SWAFFHAM. This respectable town stands on high ground, upon a dry gravelly soil, and in a situation that seems greatly favourable to health and longevity. Its streets are wide and airy, and the buildings distributed over a considerable space of ground. The houses are generally neat, and many of them large and handsome, inhabited by wealthy and genteel families. The market-hill is pleasant and spacious, on which was erected in 1783 an elegant cross, by the Lord Orford of that time. The market is on Saturday, and plentifully supplied with good provisions. The great butter-market, formerly kept at Downham, is now kept here. The town stands so high, that some of the wells are said to be fifty-yards deep. A handsome assembly-room has been erected on the west side of the market-hill, in which subscription assemblies are held every month. But the chief public structure of the town is the _Church_, a large and fine edifice, built at different times, in the reigns of Henry VI. Edward IV. and Henry VII. It is in the form of a cathedral, and consists of a nave and two ailes, with two transepts on the south side, one to the north, and a lofty well proportioned tower, which is surmounted with enriched embrasures, and purfled pinnacles. The nave is very lofty, having twenty-six cleristory windows, and its inner roof ornamented with carved wood, figures of angels, bosses, &c. The north aile and steeple, are said to have been built by one _John Chapman_, stated, but erroneously it seems, to have been a _travelling tinker_; and who is also reported to have been Church-warden in 1460.—In 1800 the houses of Swaffham amounted to 452, and the population to 2220. Formerly there was here a rector and a vicar; the latter presented by the former; so that the rectory was a _Sinecure_, and probably a very rich one. The patronage of the vicarage is in the bishop of Norwich.—Near this town is an extensive heath, which forms a convenient race-ground. The races here are held about michaelmas. Coursing matches are also frequent here, and the _greyhounds_ are as regularly entered for the purpose, and placed under the same restrictions as _running-horses_. {207a}