry Islington" now
swallowed up in London.
The ballad of the "Bailiff's Daughter" is of unknown origin. It is
certainly three hundred years old, and probably much older; and has
survived through all those centuries because of that sentiment of
true love, triumphant over long years and distance and hard-hearted
guardians, which has ever appealed to the popular imagination. Who was
that Marshland bailiff and who the squire's son we do not know. It is
sufficient to be told, in the lines of the sweet old song, that
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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