When this, now a side route into Thetford, was supplemented by that of the present main road over the “St. Christopher’s,” or Town Bridge, must be a matter of conjecture. We must not suppose, because that bridge was built only in 1697, there was no bridge or road up to the river and into the town before that time. Morden’s map of Norfolk in 1695 does not mark one; but it is incredible that there should have been no direct communication across a not very broad stream between these Suffolk suburbs and the chief part of the town. On the other hand, the fact that a ducking-stool was erected on the “Nuns’ Bridge” in 1578 would seem to prove that this was certainly then the chief approach, for the practice was to make the head-over-ears ducking of the scolds and shrews as public an exhibition of their shame as possible. XXXV THE most prominent hostelry at Thetford in coaching days was the “Bell,” and it still occupies that geographical pre-eminence, even though its commercial importance has decayed. The “Bell,” in fact, has never recovered from the blow dealt it in 1846, when the coaches ceased to run, and overhangs the narrow street, its great courtyard a world too large for the diminished traffic. Lord Albemarle has a good deal to say of the “Bell” in his book of reminiscences. As a young man, travelling about 1810 between London and Elveden Hall, then in the possession of his family, he sometimes, in common with the sporting youngsters of that age, had the opportunity of driving the Mail for a stage or two. It was not always, indeed, an opportunity desired by the passenger who shared the box-seat with the coachman, for those who sought that glorious elevation, paying rather heavily for the privilege in the form of a tip to the yard-porter who reserved the seat and in a series of drinks to the successive Jehus who drove, were, much more often than is generally supposed, quite content to let the coachman do the driving. Comparatively few were ever to be found skilled in the difficult art of guiding four horses, and not every box-seat passenger was eager to “take the ribbons.” The coachmen, on any quiet stretch of road, were generally more keen to make the offer of “taking ’em for a bit” than their passengers to accept, for those professional occupants of the box were, in the well-known etiquette of coaching, always sure of half a sovereign as a tip from the sportsman who “took ’em,” and when, from sheer timidity, their offer was not accepted, they were indignant, especially if some one who _would_ have “taken ’em,” and tipped accordingly, was elsewhere on the coach. Under such harrowing circumstances a coachman generally felt himself to be defrauded. “What are you ’ere for, then?” asked such an one of his box-seat passenger who had declined the honour and glory—and the danger; and when, after a halt for refreshment, the passengers resumed their