Tour through the Eastern Counties of England, 1722Defoe, Daniel
History
Tour through the Eastern Counties of England, 1722
Defoe, Daniel
England -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800
Add to this the coal trade between Newcastle and the river of Thames, in
which they are so improved of late years that they have now a greater
share of it than any other town in England, and have quite worked the
Ipswich men out of it who had formerly the chief share of the colliery in
their hands.
For the carrying on all these trades they must have a very great number
of ships, either of their own or employed by them: and it may in some
measure be judged of by this that in the year 1697, I had an account from
the town register that there was then 1,123 sail of ships using the sea
and belonged to the town, besides such ships as the merchants of Yarmouth
might be concerned in, and be part owners of, belonging to any other
ports.
To all this I must add, without compliment to the town or to the people,
that the merchants, and even the generality of traders of Yarmouth, have
a very good reputation in trade as well abroad as at home for men of fair
and honourable dealing, punctual and just in their performing their
engagements and in discharging commissions; and their seamen, as well
masters as mariners, are justly esteemed among the ablest and most expert
navigators in England.
This town, however populous and large, was ever contained in one parish,
and had but one church; but within these two years they have built
another very fine church near the south end of the town. The old church
is dedicated to St. Nicholas, and was built by that famous Bishop of
Norwich, William Herbert, who flourished in the reign of William II., and
Henry I., William of Malmesbury, calls him _Vir Pecuniosus_; he might
have called him _Vir Pecuniosissimus_, considering the times he lived in,
and the works of charity and munificence which he has left as witnesses
of his immense riches; for he built the Cathedral Church, the Priory for
sixty monks, the Bishop’s Palace, and the parish church of St. Leonard,
all in Norwich; this great church at Yarmouth, the Church of St. Margaret
at Lynn, and of St. Mary at Elmham. He removed the episcopal see from
Thetford to Norwich, and instituted the Cluniack Monks at Thetford, and
gave them or built them a house. This old church is very large, and has
a high spire, which is a useful sea-mark.
Here is one of the finest market-places and the best served with
provisions in England, London excepted; and the inhabitants are so
multiplied in a few years that they seem to want room in their town
rather than people to fill it, as I have observed above.
The streets are all exactly straight from north to south, with lanes or
alleys, which they call rows, crossing them in straight lines also from
east to west, so that it is the most regular built town in England, and
seems to have been built all at once; or that the dimensions of the
houses and extent of the streets were laid out by consent.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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