II

OLD DUNWICH

43

and is addressed to a "Master Deye," whom Suckling conjectures to have been that John Day, a native of Dunwich, who was the first English printer to use a Saxon type. Master Deye, dwelling amid the wasting relics of a vanished glory, seems to have set his mind upon publishing a history of his native town, and to have asked some one, Suckling thinks it was Stow, to supply him with useful facts. This the author of the manuscript did, in a detailed and circumstantial manner. We learn from him that Dunwich contained six parish churches, four of which were "drowned in the sea," but the other two, All Saints' and St. Peter's, were standing at the time of his writing. Then there were houses of Grey friars and Black friars, "verie fayer churches and byldings"; and an "aunchent and verie old church called the Temple, the which church by report was in the Jews tyme"; also two hospitals, one of which, that of St. James, was "greatly decayed and hendred by evyle masters." Three chapels, which were putt down" when other religious houses were suppressed; and the Bridge, Middle, Gylding, St. James', and South gates seem to have exhausted the unknown historian's knowledge of the town's noted buildings; but he was able to add some curious information concerning the mayors and baillies, arms, mint, and fortifications, and even describe how when St. John's church was taken down, and a great stone in the chancel raised, the workmen came upon the remains of "a man lyeing with a payer of bottes upon his legges, the fore part of the feet of them peicked after a straunge fayshen, and a payer of chalice of course mettal lyinge upon his breste, the whyche was thought to be one of the bysshoppes of Donewyche, but whan they touched and stered the same dead bodie, it fell and went all to powder and doste."

Long before this curious and quaintly-worded document was written, the sea's siege of the coast had had disastrous effect upon Dunwich. In the year when Edward III. came to the throne the port was for a time rendered useless; and in 1328

44

THE SEA'S SIEGE

CHAP.

it was so choked with sand that all efforts to clear it were in vain. As the years went by destruction was wrought by and desolation followed almost every winter gale which, lashing the waters of the grey North Sea, created an irresistible surfscour at the base of the crumbling cliffs. One after another the churches of St. Leonard, St. Martin, and St. Nicholas went down cliff; in 1570, after St. John's had been taken down that something might be saved from the insatiable sea, Gilden Gate, South Gate, and other buildings disappeared beneath the waves. The bitter cry of distressed Dunwich reached the ears of Queen Elizabeth, who was "crediblie enformed that the Queene's Majesties towne of Dunwytche . . . . is by rage and surgies of the sea, daylie wasted and devoured; and the haven of her highnes said towne by diverse rages of wyndes continually landed and barred, so as no shippes or boates can either enter in or oughte, to the utter decay of the said towne, which heretofore hathe well and fayethfullie served her Majestie, and her noble progenitors, by navigacion in tyme of war, and the commonwelth in tyme of peace." Such loyalty and faithful service the Queen could not allow to pass unrecognised, more especially now that troublous times had come upon her dutiful subjects. What could she do? Her mind was soon made up, and her munificence is seldom forgotten by Suffolk historians. She ordered that the proceeds of the sale of the bells, lead, iron, glass, and stone of Ingate church, and the lead from the chancel of Kessingland church, "excepting so much as would defray the expense of building a gable to the same,” should be lent to the inhabitants of Dunwich to help them to recover from their losses! Strange to say, the queen's lavish grant was as useless to prevent the decay of Dunwich as the word of an earlier monarch had been to stay the swelling of the sea tide. At the beginning of the seventeenth century the old residence of the Knights Templars went the way of the vanished churches. A little later the sea reached the market place,

and the market cross had to be pulled down; and then all one side of a street was washed away. In December, 1740, when a terrible storm blew from the north-east, further damage was done. The remains of St. Nicholas' churchyard, the road that led from the quay to the town, the Cock and Hen hills, and King's Holm were destroyed or submerged, and the inhabitants of the town may well have thought that for them at least the end of all things was at hand. After the storm had blown itself out and the sea returned to its accustomed bounds, some strange sights were seen by people who went out to gaze upon the havoc wrought. The scour of the surf had

Walberswick.

uncovered much of the old Dunwich which lay under the wind-raised sand-hills. The foundations of St. Francis' Chapel came to light again, as also did the remains of an ancient aqueduct, so that local antiquaries were able to amuse themselves with reconstructing portions of the old town. But the children must have dreamed on many succeeding nights of the grim skeletons which lay in rows where the waves had found them or scattered mercilessly about the beach.

And now, as I stand by the weather-beaten church on the cliff, I can scarcely realise that old Dunwich is so completely gone. It seems rather that I must have mistaken my bearings and arrived at some other lonesome seaboard hamlet; and

46

A MIDNIGHT MYSTERY

CHAP.

that if only I went a little further north or south I should hear the songs of sailors on the old quays, the voices of merchants in the market place; and see streets thronged with the cosmopolitan crowd of a busy port. It is almost inconceivable that the Dunwich which struck 66 terror and feare" into the hearts of its enemies has, like Atlantis, sunk into the sea. But the sea has gained so many victories along this coast that after all it is not so very wonderful that it has old Dunwich to itself. After withstanding centuries' incessant siege, it is more wonderful that there was any one left to be alarmed by an incident which occurred here not quite a hundred years ago, and which I will recount before leaving the

won

scanty ruins and few cottages which call themselves Dunwich to their loneliness.

It was a little after midnight of a day in March, 1808, and the good people of Dunwich-they were mostly fishermen and farm-hands then-were sound asleep in their beds. Suddenly they were awakened by the firing of heavy guns, and thinking some vessel was in distress, they donned their clothes and hurried down to the shore. They were soon undeceived; for while the firing continued "the noise of cannon-balls passing through the air was distinctly heard." There could be only one explanation of this nocturnal bombardment: the French, with whom we were at war, had sent an invading army to England and it was about to land! Until dawn there was dire

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A NOCTURNAL BOMBARDMENT

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alarm. Lights shone from windows which in the early hours of the morning were usually dark; and the Dunwich men set about collecting their goods and chattels and finding places of safety for their families. Strangely enough, with the lighting up of the windows the firing ceased; but a few men who went down to the beach were able to distinguish a large vessel, from which the shots had come, sailing away from the shore, while a smaller vessel, "something like a Berwick smack," crept along towards the north, closely hugging the shore. "If," says Suckling, “the vessel had continued firing, the next shot would have probably come into the midst of the inhabited houses, and caused destruction of property, if not of life. One

Walberswick.

shot, after striking the ground twice, and furrowing it up for a considerable distance, had passed through a stack of wood and one wall of Mr. Barne's stable." A stirring event, indeed, to people who lived in an out-of-the-way coastline village, and had forgotten that their ancestors were among the most loyal and ardent defenders of the realm "in tyme of war!" It would be something to boast of for a long time, that they had been roused from their beds in the middle of the night by the first indications of an approaching invasion. In the morning some of them assisted in a novel hunt-for cannon-balls. It would have been better if they had contented themselves with hearing them whistling over their heads. For when they