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ALDBOROUGH, ORFORD, AND CONSTABLE'S COUNTRY

HAVING found my way back to Ipswich, after attempting to include in what may be considered a continuous tour the chief places of interest and some of the most picturesque scenery in East Anglia, I am only too conscious that, much as I have seen, I have left unseen and unnoted a great many places which have no small claim on my attention. Glancing over the map on which my journeyings are indicated I am dismayed at observing what wide stretches of country I have left wholly unvisited, how many towns I have not entered, how many districts I have left unexplored. Many as are the miles I have travelled, they are as a day's journey compared to a lifetime's wanderings when considered in relation to the thousands of miles I might have covered and still have been within the bounds of East Anglia. Yet it is not without satisfaction that, so far as Norfolk and Suffolk are concerned, I note how few are the really important historically and otherwise interesting places I have neglected. True, when at Bury I might have returned to Ipswich by way

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AROUND IPSWICH

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of Lavenham and Hadleigh, and now that I have arrived at the Suffolk capital by a rather uninteresting route I wish I had done so; but with the prospect, which is before me to-day, of enjoying the delights of that district which artists call Constable's Country, I may well be forgiven for caring little by what road I came here. Yet if I had not already travelled so far, I might even now be disposed to add fifty miles or so to my cyclometer's record and spend a day or two in exploring that portion of south-eastern Suffolk which lies between Ipswich, Woodbridge, and Framlingham and the sea. And this because within its comparatively limited area is contained some lovely river valley scenery and quaint and attractive coast towns and villages. To pass on to Constable's Country without making some reference to the other charmful-if I may coin the word -district would be unpardonable, so although my thoughts are continually wandering towards those scenes amid which one of England's most gifted landscape painters found the subjects of his finest work I will keep a curb on them while I try to convey some idea of what other travellers may enjoy if they are willing to extend their acquaintance with this part of East Anglia.

A day may well be spent in exploring that deltaic tract of country lying between the estuaries of the Orwell and Stour; but as, during the summer months, passenger steamers ply frequently between Ipswich and Harwich by way of the Orwell, visitors are generally content with the view they get of it from the river. The estuarine Orwell, though somewhat repellent at low tide, flows through a pleasant country chiefly made up of parks and woodlands. With it are closely associated the names of two famous admirals, Vernon and Sir Philip Broke, whose homes were on adjoining estates bordering the river. Both were gallant seamen whose deeds have become part of English history. Vernon, who lived at Orwell Park, and whom Horace Walpole called "a silly, noisy admiral, so popular that he was chosen into Parliament for several places, had his head painted on every sign, and his birthday kept twice in one year," was the

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AN ELIZABETHAN NAVIGATOR

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victor at Porto Bello; Broke, whose ancestral home was Broke Hall, was in command of the Shannon when she fought her memorable duel with the Chesapeake. At Grimston Hall, now a farmhouse, not far from the mouth of the river, Thomas Candish or Cavendish, who was the second Englishman to circumnavigate the globe, came to reside when he returned from his long and perilous voyage. From Plymouth this gallant Elizabethan seaman sent a letter to Lord Hunsdon, the Lord Chancellor, in which he desired that his lordship should "make knowen unto Her Majesty the desire "he "had to doe Her Majesty service in the performance" of his adventurous cruise. "It has pleased God," he said, "to give her the victory over part of her enemies, so I trust yer long to see her overthrow them all. For the places of their wealth, whereby they have maintained and made their warres, are now perfectly discovered, and, if it please Her Majesty, with a very small power she may take the spoile of them all. It hath pleased the Almighty to suffer me to circompasse the whole globe of the world, entering in at the Streight of Magellan and returning by the Cape de Buena Esperanza. In which voyage I have either discovered or brought certaine intelligence of all the rich places of the world that were ever knowen or discovered by any Christian. I navigated alongst the coast of Chili, Peru, and Neuva Espane, where I made greate spoils: I burnt and sunk nineteen sailes of ships, small and greate. All the villages and townes that ever I landed at I burnt and spoiled; and had I not bene discovered upon the coast I had taken greate quantitie of treasure. The matter of most profit unto me was a greate ship of the king's, which I took at California; which ship came from the Philippines, being one of the richest of merchandize that ever passed those seas, as the king's register and merchants' accounts did shew. Which goods (for that my ships were not able to contain the least part of them) I was inforced to set on fire. From the Cape of California, being the uttermost part of all Neuva Espane, I navigated to the

