Sir Edwin Rich’s £200 probably did not suffice for anything beyond filling up that ambiguous stretch of watery mud called Attleborough Mere, and thus we find, twenty-one years later, an early Turnpike Act, the Act of 1696, 7th and 8th of William and Mary, passed for the repair of the highways between Wymondham and Attleborough. This road is thus claimed by Norfolk antiquaries as the first turnpike road to be constructed in the kingdom, but that is a slight error, for the Act was passed merely for repair, and was antedated by thirty-three years, in the first of Turnpike Acts, that of 1663, which provided for the repair and turnpiking of the road from London to Stilton—the “Old North” and the “Great North” roads of modern parlance. If, however, we somewhat limit that claim, and declare this to be the first turnpike road in Norfolk, we shall probably be correct XLIII WYMONDHAM town, to which we now come, stands at the junction of many roads, and was long a centre, both of religious and trade activity. Strangers, uninstructed in Norfolk usage, pronounce the name as spelled, and thereby earn the contempt of those to the manner born, who smile superior; but when the East Anglian travels into Leicestershire and, arriving at _that_ Wymondham, calls it, after his own use and wont, “Windham,” he in turn is made to feel outside the pale, for Leicestershire folk take full value out of every letter in the name of their Wymondham. The Windham family, of Felbrigg, near Cromer, who settled at that place in 1461, came from Wymondham and were possibly descendants of the Saxon Wymund after whom the town was named. Wymondham is said to stand higher than the surrounding country, but such a statement, unilluminated by comparison, might be misleading. You do not climb exhaustedly up into it, nor in leaving drop sheer down into a corresponding vale: the difference, in fact, between the levels through which we have come and the heights we now reach is merely one of inches, and so slight that only a robust faith can believe in it.