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GAINSBOROUGH'S LANE

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islands of the Philippines, hard upon the coast of China, of which country I have brought such intelligence as hath not bene heard of in these parts. The statelinesse and riches of which country I fear to make report of least I should not be credited; for if I had not knowen sufficiently the incomparable wealth of that country, I should have bene as incredulous thereof as others will be that have not had the like experience. I sailed along the islands of the Malucos, where among some of the heathen people I was well intreated; where our countrymen may have trade as freely as the Portugals, if they will themselves. From thence I passed by the Cape of Buena Esperanza, and found out by the way homeward the island of St. Helena, where the Portugals used to relieve themselves; and from that island God hath suffered me to return to England. All which services, with myself, I humbly prostrate at Her Majesty's feet, desiring the Almighty long to continue her reigne among us; for at this day she is the most famous and victorious prince that liveth in the world." After such an adventurous voyage the daring sailor might well have been content with the laurels he had gained and have spent the rest of his life in peace in his Suffolk home, where the roaring of the sea would have reminded him of past perils and victories. But the restless spirit of the age which knew Drake, Hawkins, Frobisher, and Raleigh moved him to make a second attempt to circumnavigate the globe, this time taking with him five ships. He sailed from Plymouth in August, 1591. All went well until the Straits of Magellan were reached; but there his ship was lost sight of by her consorts and never seen again.

When Gainsborough resided in Ipswich much of his time was spent on the banks of the Orwell, and a lane not far from the town, now known as Gainsborough's Lane, is depicted in his picture The Market Cart, which is in the National Gallery. This lane owes its beauty to its magnificent oaks, which interlace their branches above the turf-bordered footpath leading to the Priory Farmhouse in which Margaret

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CRABBE'S COUNTRY

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Catchpole was employed as a domestic servant. This house was formerly an Augustinian monastery.

The little port of Aldborough, which is not easily accessible from Ipswich, is chiefly remarkable for being the birthplace of the poet Crabbe, whose father was a local exciseman. The town, like Dunwich, has suffered considerably from encroachments of the sea, which during the last three hundred years have robbed it not only of houses but of whole streets. In fact the original town has practically vanished, and the only striking trace of it is its old Moot Hall, a quaint building apparently dating from the latter part of the sixteenth century. Aldborough claims to have some attractions for tourists, but these attractions are not much in evidence. Crabbe, who, like Bloomfield, in his youth suffered severely from bodily weakness, did not love his native place, and its depressing influence kept his thoughts in a melancholy groove. The dismalness of the surroundings of his boyhood's home is indicated in his lines

"Lo! where the heath, with withering brake grown o'er,
Lends the light turf that warms the neighbouring poor;
From thence a length of burning sand appears,

Where the thin harvest waves its withered ears;

Rank weeds, that every art and care defy,
Reign o'er the land, and rob the blighted rye ;
There thistles stretch their prickly arms afar,
And to the ragged infant threaten war.
There poppies, nodding, mock the hope of toil,
There the blue bugloss paints the sterile soil;
Hardy and high above the slender sheat,

The slimy mallow waves her silken leaf;

O'er the young shoot the charlock throws a shade,

And clasping tares cling round the sickly blade."

Nor was Crabbe favourably impressed by the inhabitants of this desolate district, for he adds:

"Here, wandering long amid these frowning fields,

I sought the simple life that Nature yields;

Rapine, and wrong, and fear usurped her place,
And a wild, artful, surly, savage race,

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